Opinion ID: 2796318
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: The Prosecutors’ Closing Arguments

Text: Appellants assert multiple claims of impropriety by the two prosecutors in their initial closing and rebuttal arguments. None requires reversal, we hold, particularly in view of corrective instructions the judge gave. We briefly discuss three instances.14 The first, already addressed earlier, concerns the unsubstantiated “possibility” the prosecutor suggested that “somebody leaned on” Warren to exculpate the other defendants. The judge’s immediate contrary instruction rectified that misstatement. Before trial the judge directed the government to “sanitize” the evidence of the three guns being tossed into Mount Olivet Cemetery on April 18, to omit all 14 We do not discuss, but reject as forming any basis for reversal, the claims of impropriety – or at least rhetorical excess – that Bates makes regarding the prosecutor’s opening statement. We likewise reject as requiring no discussion Jenkins’ argument of unfair limitations imposed on his own opening statement and closing argument. 26 reference to an uncharged shooting on that day. In his closing, though, after discussing the physical evidence recovered on April 18, the prosecutor stated, “Let’s go back to a week earlier now. What happened on April 18th was repeated a week earlier on April 11, 2008.” He then began discussing the April 11 shooting of Dante Vaughn, of which all defendants were ultimately acquitted. And he further mentioned Davenport’s testimony about how the Todd Place Crew “rode around drinking and smoking [on] Friday nights, looking for a T Street member to shoot.” On Anderson’s objection, the trial judge told the prosecutor “don’t do that anymore,” and instructed the jury that she was “striking the last remarks by the prosecutor” and that “there is no evidence in this trial that anyone was riding around on April 18th in the Grand Marquis, drinking, smoking, [or] looking for anyone to shoot or shooting.” Even if “complained-of language [in closing is] impermissible, we nonetheless must affirm [the] appellant’s conviction unless he can demonstrate substantial prejudice as a result of the prosecutor’s error.” Harrison v. United States, 76 A.3d 826, 844 (D.C. 2013) (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). Beyond the general instruction the jury received that the arguments of counsel are not evidence, the judge specifically acted to neutralize the prosecutor’s 27 suggestion – an oblique one in any case – that Anderson and the others had fled the police on April 18 because they had shot someone else that day or had been riding around with that in mind. “So long as . . . unproduced evidence is ‘not touted to the jury as a crucial part of the prosecution’s case,’ a limiting instruction from the trial court is usually a sufficient cure for any possible prejudice.” Bailey v. United States, 831 A.2d 973, 981-82 (D.C. 2003) (quoting Frazier v. Cupp, 394 U.S. 731, 736 (1969)). As our discussion in part II shows, the evidence linking appellants – Anderson included – to the charged crimes motivated by retaliation was substantial, and the discrimination shown by the jury in rendering verdicts belies the argument that it was unable to follow the instructions and disregard an allusion to uncharged shootings. Finally, we consider the prosecutor’s argument in rebuttal – potentially the most troublesome one – dealing with exculpatory testimony given by Raymond Devese, who had witnessed the shooting of Gary English (and John Green) and, as we have pointed out, identified Bates as the driver of the white car. Devese testified on cross-examination by Anderson that when MPD Detective Anthony Greene showed him an array of photographs including one of Anderson, he told Greene, “He’s not on here,” meaning “none of the people in the pictures were a 28 person [he] saw in the white vehicle.” In his rebuttal argument, however, after repeating Devese’s testimony to Detective Greene that “he’s not here,” the prosecutor stated, “What was the question [that Greene asked]? What did Detective Greene tell you was the question? The question was who was the driver? Well, of course, it wasn’t Darnell Anderson, it was James Bates.” Anderson objected to this argument, and Judge Leibovitz, after reviewing the transcript of Detective Greene’s testimony, found that the prosecutor’s “recitation was incorrect” and that Greene “did not testify at all [about] what question Mr. Devese was asked when shown the photographs.”15 After consulting with the parties, the judge instructed the jury: Government counsel stated in rebuttal closing argument that Raymond Devese when shown photographs, including one of Darnell Anderson, was asked the question whether he saw the driver of the car. There is no evidence in the record of this case that when shown photographs, Mr. Devese was asked if he saw the driver of the car. There is evidence in the case that Raymond Devese was asked whether he saw anyone in the car. There also was no testimony from Detective Greene regarding what question was asked. It is up to you to decide whether to accept this evidence. 15 The prosecutor acknowledged at a bench conference that he had mistakenly remembered the question asked of Devese. 29 Anderson, besides insisting to the judge, unsuccessfully, that only a mistrial could remedy the prosecutor’s misstatement, asked her to strengthen the proposed instruction by adding to it that “[t]here is no testimony from Detective Greene that contradicts Devese’s testimony.” The judge declined, and he challenges both aspects of her ruling here. Anderson is certainly right that Devese’s testimony was important to his effort to create reasonable doubt about his involvement in the English shooting; and equally right that the misstatement in rebuttal denied him the ability to re-argue the testimony accurately to the jury. We nonetheless do not agree that no curative instruction could serve to neutralize the prosecutor’s misstatement or that the instruction given failed that task. The prosecutor misstated the evidence on a single point – whether a specific question by Greene had elicited Devese’s denial of seeing Anderson in the car – that the judge concluded could be remedied by setting the record straight. Our decisions commit this kind of judgment substantially to the discretion of the trial court, since it is “peculiarly within the knowledge of the trial judge whether the remarks of counsel during the trial tend to prejudice the cause of a party.” Irick v. United States, 565 A.2d 26, 32 (D.C. 1989) (citation omitted). After presiding over a more than twomonth trial enabling her to assess the issues likely to occupy the jury’s deliberations, Judge Leibovitz reasonably determined that an instruction could 30 forestall misunderstanding by the jury of the evidence on this issue of what Devese had been asked. Nor did the instruction given imply, as Anderson suggests it did in the final sentence, that the jury “could reject Devese’s testimony and accept the prosecutor’s word about what Detective Greene had actually asked” (Brief for Anderson at 36). The jury was told that, contrary to the prosecutor’s assertion that the detective had asked Devese only “whether he saw the driver,” there “was evidence that Raymond Devese was asked whether he saw anyone in the car,” “no evidence” that he “was asked if he saw the driver of the car,” and “no testimony from Detective Greene regarding what question was asked.” The final sentence (“It is up to you to decide whether to accept this evidence”), which essentially reminded the jury of what the general instructions had told it (“You are the sole judges of the facts.”) did not undo all the judge had just told the jury and invite it to “accept the prosecutor’s word.” If the jury nonetheless did not credit Devese’s testimony, or took it as insufficient to exculpate Anderson of the English murder, that was owing not to a misstatement of the evidence or an instruction that failed to cure it, but to the formidable evidence otherwise of Anderson’s guilt, including his arrest while complicit in trying to get rid of and conceal the murder weapons. 31