Opinion ID: 1219827
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Wilson's Fifth Amendment Claim

Text: Although Wilson's Fifth Amendment argument is marginally more substantial, it is doubtful any error occurred and certain that if there was error, it was harmless. The issue here concerns the Fifth Amendment consequences of Wilson's election to offer his statement of remorse but not to open himself up for cross examination with regard to it. The majority first concludes that the introduction of such a statement effects at least a limited Fifth Amendment waiver that allows the prosecution to argue for an adverse inference from a defendant's failure to testify as to that to which he has allocuted. (Maj. Op. at 199 (emphasis omitted).) The majority next determines that Carter v. Kentucky, 450 U.S. 288, 101 S.Ct. 1112, 67 L.Ed.2d 241 (1981), nevertheless entitles the defendant in such a situation to a modified adverse inference instruction directed at matters other than those to which the defendant allocuted, and that the failure to give such an instruction, coupled in this case with the prosecutor's use of three errant words (essentially a wrong choice of verb tense) in referring to the defendant's decision not to take the stand, requires vacatur. With regard to the second determination, I respectfully disagree. I, like the majority, start with first principles. (Maj. Op. at 198.) Wilson was entitled to the protections of the Fifth Amendment during the penalty phase of his trial, meaning that he had a right not to testify and that the government could not use his silence against him, at least with regard to factual determinations respecting the circumstances and details of the crime. Mitchell v. United States, 526 U.S. 314, 328, 119 S.Ct. 1307, 143 L.Ed.2d 424 (1999). The Supreme Court has not yet determined whether silence in this setting properly bears upon the determination of a lack of remorse. Id. at 330., 119 S.Ct. 1307 Because Wilson did not remain silent at his sentencing proceeding, this open question need not be answered here. I agree with the majority that Wilson's decision to speak to the jury constituted a waiver of his Fifth Amendment rights with regard to the subject matter of his allocution, and thus that the prosecution was permitted, as the majority states, to argue for an adverse inference from [the] defendant's failure to testify as to that to which he ... allocuted.  (Maj. Op. at 199.) Given this determination, the majority rightly finds wholly legitimate the government's argument in summation that if Wilson had taken the stand, the sincerity of his allocution could have been better assessed. Indeed, because it accepts that Wilson waived his Fifth Amendment rights with regard to the allocution, the majority finds Fifth Amendment fault today with but three words in the government's summation: I want to talk to you a minute about the statement itself. You may have noticed that when he made that statement, Ronell Wilson wasn't sitting up there on the witness stand under oath, subject to cross-examination. He chose to do it from there (indicating). The path for that witness stand has never been blocked for Mr. Wilson, had that opportunity, too. He chose, like many other things in this case, to do it that way. You may ask yourselves well, what more would we have if he took that stand, what would be the difference? Well, we might have been able to ask him when did you come up with this? How did you come up with it? Why did you come up with it? Why now? Why now of all times are you sorry? We might be able to test the credibility of the statement, the veracity of it. You might have information that could help you decide if you need to believe it. Ronell Wilson didn't want that. He wanted to say it from there, take my word for it now after all this, now I'm sorry. Tr. 1638. The subtlety of this error cannot go unremarked. For it is indeed the difference between was not and has never been on which the majority relies. By the majority's own holding today, the government was fully entitled to argue that [t]he path [to] that witness stand was not blocked, and that Wilson's decision not to take the stand to testify to his remorse was a reason to doubt its credibility. The majority contends, somewhat tepidly, that tense makes a difference, and that a juror hearing has never been might think that `never' is a period that extends back to the guilt phase ... and extends as well to the full penalty phase. (Maj. Op. at 200.) But the government made no argument that the defendant's decision not to take the stand was relevant to anything other than the credibility of his allocution. So the only possible error must boil down to three errant words. This is a slim reed indeed on which to hang a constitutional infirmity meriting the vacatur of five capital sentences rendered by jurors who, between the trial and the penalty phase, devoted over three weeks to hearing testimony in this case. The majority knows as much. Indeed, it concedes that the prosecution attempted conscientiously to focus solely on the subject matter of the allocution. (Maj. Op. at 200.) It states onlyand again tepidly that [e]ven so, there is something expansive about saying has never been. ( Id. ) It then hurriedly drops the subject, moving on to discuss the district court's failure to give a modified Carter instructionthe real heart of the problem. Carter v. Kentucky held that a trial court has a constitutional obligation, upon request, to instruct a trial jury that no adverse inferences are to be drawn from a defendant's election not to take the standin essence, that it may not treat the defendant's silence as substantive evidence of his guilt. Carter, 450 U.S. at 305, 101 S.Ct. 1112; see also Robinson, 485 U.S. at 32, 108 S.Ct. 864 (noting that the Fifth Amendment prohibits the judge and prosecutor from suggesting to the jury that silence may be treated as evidence of guilt). The Supreme Court has never expressly held that this obligation extends to the sentencing phase of a criminal proceeding, much less that it applies in a situation in which the defendant has waived his Fifth Amendment rights, at least with regard to the subject matter of an allocution he has introduced. I will assume for now, with the majority, that Wilson was entitled to an instruction that the jury should not draw any adverse inference from his decision to remain silent with regard to matters other than his alleged feelings of remorse. And I will pass over, as the majority also does, that Wilson never asked for such a modified adverse inference instructionthe only instruction that could have been appropriate in the context of this caseand that it is not our normal practice in such circumstances to afford relief. See United States v. Desinor, 525 F.3d 193, 198 (2d Cir.2008) (noting that judgment will not be reversed based upon the denial of a requested instruction where the instruction requested was not legally correct or was not supported by an adequate basis in the record). The majority concludes and I agree that harmless error analysis is appropriate in the context of Carter error. See, e.g., United States v. Soto, 519 F.3d 927, 930-31 (9th Cir.2008) (holding that failure to give Carter instruction is subject to harmless error analysis); United States v. Brand, 80 F.3d 560, 568 (1st Cir.1996) (same); Hunter v. Clark, 934 F.2d 856, 860 (7th Cir.1991) (en banc) (same); United States v. Ramirez, 810 F.2d 1338, 1344 (5th Cir. 1987) (same). It is here, however, that we again part ways. Any error that resulted from the government's errant three words (has never been) and the district court's failure to give a modified Carter instruction (one that was never requested) was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. See United States v. Hasting, 461 U.S. 499, 508-09, 103 S.Ct. 1974, 76 L.Ed.2d 96 (1983) ([I]t is the duty of a reviewing court to consider the trial record as a whole and to ignore errors that are harmless); see also Satterwhite v. Texas, 486 U.S. 249, 256, 108 S.Ct. 1792, 100 L.Ed.2d 284 (1988). This case thus falls well short of presenting any circumstances that warrant vacatur of the jury's work, even assuming that error occurred. First, as already noted, the government never argued that Wilson's decision not to take the stand should be used by the jury to make factual determinations favorable to the government with regard to anything except for Wilson's allocutionthe matter that the majority concludes was properly the subject of an adverse inference. This is significant because Carter itself recognized that the instruction it requires is prophylactic. Carter, 450 U.S. at 305, 101 S.Ct. 1112. In fact, it is a prophylactic instruction to protect the prophylactic rule that the prosecutor cannot ask a jury to draw an adverse inference from the defendant's failure to testify which in turn protects the defendant's actual constitutional right to refuse to testify. Hunter, 934 F.2d at 864. It is thus at least two steps removed from the constitutional privilege, and [n]either giving nor withholding the instruction has a certain, powerful, effect on the jury's work. Id. at 865-66 (Easterbrook, J., concurring). [7] The Supreme Court in Carter determined that requiring such an instruction, upon request, guards against the danger that an unguided jury might use a defendant's silence as evidence of his guilt. Carter, 450 U.S. at 301, 101 S.Ct. 1112. The failure to give such an instruction, however, does not mean that this injury has occurred. Even assuming, then, that a modified Carter instruction was appropriate here, the absence of any direct argument from the government that Wilson's silence be used in an unlawful manner weighs strongly against the conclusion that the failure to give such an instruction was harmful. The jury's own determinations, moreover, strongly suggest that it did not draw any inference adverse to Wilson with regard to matters other than his statement of remorse. As previously noted, the jury unanimously found that Wilson had established thirteen of the eighteen mitigating factors he put forward and, indeed, it identified an additional mitigating factor not even cited by the defense. The jury thus broadly accepted Wilson's evidence of a troubled childhood and difficult time in schoolthat he had grown up in poverty and deprivation, for instance, that his parents were substance abusers, that he was exposed to drugs and violence as a child, that he performed well below grade level in school and had a history of depression. Eleven jurors found, in addition, that Wilson had been exposed to an unsafe and unsanitary home environment, and three found that his scores on standardized tests were below average. Indeed, the jury unanimously rejected only his claims that he accepted responsibility and felt remorse (the two mitigators about which he allocuted and that were properly the subject of an adverse inference ) and that he had adjusted well to federal prisona final claim in mitigation that was simply not credible, in light of the government's evidence of future dangerousness. The evidence establishing the government's aggravating factors, moreover, was overwhelming. The district court itself said, in sentencing Wilson, that Ronell Wilson's guilt has been proved not merely beyond a reasonable doubt, but beyond all doubt. Transcript of Sentencing Imposition, Mar. 29, 2007 (Mar. 29 2007 Tr.), at 29. Indeed, the evidence presented at trial proved four of the six aggravating factors before the penalty phase even began. [8] The picture this evidence painted, moreover, was itself devastating to Wilson's position that a death sentence could not be justified. Thus, the trial evidence showed that before these murders took place, Wilson discussed the possibility with his confederates that the man he intended to rob, Detective Nemorin, might be a police officer, and that Wilson might have to shoot him. On the day of the crimes, as he set his plan in motion, Wilson expressed concern that he was being followed, and that there were undercover police vehicles in the vicinity. Minutes later, Wilson climbed into the back seat of the undercover officers' car, pulled out the .44 caliber revolver he was carrying, and shot without warning Detective Andrews, who had accompanied Nemorin to meet with Wilson that day, in the back of the head. Wilson then shot Nemorin, again in the head, as the detective pleaded for his life. At Wilson's direction, Wilson and his confederate, Jessie Jacobus, searched the bodies, looking for money, before dumping them in the street and driving off in the undercover officers' car. When Jacobus asked Wilson why he had killed the men, Wilson said simply, I don't give a fuck about nobody. Tr. 378. The jury finally heard evidence that at the time of his arrest, two days after the executions of Detectives Andrews and Nemorin, Wilson, whose nickname is Rated R, was carrying rap lyrics he had written that celebrated violence and that could have been interpreted to refer to the crimes: Come teast Rated U better have dat vest and Dat Golock/leave a 45 slogs in da back of ya head cause u cause I'm getin dat Bread I ain't goin stop to Im dead/When I getin dat money/ and when y say Rated don't forget da R. Gov't Ex. 15.01. The district court stated in pronouncing sentence that Wilson's allocution was not convincing. Mar. 29, 2007 Tr. at 33. It must have seemed weak, in light of the cold-blooded character of Wilson's crimes, his behavior thereafter, as well as his many additional acts of violence, both before and after the murders of the detectives. During the penalty phase, the jury learned from three of his victims that Wilson, as a young teenager, had repeatedly assaulted other childrenin one case, attacking a 13-year old on a city bus and breaking his jaw in the course of robbing him. There was evidence of a fight in Times Square with a man Wilson had attempted to extort when both were prison inmatesa fight in which Wilson slashed the man in the face in front of a crowd, leaving a wound that required 300 stitches to close. Additional evidence went to violence in custodyto assaults on corrections officers, to fist fights with other inmates. There was evidence that Wilson believed he deserved OG status within the Bloodsthe highest status, reserved for those who have committed the most acts of violence on behalf of the gang. There was evidence that Wilson used his position in the Bloods to incite other inmates to commit violence. The jury found beyond a reasonable doubt that Wilson represented a continuing danger to others, and that he was likely to commit acts of violence again. The court at sentencing stated its conclusion that Wilson is capable of committing extreme acts of violence without warning or provocation, Mar. 29, 2007 Tr. at 35, and it characterized the proof in support of the jury's future dangerousness finding as overwhelming, id. at 34. So, too, was the evidence that Wilson's crimes resulted in loss to the victims, their families, and to others. The district court observed in pronouncing sentence: Those of us when we heard the Detectives' family members testify will never forget Christian Andrews, Detective Andrews' older son, recounting his daily chess games with his father, or their annual family trips to Universal Studios in Florida. Nor will we ever forget Marie-Jean Nemorin, Detective Nemorin's sister, explaining how she gave her baby brother the nickname Tichou, which means little sweetheart[,] or Rose Nemorin, Detective Nemorin's widow, describing how their three children now celebrate Father's Day in a cemetery where they hug a cold wall instead of their father. May 29, 2007 Tr. at 31-32. The judge further observed that [w]hen Wilson murdered Detectives Andrews and Nemorin, he took two police officers from this city, two fathers from their children, two husbands from their wives, two brothers from their siblings, and two sons from their parents. Id. at 32. The jury found beyond a reasonable doubt that Wilson's crimes had caused loss, injury, and harm. I have my doubts whether Carter v. Kentucky 's prophylactic rule properly applies in a sentencing proceeding in which the defendant has chosen not to remain silent, but instead to speak. Because the obligation to give a Carter instruction arises only upon request, I have further doubts that it ever arose in this case, given that the instruction actually requested by the defendant would have covered matters about which the defendant had waived his Fifth Amendment rights. That said, I have no doubt about the harmlessness of the alleged Fifth Amendment error on which the majority relies. I conclude without hesitation that neither the prosecutor's three errant words (has never been) nor the district court's failure to give the modified Carter instruction that was never requested, influenced this jury's decision to any degree. The Supreme Court has said that the severity of a death sentence mandates careful scrutiny in the review of any colorable claim of error. Zant v. Stephens, 462 U.S. at 885, 103 S.Ct. 2733. Chapman, however, requires at least a reasonable possibility that the [error] complained of might have contributed to the [result] before an error warrants reversal. Chapman v. California, 386 U.S. 18, 23, 87 S.Ct. 824, 17 L.Ed.2d 705 (1967) (quoting Fahy v. Connecticut, 375 U.S. 85, 86-87, 84 S.Ct. 229, 11 L.Ed.2d 171 (1963)) (internal quotation marks omitted). [N]ot every imperfection in the deliberative process is sufficient, even in a capital case, to set a judgment aside. Zant, 462 U.S. at 885, 103 S.Ct. 2733. Indeed, if this were not the case, Congress's decision in the Federal Death Penalty Act to give to juries the delicate and difficult decision as to when a capital sentence is justified would be wholly undone. The jury here heard evidence over the course of eighteen days. This evidence cast a strong light on the defendant: on his crimes, his character, the harms he has caused, and his case in mitigation. The district court noted, in sentencing Wilson, that the jury here [was] among the most attentive and serious [it] had ever seen, and that the jurors listened carefully to every argument and the witness testimony, and examined every piece of evidence introduced in this case. Mar. 29, 2007 Tr. at 44. I conclude that if there was Fifth Amendment error hereand I find it doubtfulsuch error had no impact on the jury that sentenced Wilson. With regard to the Sixth Amendment, there is simply no error to review. Having reached these conclusions, I believe the death sentences should be affirmed. I respectfully dissent from Parts VI, VII, and VIII of the majority's opinion and from the judgment vacating the death sentences, while joining in the rest of the majority's opinion.