Opinion ID: 2088920
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Failure to Instruct on Admissions

Text: Appellant was convicted of murdering a woman whom he periodically paid to have sex by shooting her once with his shotgun in the back as she was trying to leave her apartment. In the absence of an eyewitness, the government relied on appellant's statements before and after the shooting, witnesses to and physical evidence from the aftermath of the shooting, and expert testimony on firearms and forensic pathology. Appellant contends that because the most damaging evidence was the admissions which were attributed to him by five government witnesses, and because he adduced substantial evidence affecting the weight to be accorded the admissions, the trial court was required by precedent as well as 18 U.S.C. § 3501(a) (1985) to give standard jury instruction No. 2.46 [1] on admissions or a similar instruction. The government responds that no error occurred because appellant produced no evidence to show that his statements were involuntary. We first address appellant's two admissions to police officers and then his admissions to lay persons.
Lieutenant Ashburn testified that when appellant was arrested at his home he said he wanted to make a telephone call to his lawyer. Detective Helwig testified that on the day of appellant's arrest he happened to see appellant at the police station and asked him why he was there. Appellant replied, she tried to ... she came at me with a table leg and I had to shoot her. Contending that these statements constituted oral admissions, [2] appellant claims the trial court's denial of his request for a cautionary instruction resulted in substantial prejudice. Since appellant requested the trial judge to give instruction No. 2.46 on his statement to Detective Helwig, and since he objected to Ashburn's testimony, our standard of review is whether the failure to give the instruction substantially swayed the jury verdict. Kotteakos v. United States, 328 U.S. 750, 764-65, 66 S.Ct. 1239, 1247-48, 90 L.Ed. 1557 (1946). Appellant relies on the statement by this court in Wells v. United States, 407 A.2d 1081, 1089-90 (D.C.1979), that the trial court should instruct the jury that it must give the evidence of the defendant's confessions such weight as deemed proper in light of the evidence of surrounding circumstances. However, the decision in Wells turned on the fact that the trial court, before admitting appellant's confession into evidence, had failed to determine whether it was given freely and voluntarily. At trial, appellant here never contested the voluntariness of his statements, and the circumstances surrounding his statements to the police do not suggest they were coerced or made involuntarily. His argument on appeal, that the evidence of his drinking was highly material to the weight [to be] accorded the evidence of his confessions, is insufficient to show that his statements were involuntary. Appellant did not offer evidence which was contrary to the testimony of the witnesses who testified that he had been drinking, but was not drunk: his speech was not slurred, he did not stagger when he walked, and he was able to talk and relate what had happened in a logical, coherent manner. Obery v. United States, 95 U.S.App.D.C. 28, 217 F.2d 860 (1954), cert. denied, 349 U.S. 923, 75 S.Ct. 665, 99 L.Ed. 1255 (1955), and Jackson v. United States, 91 U.S.App. D.C. 60, 198 F.2d 497, cert. denied, 344 U.S. 858, 73 S.Ct. 96, 97 L.Ed. 666 (1952), on which appellant relies as controlling authority for the proposition that all admissions to police officers and lay persons require cautionary instructions, do not support his claim of error. Obery merely cites Jackson, which attempted to lay down no general rule for all cases and relied on state court decisions for the rationale for giving a cautionary instruction. [3] The state cases are no more supportive of appellant's claim than are cases from this jurisdiction. For example, in State v. Lantzer, 55 Wyo. 230, 242-44, 99 P.2d 73, 77 (Wyo.1940), cited in Jackson, and by appellant, the court simply stated the language of the requested instruction [4] and noted that such language would be appropriate if it referred to evidence of statements that may have been made under the influence of hope or fear, and to `the mere repetition of oral statements' that may not have been made at all. Finding that the oral statements were not the result of improper inducements and that there was no reason to doubt that the defendant had made the statements, the Lantzer court held that the trial court was not required to give the requested instruction. Here, too, there is no evidence of improper inducements or doubt that appellant made the statements. Appellant's reliance on 18 U.S.C. § 3501(a), [5] which requires the trial court to instruct the jury on the weight to be accorded appellant's admissions, [6] is also misplaced. Section 3501(a) provides that a confession is admissible if voluntarily given; it focuses on the procedure to be followed by the trial court and the evidence to be heard by the jury when an issue is raised about the voluntariness of a statement. United States v. Bernett, 161 U.S.App. 363, 381-82, 495 F.2d 943, 961-62 (D.C.1974), relied on by appellant, holds only that where a trial court has satisfied itself that a confession was voluntary, it is still required under § 3501(a) to permit the jury to hear relevant evidence on voluntariness and to instruct the jury on the weight to be accorded the confession, and failure to do so is properly considered under the harmless error standard of Kotteakos, supra . Other courts interpreting § 3501(a) have generally held that an instruction concerning admissions is not required where no identifiable issue of voluntariness is raised by the evidence presented to the jury. United States v. Fera, 616 F.2d 590, 594 (1st Cir.) (Only if relevant evidence sufficient to raise a genuine factual issue concerning the voluntariness of such statements is presented by the defendant ... is the trial court obligated to instruct the jury concerning the weight to be accorded to the defendant's statements), cert. denied, 446 U.S. 969, 100 S.Ct. 2951, 64 L.Ed.2d 830 (1980). [7] Accordingly, we hold that where there is little if any evidence that a defendant's admission is involuntary, the trial court has discretion whether to give, upon request, an instruction on the weight to be accorded the admission. We find no abuse of discretion in the instant case. The trial court instructed the jury to consider and weigh all the evidence that had been presented in the case, to consider the effect and value of the evidence, to weigh the credibility of the witnesses, and that the weight of the evidence was not necessarily determined by the number of witnesses testifying on either side. The jury was also instructed that it should consider all the facts and circumstances in evidence to determine which witnesses were worthy of greater credence, to evaluate the accuracy of a witness' memory or recollection, and that no greater or lesser credence should be given to the testimony of a witness merely because he was a police officer. We are satisfied that the instructions were sufficient to guide the jury in weighing appellant's statements to the police in light of appellant's general denial and defense of accidental shooting, and in determining whether the evidence of appellant's drinking affected his ability to commit the act or knowingly to make his admissions. The absence of the requested instruction did not affect the jury's verdict since the jury's attention was focused adequately on the message of standard instruction No. 2.46 insofar as it was applicable to the facts of this case.
Appellant contends six statements [8] made to lay persons constituted oral admissions which warranted standard instruction No. 2.46. Since appellant did not specifically request the instruction for these admissions or object to their introduction into evidence, [9] our standard of review would normally be whether the failure to give the instruction was plain error. Super.Ct. Crim.R. 30 and R. 52(b); Watts v. United States, 362 A.2d 706, 708 (D.C.1976) (en banc); see Jones v. United States, 477 A.2d 231, 242-43 (D.C.1984); Johnson v. United States, 387 A.2d 1084, 1088-89 (D.C.1978). However, because the trial court cut off counsel's explanation of which admissions he wished to have standard instruction No. 2.46 apply, we apply the same standard of review as we did for appellant's admissions to police officers. Appellant's reliance on Jackson, supra, and Obery, supra, is as unpersuasive here as it was for his admissions to the police. He also relies on Naples v. United States, 120 U.S.App.D.C. 123, 344 F.2d 508 (1964), wherein the court noted that if testimony is allowed as an oral adoptive admission, the jury should be cautioned `against trusting over much to the accuracy of such testimony' since there are `great possibilities of error in trusting to recollection-testimony of oral utterances, supposed to have been heard....' Id. at 127, 344 F.2d at 512. Appellant argues that although Naples was concerned with the adoptive admission exception to the hearsay rule, it is clear that the court assumed that similar potential for distortion lies in evidence of express (nonadoptive), oral admissions of a defendant, because the court cited State v. Bemis, 33 Cal.2d 395, 202 P.2d 82 (1949). The Bemis court held that where appellant had alleged that his confession to a police officer was coerced by beatings and physical abuse, the trial court had erred in failing sua sponte to instruct the jury that evidence of an oral admission of the defendant should be viewed with caution. 32 Cal.2d at 396-98, 202 P.2d at 83-84. In these cases, unlike the instant case, voluntariness was an issue. But where there is little if any evidence of involuntariness, there is no basis to conclude that a trial court must, upon request, always give a cautionary instruction to the jury on a defendant's admissions to lay persons. In addition, the stringent standards governing the admissibility of declarations against penal interest, which are required because doubt persists that the zeal of law enforcement agencies to protect the peace may tinge or warp the facts of a confession, Laumer v. United States, 409 A.2d 190, 197 (D.C.1979) (en banc) (citing Wong Sun v. United States, 371 U.S. 471, 489, 83 S.Ct. 407, 418, 9 L.Ed.2d 441 (1963)), provide no support for appellant. In Laumer, the court referred to the stringent standards in explaining why confessions that are inherently untrustworthy should be rejected, but acknowledged the fundamental doctrine of substantive criminal law that the confessions and admissions of a criminal defendant, assuming that they are voluntary, are admissible as evidence. Id. Indeed, Laumer notes that admissions are highly probative of an accused's guilt because it is unlikely that a rational person would admit to a crime if he did not commit it. Id. The trial court instructed the jury that appellant had a right to be a witness and that his testimony should not be disbelieved merely because he was a defendant, that the jury was not required to accept the statements that appellant had said he was going to kill the victim, and that the statements should be considered only for the purpose of determining whether appellant had the intent to commit the crimes, and not as tending to show appellant's guilt. Based on these instructions and others given by the trial court, see supra Part I-A, we find no error affecting appellant's substantial rights arising from the trial court's failure further to instruct the jury on appellant's admissions to lay persons. The jury is presumed to follow the instructions, and the record does not indicate that it failed to do so. See Sherrod v. United States, 478 A.2d 644, 659 (D.C.1984). The government's evidence against appellant was overwhelming. Three witnesses heard the gunshot and then saw the victim and appellant, who was carrying a shotgun, emerge from her apartment. There was also evidence that appellant had previously threatened to kill and physically injure the victim. See supra note 8. Appellant's nephew testified about appellant's admissions after he shot the victim, and the victim twice named appellant as the person who shot her. [10]