Opinion ID: 2744920
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Napue Claim

Text: A Napue claim invokes the Due Process Clause and arises when a conviction is obtained through the government’s use of false evidence. See supra, 360 U.S. at 269. As we recently had occasion to set forth in Longus v. United States, 52 A.3d 836, 845 (D.C. 2012): Napue claims are reviewed de novo and, under this standard, we must conclude that appellant’s due process rights were violated necessitating a new trial if: (1) the government knew (or should have known) that testimony proffered by Detective [Crawford] was false, but failed either to correct the falsehood before the jury or to 7 apprise the court and defense counsel about Detective [Crawford’s] false testimony in a manner that would have allowed it to be corrected before the jury; and (2) the government cannot show, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the false testimony was harmless in the context of appellant’s trial. Once the appellant has made sufficient demonstration of uncorrected false testimony then the burden shifts to the government to “show, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the false testimony was harmless in the context of appellant’s trial.” Id. (citing Napue, 360 U.S. at 271-72) (other internal citations omitted). The touchstone of Napue claims, like all claims based on the Due Process Clause, is the “fairness of the trial.” Id. at 846-47. Fundamental to the fairness of any criminal prosecution is the government’s adherence to its obligations to correct misstatements by any witness and to avoid any mistakes of fact arguing for conviction. See id. at 847-48. During appellants’ hearing for post-conviction relief, the motions court found, inter alia, that appellants had satisfied the first prong of Napue in that “it is clear” that the government knew or should have known of the falsity of the testimony, which the government does not contest.3 Nonetheless, the motions 3 In its brief to us, the government frankly acknowledges the prosecutor’s error. “[T]he government understands that any such clarification effort does not (continued…) 8 court rejected appellants’ Napue claim, concluding that they had failed to meet their “burden of showing that there was a reasonable likelihood that the false testimony affected the verdict.” The motions court inexactly articulated the second Napue prong because, as the subsequently decided Longus case makes clear, the burden of showing harmlessness is on the government rather than the appellants and harmlessness must be proven by the constitutional standard of beyond a reasonable doubt. See id. at 845.4 Applying the Longus standard and making the harmlessness assessment de novo, as we must, Napue, supra, 360 U.S. at 271-72, we cannot conclude that the Napue violation was harmless. (…continued) excuse the prosecutor’s inexplicable failure to correct Detective Crawford’s misstatement once any clarification effort had failed. Similarly, the government makes no excuse for the prosecutor’s equally inexplicable use of this false testimony in his closing argument.” The prosecutor in the case was also the prosecutor at the preliminary hearing in the Gregory Gathers case where Ballard’s name was not in fact revealed. 4 Our cases have variously described the harmlessness test as whether there is “a reasonable likelihood that the perjured testimony could have affected the verdict,” O’Brien v. United States, 962 A.2d 282, 315 (D.C. 2008) (internal citations omitted), or “no reasonable possibility that the falsehood affected the jury's verdict,” Woodall v. United States, 842 A.2d 690, 696 (D.C. 2004), or, as in Longus, supra, 52 A.3d at 845, “harmless beyond a reasonable doubt.” While it has been asserted that at least the first two formulations are substantially equivalent, O’Brien, supra, 962 at 314 n.45, Longus, supra, 52 A.3d at 845, correctly cites the statement in United States v. Bagley, 473 U.S. 667, 679-80, 679 n.9 (1985), that the Napue Court’s standard—whether there was any “reasonable likelihood” that the false testimony could have influenced the jury—is equivalent to that standard applicable to constitutional errors under the later-decided case of Chapman v. California, 386 U.S. 18 (1967); i.e., beyond a reasonable doubt. 9 The government’s case here rested in the last analysis on two basic propositions: first, Lindsay’s identification of Gathers as the shooter and Mitchell as the driver; and second, the establishment of a motive through Crawford’s false testimony that he had revealed Ballard’s name as the cooperating witness at the Gregory preliminary hearing. The prosecutor repeatedly stressed the importance of Crawford’s false motive testimony throughout the course of the trial.5 Indeed, in its written opposition to a pretrial defense motion in limine, the government characterized this evidence as “crucial to the government’s theory of prosecution.” And at the pretrial hearing, the prosecutor described the fact that Crawford would testify that he “identified the driver of the car that Carlton Gillis was in” as “the most crucial piece of evidence” against Gathers and Mitchell.6 Moreover, the 5 “A prosecutor’s stress upon the centrality of particular evidence in closing argument tells a good deal about whether the admission of the evidence was meant to be, and was, prejudicial.” Morten v. United States, 856 A.2d 595, 602 (D.C. 2004). 6 The government argues that Crawford’s testimony was harmless as cumulative of other motive evidence principally from Hattie Barber, whom the government itself characterized as “not your ideal citizen perhaps.” Barber’s testimony, as developed in cross-examination, was less than entirely clear as to any theory of general knowledge of Ballard’s cooperation, nor did the prosecutor in closing make any significant use of the Barber testimony as establishing motive but, rather, placed his reliance on the Crawford testimony. And while the Gillis shooting occurred in broad daylight affording the killer a possible opportunity to identify Ballard as the driver, these bits of testimony paled in comparison to the (continued…) 10 testimony of the government’s sole identification witness, Lindsay, was attacked in significant respects beyond the chaotic and relatively fleeting nature of the sighting, such as the fact that Lindsay did not make a positive identification of the killers for over a month following Ballard’s death and the shifting identification of the car of the killers.7 None of this suggests that the evidence was insufficient to convict appellants, but, in the posture of one of the two major props of the government’s case resting on false testimony, the outcome of the case falls significantly short of constitutional impregnability.8 We turn then to the government’s procedural arguments for rejecting the belated Napue claim. (…continued) conclusive evidence of Gathers’s knowledge provided by Crawford’s testimony as repeatedly stressed by the prosecutor. 7 The government introduced as supporting evidence allegedly incriminating statements by Gathers, one during a police interrogation and another supposedly overheard by Hattie Barber. But neither could come close to the challenged Lindsay on-the-spot identification. 8 We so conclude from the trial record itself. In fact, at the § 23-110 hearing in 2011, Lindsay made a complete recantation of his trial identification, although the trial court did not credit it. Moreover, as already mentioned, that hearing also brought out evidence of possible alternate perpetrators of the murder with their own discrete motive. 11