Opinion ID: 2346472
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Repair Document

Text: The defense sought to demonstrate that a street light above the point of impact was not working on the night when appellant's car struck Mr. Tucker. To show this, defense counsel offered into evidence a document from the Department of Public Works which stated that the light was repaired on August 23, more than five months after the accident. This document, however, did not indicate when the complaint for repair was lodged, and defense counsel produced no other evidence that the complaint was made at a time closer to March 12. The trial court therefore excluded the repair document as irrelevant, explaining, This complaint may have been lodged two days before the repair. How do we know that this complaint for repair that was done August 23 had anything to do with the condition of the lights back in March? ... [F]or this to be probative, it's got to relate back. Appellant now argues that this ruling was an abuse of discretion. To be relevant, evidence must tend[] to make the existence or nonexistence of a fact more or less probable than would be the case without that evidence. Punch v. United States, 377 A.2d 1353, 1358 (D.C.1977) (citation omitted), cert. denied, 435 U.S. 955, 98 S.Ct. 1586, 55 L.Ed.2d 806 (1978). The repair document did nothing more than to establish that the street light was malfunctioning five months after the accident. Because of the great length of time between the accident and the repair, with no way of knowing when the request for repair was made, the document could not support appellant's claim that the street light was out of order on the night of the accident. We hold accordingly that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in ruling that the repair document was not support appellant's claim that the street light was out of order on the night of the accident. We hold accordingly that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in ruling that the repair document was not relevant. See Harris v. United States, 618 A.2d 140, 145 (D.C.1992) (Evidence which is remote in time to the events involved may be of scant probative value); Collins v. United States, 596 A.2d 489, 494 (D.C.1991) (There comes a point ... at which such evidence becomes too attenuated to be of relevance; some temporal nexus between [the evidence] and the crime is required). In any event, the jury had already heard other evidence that the street light was not working, including a defense expert's analysis of the crime scene photographs and Crystal Rodgers' testimony that the street lights were messed up and would go on and off. Thus the court's decision to exclude the repair document could not possibly have created such prejudice to the defense that it constituted an abuse of discretion. Appellant also asserts in her brief that the repair document should have been admitted because, [in] a criminal case, due process and the right to compulsory process entitle [a defendant] to present evidence . . . even in contravention of ordinary rules of evidence. That is emphatically not the law. On the contrary, the Supreme Court has held that the accused, as is required of the State, must comply with established rules of procedure and evidence designed to assure both fairness and reliability in the ascertainment of guilt and innocence. Chambers v. Mississippi, 410 U.S. 284, 302, 93 S.Ct. 1038, 35 L.Ed.2d 297 (1973); see also Roundtree v. United States, 581 A.2d 315, 329 n. 34 (D.C.1990). Appellant's due process claim is entirely without legal support.