Court Opinion

ID: 9755986
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 21:01:50.819049+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:28:13.780155
License: Public Domain

KERN, Senior Judge,
dissenting:
Upon the particular facts of the instant case, I am unable to agree with the majority’s conclusions (1) remanding appellant “Newman’s § 23-110 claim in Appeal No. 94-CO-1061 for a hearing on the alleged ineffectiveness of [his] trial counsel” and (2) that “[o]n remand, the trial court shall decide, after an appropriate hearing, whether [appellant] Samuels’ proffered bias and Winfield (‘reverse’ Drew) evidence should have been *266admitted.” With all deference, I believe that the majority’s conclusions trivialize the trial court’s role in the administration of justice in this jurisdiction and muddle the law of evidence in the trial of criminal cases in this jurisdiction, all to the detriment of its citizens.
The majority’s welter of words tends tobscure the uncomplicated but nonetheless horrifying crime that occurred on the night of June 18, 1993, in Southeast Washington when Robert Harvey, Rudy Williams, and Reuben Nicholas, co-workers and friends, visited the apartment of Sharon Bost, a friend of Mr. Nicholas. They socialized and Ms. Bost invited Theresa Hungerford to join them in her apartment. Later, Ms. Hunger-ford left but. returned in about ten minutes and called to Ms. Bost to be let in. When the latter opened the door, Hungerford entered together with two men, later identified as appellants Newman and Samuels, who each carried a pistol and who both demanded that the three visitors give up their money. When one of them, Rudy Williams, resisted this robbery, wrestled with appellant Newman and wrested the pistol he was carrying from his hand, Newman called on appellant Samuels “to shoot the pistol.” Samuels fired his pistol at Williams, killing him. Hunger-ford, who later pleaded guilty, participated in the removing of money from the victims during the robbery.
At the trial in July 1994, the substance of the prosecution’s case against appellants consisted of testimony by the two friends of the decedent who survived the armed robbery, Mr. Harvey and Mr. Nicholas, and the accomplice of appellants, Ms. Hungerford, who had pleaded guilty to a reduced charge arising out of the robbery-murder in exchange for her testimony against appellants. .Thus, the jury heard from all three witnesses that the robbery and murder occurred; from Hungerford and Harvey that appellant Sam-uels was one of the two gunmen; and, from Hungerford and Nicholas that appellant Newman was the other gunman. In addition, the prosecution also introduced into evidence before the jury the wállet of appellant Newman which Mr. Nicholas found on the floor next to the body of Rudy Williams who had struggled and then been killed for his resistance to the robbers.
Although appellants did not take the stand, defense counsel at trial were scarcely inert. They sought by cross-examination to show that Messrs. Harvey and Nicholas were too addled by the liquor and drugs they had consumed during their socializing in Bost’s apartment prior to the attack and too frightened by the violence and suddenness of this attack to identify accurately Newman and Samuels as their two attackers.
The defense counsel in their cross-examination of the prosecution witness Hungerford brought out her unsavory past (i.e., a drug addict who supported her habit by prostitution and theft as well as a participant in this particularly brutal crime) and her present desire to provide the “quid” of her testimony for the “quod” of the government’s acceptance of her plea to a less serious crime than the murder and related felony charges that appellants Samuels and Newman faced. Nevertheless, the jury found appellants guilty, slightly more than a year after the murder of Rudy Williams.
In February 1996 (some nineteen months after the trial), appellant Newman filed a motion pursuant to D.C.Code § 23-110 to vacate his judgment of conviction, asserting that his trial counsel had been constitutionally ineffective because counsel had failed to “interview, or subpoena” a Ms. Catina Henson about whom he alleged he had told counsel at the time of his trial. Appellant Newman attached to his motion to vacate sentence an affidavit by Ms. Henson consisting of three sentences that stated in essence that he had been at her home during the time of the offense in June 1993.
The trial court, in denying this motion, pointed to “the government’s overwhelming evidence against [appellant Newman]” and concluded that even if defense counsel should have presented to the jurors the putative witness’ statement that appellant was with her in June 1993, rather than in Southeast Washington robbing the three victims and murdering one of them, Rudy Williams, there was not a reasonable probability that the jury would have found appellant not guilty.
*267The majority, unlike the trial court, did not hear the witnesses’ testimony and observe the jurors. Nevertheless, it proceeds on the basis of the cold record to conclude that it cannot “say that the government witnesses provided such overwhelming evidence of Newman’s guilt that a hearing on Henson’s credibility was not necessary.” The majority, without hearing the testimony, speculates on the lack of credibility of the prosecution’s witnesses and then concludes that “[i]f the jury had received the benefit of Henson’s alibi testimony that Newman had been with her elsewhere at the time of the shooting ... it might have resolved the conflicts between Newman’s and the government’s versions of events in Newman’s favor.”
The majority, not content with speculating away the prosecution’s live witnesses, then proceeds to explain away the presence of the wallet of appellant Newman which the surviving victim Nicholas found next to his murdered friend Williams by referring approvingly to defense counsel’s closing argument •to the jury that “there’s no evidence to show that [Newman] wasn’t there earlier in the day.”1 Moreover, the majority speculates further that “we cannot know whether, if Henson had testified, Newman himself would have taken the stand to present his explanation about the wallet.”
Thus, the majority, having effectively diminished the strength of the government’s case by its reading of the record and having speculated on the strength of the potential defense case with the addition of the alibi witness’ testimony, now remands appellant Newman’s motion to the trial court for a hearing under D.C.Code § 23-110. But what is the trial court’s role in such a hearing now given the majority’s (1) express conclusion that the prosecution witnesses did not present overwhelming evidence of guilt; (2) assertion that if the jury had heard the alibi witness presented by appellant Newman nineteen months after his trial, it “might have resolved the conflicts [in testimony] ... in Newman’s favor;” (3) citation with apparent approval of appellant Newman’s jury argument that he might have been in Ms. Bost’s apartment earlier in the day of the murder and dropped his wallet then; and (4) theorizing that had the alibi witness testified, after all, appellant Newman himself then may well have taken the stand and explained away the presence of his wallet at the death scene?
The Supréme Court has stated in claimed ineffective assistance of counsel cases that “The defendant must show that there is a reasonable probability that, but for counsel’s unprofessional errors, the result of the proceeding would have been different. A reasonable probability is a probability sufficient to undermine confidence in the outcome.” Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 694, 104 S.Ct. 2062, 2068, 80 L.Ed.2d 674 (1984).
The trial court, having presided over two trials of this case, had obtained a particularly thorough understanding of the prosecution and defense eases. It certainly could take into account the fact that appellant Newman was proffering an alibi witness in February 1996, some thirty-two months after the crime, twenty months after the first trial, and nineteen months after the second trial. Moreover, at this trial the court had even entered into a direct colloquy in open court with appellant Newman about his taking the stand, and Newman replied, “Man, come on, let’s get it over, you know what I’m saying, ain’t got no win, man, let’s do it, I understand all that, Your Honor.” The court, as an experienced and astute observer of the trial, could well have wondered why appellant Newman did not in response to the court shout out: “I’m innocent, I have a witness, I told my lawyer,” rather than wait nineteen months before filing a three-sentence statement bereft of details that placed Newman somewhere else on the night in question.2 Moreover, the trial court could assess quite well the impact upon the jury of such an alibi *268in the face of the considerable testimony and the physical evidence the prosecution presented to the jurors that Newman had lost his wallet while'the victim Williams lost his life.
In sum, given the vague and conclusory nineteen-month late alibi witness and the trial court’s assessment that the jury would not have been swayed by it in the face of the strong physical evidence and the impactful eyewitnesses,3 I believe that we should accept the trial court’s measured confidence in the outcome of this trial.
The majority’s conclusion with respect to appellant Samuels’ claim of error on the part of the trial court is also an exercise in sheer speculation. At trial, Samuels attacked the credibility of the two witnesses who identified him as the gunman who shot and killed Rudy Williams in June 1993. As to the witness Mr. Harvey, the defense sought to discredit him because of his drinking liquor and ingesting crack cocaine during the socializing that preceded the robbery of him and the murder of his friend, Williams. As to the witness Hungerford who pleaded guilty to a lesser charge and agreed to testify, the defense attack was on her general credibility. She was asked about her addiction to drugs and how she supported her addiction by prostitution and petty theft. The defense also emphasized to the jury that she had herself aided the defendants in their murderous robbery. It was in this context of an attack upon her credibility that defense counsel asked if she had committed a robbery some two weeks before, and she answered in the negative.
Defense counsel then sought permission to impeach in two different ways her denial of having committed the robbery she had denied committing on a different date and at a different place: first, by the proffer of a complaint form filled out by a police officer based upon an account of this prior event by a witness named Bego, which complaint (a) had not led to any arrest; and (b) did not identify any person except Hungerford; and, second, by the proffer of Bego himself as a witness.
Defense counsel proffered that Bego would testify: that some two weeks prior - to the robbery and murder being tried the witness Hungerford approached him in a liquor store and asked for a ride to her godmother’s apartment; he agreed, and when he drove her to her destination she invited him into the apartment, and he accepted her invitation; that there were other men and women in the apartment, and she and he went into the bedroom where they drank liquor and discussed having sex; that they disagreed about how much he would pay for her sexual favors; and, as he left the room, several persons in the apartment grasped him, Hun-gerford threatened him with a pair of scissors, and they took his wallet and made him remove his shoes to make sure he was not hiding money there before he was allowed to leave and return to his car. Bego went immediately to the nearest police precinct and a police officer returned with him to the apartment. Bego identified Hungerford as the woman who had attacked him, but no arrest was made. Moreover, the complaint form the police prepared and filed reflected that no other person who had been, on the scene was identified.
Counsel explained to the trial court that his proffer of the complaint form and Bego was to demonstrate that Hungerford .harbored a bias against appellants based upon (a) this counsel’s assertion that she had knowledge that two men other than appellants had robbed Williams, Harvey, and Nicholas and then killed Williams; and (b) this counsel’s assertion that as a consequence she was determined to “pin” these two crimes upon appellants so as to protect the “real” culprits. However, counsel conceded that he could not identify any of the persons allegedly present with Hungerford and Bego, and, as noted, the police complaint form did not identify any person other than Hunger-ford. Defense counsel did make the further *269proffer that Bego could testify that appellant Samuels was not among the persons in the apartment of Hungerford’s godmother two weeks before the instant crime.
The trial court refused, in my view quite correctly, to admit either the police report or the testimony of Bego because the proffered evidence had no relevance to the case being tried to the jury and would only confuse the jurors by bringing into dispute before them who had robbed Bego some two weeks earlier when they were being asked to determine who robbed Williams, Harvey and Nicholas and then shot Williams to death.
The majority speculates that in light of the defense proffer of Bego’s complaint that the witness Hungerford invited him to her godmother’s apartment and then took money from him forcibly, she may have indeed committed the Bego robbery she denied committing. The majority then conjectures that the Bego crime was so “similar” to the instant crime that some of her many cohorts in the Bego crime may have been her two companions in the instant crime rather than appellants Newman and Samuels. Thus, the majority, piling conjecture upon speculation, reaches the conclusion that the trial court erred in refusing to allow Bego to testify (a) that Hungerford had picked him up, offered him sex for money, and then, wielding a pair of scissors, joined with other unidentified persons in taking his money, and (b) that appellant Samuels was not among those unknown persons joining her in her criminal act.
This court has held that “evidence of motivation of a third party to commit the crime charged risks distracting the jury from the issue of this defendant’s guilt or innocence, and in applying the relevance standard the judge may properly take account of the danger.” Winfield v. United States, 676 A.2d 1, 3 (D.C.1996) (en banc). We specifically noted the need for “exclusion of evidence that ‘is too remote in time and place, completely unrelated or irrelevant to the offense charged, or too speculative with respect to a third party’s guilt.’ ” Id. at 5 (emphasis added). The trial judge properly exercised his “full authority to prevent this sort of trial-within-a-trial.” Id.
Defense counsel, by his proffer of the witness Bego, obviously would distract the jury from determining appellants’ guilt into considering whether Hungerford, who was not even a party in the case at trial, had committed a crime against Bego of a quite different nature, at a different place, and at a different time than the crime at issue in the instant trial.4 Counsel also sought to have Bego tell the jury considering this crime that appellants did not commit the first crime, but this, of course, had no relevance to the crime at trial. However, “we require a foundation for the admission of extrinsic evidence to impeach a witness with bias,” and counsel “must proffer facts sufficient to permit the trial judge to evaluate whether the proposed question is probative of bias.” In re C.B.N., 499 A.2d 1215, 1220 (D.C.1985); Jones v. United States, 516 A.2d 513, 517 (D.C.1986) (emphasis added). In sum, the majority constructs a potential defense for appellees and then chides the trial court for its failure to recognize and then act upon this manufactured defense.
Words written by the much respected appellate judge, Ruggero Aldisert in Washington v. Philadelphia Cty. Ct. of Common Pleas, 89 F.3d 1031, 1044-45 (3d Cir.1996), seem most appropriate here:
At bottom, this ease is about whether an appellate court appreciates the allocation of competence between trial eourts and reviewing courts.... We must be vigilant of this court’s increasing proclivity to deny substituting its judgment for that of the district court, but then to proceed with the tack that it expressly renounces.
Judge Aldisert further states:
Indeed, there are several reasons why district judges are much more capable of exercising broad discretion. They are on the scene. They smell the smoke of battle.... We should not construct obstacles to its use in the form of artificial standards *270and criteria, the breach of which we deem an abuse of -discretion as a matter of law, thereby creating a philosophical oxymoron by savaging traditional notions of discretionary powers.
Id. at 1049.
Judge Aldisert quotes approvingly, id. at 1048-49, from “America’s premier federal courts expert,” Charles Alan Wright, who wrote, “Every time a trial judge is reversed, every time the belief is reiterated that appellate courts are better qualified than trial judges to decide what justice requires, the confidence of litigants and the public in the trial court will be further impaired. Under any feasible or conceivable system, our trial courts must always have the last word in the great bulk of eases,” and Judge Aldisert goes on to cite the much respected academic-observer, Professor Maurice Rosenberg, who has set forth, among other reasons, for appellate courts to defer to trial courts in the exercise of discretion during trial
the superiority of his [or her] nether position. It is not that he [or she] knows more than his [or her] loftier [brothers and sisters]; rather [the trial judge] sees more and senses more. In the dialogue between the appellate judges and the trial judge, the former often seem to be saying: You were there. We do not think we would have done what you did, but we were not present and we may be unaware of significant matters, for the record does not adequately convey to us all that went on at the trial. Therefore, we defer to you.
Id. at 1049.
Accordingly, I dissent from the majority’s creation in the instant case of artificial standards and criteria and imposition of them upon the trial court which clearly saw more and sensed more than does the majority upon a cold record. I think that the majority’s decision impairs the confidence of litigants and the public in the trial court, all to the detriment of the community.

. It defies logic that five persons partying in Ms. Bost’s apartment for some hours before the robbery and the murder would not have noticed the wallet of appellant Newman.

. I do not suggest, as the majority asserts, that appellant Newman "waived" his rights. Rather, the trial court could consider in determining the credibility of his post-trial assertion that he had had the opportunity to tell the court about his alibi witness and failed to do so.

. For example, the trial court could gauge quite well the impact upon the jury of the testimony by the witness Harvey that after appellant Samuels had held a gun to his head, he had a very clear recollection of him. When asked on redirect examination, "Why was it you were focused on the gunman that had the gun trained on you?,” Harvey answered, "Because I didn’t know if he was going to blow my head off or not.”

. I cannot imagine that the trial court could properly approve of a prosecutor's proceeding under Drew to introduce into evidence against Hungerford — had she chosen to go to trial rather than plead guilty here — the testimony of Bego concerning her alleged crime against him.