Court Opinion

ID: 9754880
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 20:17:21.613022+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:28:00.338811
License: Public Domain

MACK, Associate Judge
dissenting.
In my view the admission of a prior inconsistent statement by a key defense witness without an accompanying instruction presented the likelihood of jury confusion so great as to have denied appellant a fair trial.
I am acutely aware that this court, en banc, has held that it is not plain error, per se, for a trial court not to give an immediate cautionary instruction on the use of evidence admitted for a limited purpose when no such instruction is requested. Johnson v. United States, D.C.App., 387 A.2d 1084 (en banc) (No. 8683, 1978). The instant case, however, is a much more difficult case than Johnson and for many reasons. Here, for example, neither an imme*461diate cautionary instruction nor a final instruction was given as to the limited purpose of the evidence. By contrast, in Johnson the final charge included an instruction on the limited purpose for which a prior inconsistent statement could be used and this court relied specifically upon that fact in rejecting the claim of clear prejudice to Johnson’s substantial rights.
But more basically, here the record raises a serious question as to the purpose for which the evidence was admitted. There are circumstances, therefore, which make defense counsel’s failure to request a limit-mg instruction understandable and the probability of confusion indisputable. The majority says that the prosecutor made it quite clear at the time of cross-examining Ms. Morris that he was using her prior inconsistent statement (to the effect that she had been threatened by friends of appellant) for impeachment purposes. What the prosecutor actually proffered at the bench, in response to objection by defense counsel to the admissibility of the statement, was that the evidence went to credibility and state of mind and “whether she’s afraid today to testify to the fact that Dexter Forbes did the shooting.”1 The *462court observed that this evidence is “perfectly probative.” When defense counsel objected that the threat had not been linked to appellant, the court answered “She provided the link to the grand jury . . . ” and overruled the objection. This colloquy suggests to me that the statement was admitted in part for its substantive value and what transpired thereafter appears to confirm this suggestion. Thus the government produced a witness on rebuttal for the sole purpose of testifying that the hospitalized victim had been removed to a security ward for protection. In closing argument the prosecutor argued that Ms. Morris was not to be believed and added that “Doesn’t it all add up that she was threatened?”
These facts are important to the resolution of this case. If defense counsel was laboring under the impression that the evidence had been ruled to be probative for all purposes, then there was no point in requesting a limiting instruction. The government takes the position that the evidence was admissible to prove that the witness had been threatened. Of course the whole point of impeachment is to show that a witness is lacking in credibility. But its purpose is to discredit the witness, not to establish facts in dispute. See United States v. Gilliam, 157 U.S.App.D.C. 375, 484 F.2d 1093 (1973). In the traditional sense impeachment is accomplished by showing former declarations or behavioral patterns on the part of the witness which are inconsistent with answers given by the witness at trial. Here the grand jury testimony was clearly admissible to show that Ms. Morris had made a prior inconsistent statement. It was not necessary therefore for the government to use the testimony to show that the witness had been threatened. Assuming that fear as a motivating factor may be probative to show that a witness is not worthy of belief, the risk here that the jury might use the threat as evidence of wrongdoing on the part of the appellant was so great as to upset the balance of advantage of [the minimum probative value of] receiving it as a fact. See Shepard v. United States, 290 U.S. 96, 54 S.Ct. 22, 78 L.Ed. 196 (1933).2 I believe it was error to use the evidence for this purpose and particularly so because the threat had not been tied to appellant. Cf. Light v. United States, D.C.App., 360 A.2d 479, 481 (1976); United States v. Bussey, 139 U.S.App.D.C. 268, 273, 432 F.2d 1330, 1335 (1970). This *463court has reminded recently that the government may not use otherwise admissible evidence for an impermissible purpose. Ward v. United States, D.C.App., 386 A.2d 1180 (1978).
Moreover, I am satisfied that any prejudice to appellant could not have been harmless. Ms. Morris was a crucial witness as both the government and the court recognized. She was an eyewitness who testified unequivocally that appellant was not the attacker (and despite the fact that other eyewitnesses testified to the same fact) her testimony was damaging to the government because she was a friend — “like a sister” to the victim. The evidence that she had been threatened by appellant’s friends not only effectively destroyed her testimony but undoubtedly had a “spill-over” effect as far as the other defense witnesses were concerned. As for the government’s evidence, this was essentially a one-witness (the victim) identification crime with the problem being not the opportunity to observe (since the victim knew the defendant) but rather the uneasy suggestion in some testimony that the hospitalized victim might be identifying the wrong man as a result of trauma.
This is a troublesome case factually and legally. Cautionary instructions would have provided a much needed safeguard. I respectfully dissent.

. The relevant testimony was as follows:
Q. [By Mr. Bullock, counsel for the Government]: Some friends of Dexter’s threatened you in this case?
A. [Ms. Morris]: No, they didn’t.
Q. Are you sure of that?
A. Yes, I am.
Mr. MC HALE [counsel for appellant]: May we approach the bench? .
THE COURT: What’s the basis for that question?
MR. BULLOCK: She testified to that in the grand jury. She testified she was threatened in the grand jury.
THE COURT: What is the basis?
MR. MC HALE: I have read the testimony and I don’t think she said that. The problem is, there’s no shown connection between that and Mr. Forbes.
MR. BULLOCK: It doesn’t matter. We’re going to hear credibility and state of mind and whether she’s afraid today to testify to the fact that Dexter Forbes did the shooting. It doesn’t matter whether he had any connection with it.
MR. MC HALE: The jury is going to think he did, whether anything is brought out or not. It seems, unless Mr. Bullock is prepared to make the correction that it’s going to cloud the issue for Mr. Forbes.
MR. BULLOCK: She—
THE COURT: She comes in here and testifies that she saw the gunman and it wasn’t Dexter Forbes. Now, in the testimony before the grand jury, if she testified she was afraid—
MR. BULLOCK: She. encountered, personally, some friends of Dexter Forbes and they threatened her and told her that she had better not identify Dexter Forbes.
THE COURT: She told the grand jury this? MR. BULLOCK: Right.
THE COURT: It’s perfectly probative.
MR. MC HALE: My fear is, it’s going to — the jury is going to link it up with Dexter Forbes, when there’s no such link before them.
THE COURT: She provided the link to the grand jury.
MR. MC HALE: Not Dexter Forbes.
THE COURT: She said friends.
MR. BULLOCK: Yes.
THE COURT: I overrule the objection. .
Q. [By Mr. Bullock]: Ms. Morris, I asked you whether it wasn’t a fact some friends of Dexter threatened you.
A. No, they didn’t, because I don’t know any of Dexter Forbes’ friends.
Q. You’re absolutely certain nobody threatened you in this case?
A. No one threatened me.
Q. Do you remember testifying before the grand jury on December 11th, 1973?
A. Yes.
Q. You were under oath at that time?
A. Right.
Q. There were twenty-three or fewer grand jurors there and there was a prosecutor there by the name of Finnegan?
A. Yes.
Q. There was a reporter there?
A. Yes.
Q. And, you testified with respect to the incident, much as you testified today, did you not?
A. Yes.
Q. All right.
You remember this series of questions and answers? I’m going to read and ask you if you remember.
(Reading) “Question: Since that happened on November 4th, have you received any type of threat? Answer: Yes.
“Question: What was the nature of the threat and how did you get the threat? Answer: This dude or friend, I guess, of Dexter walked up to me and told me that if I told anything on Dexter, I would be in trouble and I told him, “Like what, anything like what on Dexter told he shot Clarence or something, and he said yes.”
You went on to say, “I have no reason to lie. He wasn’t down there the night Clarence got shot.”
Do you know the series?
*462A. I don’t remember them asking me did anyone threaten me and I don’t remember answering yes to that.
Q. You don’t remember that?
A. No, I don’t.
Q. Are you denying you said it?
A. I’m not denying. I just don’t remember I said yes to that and him asking me that.
Q. If you were threatened — you would have said no, you were not threatened, if you were asked the question?
A. Yes, I would have said no, because I haven’t been threatened because I don’t know his friends.
Q. If you were asked that question in the grand jury and you gave this answer, you would have been lying under oath?
A. If I would have gave what?
Q. If you had been asked this question and given the answer I told you, then you would have been lying under oath?
A. If I would have said — no.
Q. You said you were not threatened. If you had said that you were, you would have been lying under oath, wouldn’t you?
A. But, I don’t remember saying that. I can’t say whether I’m lying because I don’t remember answering yes to that question.
Q. If you said that, you would have been lying under oath?
A. If I would have said that, yes.
Q. Or is it today?
A.’ What today?
Q. Are you lying under oath today?
A. No, I’m not lying. I have no reason to lie.

. In Shepard, Mr. Justice Cardozo, speaking of rebuttal testimony which spoke (as did the threat here) to a past act by someone not the speaker, to the prejudice of the accused, said:
Discrimination [by the jury to accept for one purpose and reject for another] so subtle is a feat beyond the compass of ordinary minds. The reverberating clang of those accusatory words would drown all weaker sounds. It is for ordinary minds, and not for psychoanalysts, that our rules of evidence are framed. They have their source very often in considerations of administrative convenience, of practical expediency, and not in rules of logic. When the risk of confusion is so great as to upset the balance of advantage, the evidence goes out. [290 U.S. at 104, 54 S.Ct. at 25 (citations omitted).]