Court Opinion

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Date Created: 2023-10-12 14:03:44.809996+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:03:09.657868
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             DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA COURT OF APPEALS

                                 No. 21-CO-0636

                      CARLTON HENDERSON, III, APPELLANT,

                                        V.

                            UNITED STATES, APPELLEE.

                         Appeal from the Superior Court
                          of the District of Columbia
                              (2017-CF2-010911)

     (Hon. Steven N. Berk, Trial Judge; Hon. Julie H. Becker, Remand Judge)

(Argued March 15, 2023                                Decided October 12, 2023)

     Lee R. Goebes, Public Defender Service, with whom Samia Fam and Mikel-
Meredith Weidman, Public Defender Service, were on the briefs, for appellant.

      Bryan H. Han, Assistant United States Attorney, with whom Matthew M.
Graves, United States Attorney, and Chrisellen R. Kolb and John P. Mannarino,
Assistant United States Attorneys, were on the brief, for appellee.

      Before EASTERLY and SHANKER, Associate Judges, and FISHER, Senior Judge.

      Opinion for the court by Associate Judge Easterly.

      Dissenting Opinion by Senior Judge Fisher at page 32.

      EASTERLY, Associate Judge: Carlton Henderson challenges the Superior

Court’s order, on remand from this court, denying his motion to strike the testimony
                                          2

of the sole witness at his suppression hearing as a sanction for government

negligence under the Jencks Act and Super. Ct. Crim. R. 26.2. We hold that (1) the

remand court committed clear error in finding that the government’s actions did not

amount to gross negligence, and (2) in the absence of an argument from the

government to the contrary, striking the officer’s testimony was compelled by our

case law requiring such a sanction upon a finding of gross negligence. We thus

vacate Mr. Henderson’s convictions and again remand this case to the Superior

Court.

                        I.    Facts and Procedural History

         After an individual approached Officer Kirkland Thomas and told him that a

man nearby had a gun in his pants, the police stopped, searched, and arrested Mr.

Henderson on weapons charges in June 2017. 1 Both at his initial appearance and

after, Mr. Henderson requested that all police radio broadcasts (also known as “radio

runs”) be preserved and provided. Prior to trial, Mr. Henderson moved to suppress

the gun and ammunition the police found when they searched him, arguing that the

officers did not have reasonable, articulable suspicion under Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S.

        Mr. Henderson was charged with one count each of violating D.C. Code
         1

§ 22-4503(a)(1) (unlawful possession of a firearm with a prior conviction), D.C.
Code § 7-2502.01(a) (unlawful possession of an unregistered firearm), D.C. Code
§ 7-2506.01(3) (unlawful possession of ammunition), and D.C. Code § 7-2506.01(b)
(possession of a large capacity ammunition feeding device).
                                         3

1 (1968), to stop and search him for weapons. A suppression hearing was held before

the Honorable Steven Berk.

      At the May 2018 suppression hearing, the government called Officer Thomas

as its only witness. The government elicited on direct examination the narrative of

when, where, and how Officer Thomas received a tip from a passerby and broadcast

the tip to other members of his team:

             Q: Were you alone or were you with anybody else at that
             time [that you received the tip]?
             A: At that time, I was alone, because I was going to get
             my lunch.
             ...
             Q: And what did you do with the information that [the
             tipster] provided to you?
             A: I let my other teammates know on our radio channel.
             And at that time, I was going back to the station, because
             I was by myself, and I didn’t want to go in the area by
             myself.

                             *           *            *

             Q: Now, after you received that information, you told us
             that you relayed it to your team?
             A: Yes.
             Q: And after doing that, what did you do?
             A: I went to the station to pick up the rest of my
             teammates, and I went down to the [store the tipster had
             mentioned].

Officer Thomas confirmed on cross-examination that he “broadcasted the lookout

over” his team’s channel “right away” after receiving the tip.
                                           4

      Defense counsel marked as Exhibit 1 a “clip from the radio run provided in

discovery” and played it for Officer Thomas. Counsel and Officer Thomas then had

an exchange in which Officer Thomas informed counsel that Exhibit 1 was the

recording of the voice of a different officer:

             Q: Now, that’s your voice. Correct, Officer?
             A: No.
             Q: That was not your voice?
             A: No.
             Q: I’m going to play it again for you. Okay?
             A: Yes.
             (Whereupon, the tape was played.)
             Q: So it’s your testimony that that’s not your radio
             transmission with the lookout in this case?
             A: Correct. That’s Officer Williams repeating what I am
             saying.

The government did not address on redirect the fact that Exhibit 1 did not appear to

be the recording of Officer Thomas’s radio run.

      After Officer Thomas finished testifying, defense counsel raised the issue of

Officer Thomas’s radio broadcast, arguing that the government had failed to provide

it to the defense as a Jencks statement. 2 Counsel explained that he had expected the

radio run provided by the government and played in court to be “Officer Thomas’[s]

broadcast of the lookout,” but “Officer Thomas testified it was actually Officer

      2
       Jencks Act, 18 U.S.C. § 3500; see also Super. Ct. Crim. R. 26.2(a) (requiring
the government to produce upon request “any statement of the witness that is in their
possession and that relates to . . . the witness’s testimony”).
                                             5

Williams’[s].” Counsel also noted that Officer Thomas had testified that “he

broadcast the lookout to the rest of his team who were at the station,” i.e., when he

was not with Officer Williams. Counsel informed the suppression court that, based

on Officer Thomas’s testimony, “we’re missing a radio run broadcast of Officer

Thomas. . . . [W]e are missing that Jencks.”

       The prosecutor responded both that the government had “turned over fully

what [the government] ha[d],” specifically fifty-nine seconds of recording from

which the defense excerpted the clip it had played, and that “there isn’t anything else

that is out there that we have not turned over.” But the prosecutor also offered to

ask “the officer that specific question[] just to make sure.” The suppression court

ordered a brief recess to allow the prosecutor to speak to Officer Thomas.

       After the recess, defense counsel represented that his team had listened to all

the recordings turned over by the government and had confirmed that none contained

Officer Thomas’s broadcast of the initial lookout. Accordingly, defense counsel

moved to strike Officer Thomas’s testimony as a sanction for the government’s

failure to fulfill its disclosure obligations.

       The prosecutor responded that “there’s no Jencks violation. The radio run

[the government had turned over] is the radio run that the officer was referring to

when he testified.” The prosecutor recounted his conversation with Officer Thomas

during the recess: “I asked the officer was there anything else that he was referring
                                           6

to? He said, ‘No, this is it.’” The prosecutor further represented that the officer had

told him:

             at the point that the defense counsel stopped the
             recording[,] that it goes on, and you actually hear two
             voices on there; and he says that he was talking to Officer
             Williams. And so, defense counsel has the full radio run
             that was made and transmitted. There was nothing else
             that is outstanding . . . .

      Parrying an offer by the suppression court to allow the defense to recall

Officer Thomas to the stand, the defense kept the focus on the government, asking

if the prosecutor had listened to the radio broadcast itself.          The prosecutor

“confirm[ed]” that he had “listened to it yesterday . . . when [he] sent [the recording]

to defense counsel [and] . . . actually pointed [counsel] to the specific time that he

used today”; the prosecutor also stated that “in speaking to the officer this morning,

I played it for him and listened to it again with him this morning,” before court.3

The prosecutor then repeated that the radio run “continues on [past the part defense

counsel played during the hearing], and you hear more than one voice on the radio.”

      Defense counsel told the suppression court and the prosecutor that the fact

that Officer Thomas’s voice was heard after Officer Williams’s voice on this

recording was nonresponsive to the defense’s concerns. Because the “officer’s

      3
        The prosecutor also spoke to Officer Thomas during a recess but did not play
the recording at that time.
                                          7

sworn testimony” that the radio run was Officer Williams “‘[r]epeating the lookout

that [Officer Thomas] had given,’” the defense was “looking for . . . the lookout

before that 59 seconds” (emphasis added) of radio run the government had provided.

       The prosecutor responded by accusing defense counsel of “opening the door

to some sort of witch-hunt for something that does not exist,” and maintained “there

was nothing else that was made outside of what we turned over and what he listened

to[,] . . . [and] [t]he defense was given exactly what was made.” Defense counsel

replied that his argument that a radio run was missing was based on Officer

Thomas’s statements “under oath” which were made after Officer Thomas “listened

to [the disclosed recording]”: “[W]e . . . know[] based on the officer’s sworn

testimony that he broadcast the lookout. We know that there’s a missing lookout. It

is not a witch-hunt. We know from the officer’s testimony.” The prosecutor

reiterated, however, that the radio run that was played “is the only thing that there

is.”

       After further back and forth, the suppression court listened to the entire 59-

second radio run, focusing on the government’s representation that, after Officer

Williams’s broadcast, Officer Thomas’s voice could be heard. Defense counsel

again tried to explain that “we know that Officer Thomas broadcasted a lookout. So

how does Officer Williams get a lookout to repeat if Officer Thomas has not already

broadcasted a lookout prior to this clip? We’re just missing it.” The government
                                         8

again made the observation that “you hear the two different voices on there” and

represented that “that area” was what Officer Thomas had been referring to on the

stand; there was nothing else.

      The suppression court ruled that, “based on both the tape that [it] listened to

and the representations of government counsel” there was no Jencks violation.

Notwithstanding the court’s ruling, defense counsel attempted one last time to help

the court understand that (1) the missing recording was from when “prior to Officer

Williams[] being involved, Officer Thomas was by himself” and “met with the

anonymous tipper”; (2) Officer Thomas “himself broadcasted a lookout. . . . [T]hat

is what we are missing”; and (3) the recording of Officer Williams’s radio run had

to come from a later point in time because Officer Williams had gotten the

information he broadcast from Officer Thomas. The government stood silent, and

the suppression court informed counsel that it was denying the motion to strike

Officer Thomas’s testimony as a sanction for the government’s violation of its

Jencks obligations. Mr. Henderson was convicted that day in a stipulated trial.

      Mr. Henderson appealed the denial of the motion to strike Officer Thomas’s

testimony and this court remanded. Henderson v. United States, No. 18-CF-817,

Mem. Op. & J. at 3 (D.C. Feb. 28, 2020). We directed the Superior Court to “conduct

an evidentiary hearing to determine if a recording of Officer Thomas’s original

description exist[ed],” and to determine the appropriate course of action if the
                                          9

recording had existed “but was subsequently lost or destroyed.” Id. at 3 & n.2.

      The case was assigned to the Honorable Julie Becker on remand. At the May

2021 remand hearing, the government, represented by a different prosecutor, first

called a supervisor from the Transcription Unit of the Office of Unified

Communications, which stores the recordings of all MPD radio transmissions for

three years. The OUC witness testified that in response to a 2020 request from the

remand prosecutor she had searched for radio runs connected to Mr. Henderson’s

case on the secure channel for the seventh district and had only found 59 seconds of

communication. The government then called Officer Thomas. Consistent with his

testimony at the suppression hearing, Officer Thomas testified on direct that he had

communicated the tip for the person with a gun to his fellow officers “[o]ver the

radio.” Although Officer Thomas could not remember if he was alone when he

communicated the tip, he acknowledged on cross that when he testified under oath

at the suppression hearing he “actually . . . remembered what had happened” and he

agreed that “the things that [he] testified to . . . were true.” The government did not

seek to ask Officer Thomas how he could have been alone when he issued the first

lookout but with Officer Williams when a recording was made. But the remand

court did. In response to the court’s questions, Officer Thomas surmised that he

inadvertently set his radio to the wrong channel, which would also have been

recorded, and that when he did not get a response to his lookout, he had repeated it
                                        10

to Officer Williams when they connected in person.

      Asked by the remand court what he thought “the evidence is at this point . . .

regarding the recording,” the prosecutor conceded that there was a missing recording

from before Officer Thomas “met up” with Officer Williams “on [a] channel that

the government did not find and disclose to defense counsel.” In light of this

concession, and the fact that the recording of this 2017 radio run had now been

destroyed per OUC’s retention policy, defense counsel argued that Officer Thomas’s

testimony should be struck as a sanction. Defense counsel did not contend that the

government acted in bad faith. Defense counsel did, however, argue that the

government had been grossly negligent by failing to diligently look for the missing

recording in response either to the defense’s discovery requests prior to the

suppression hearing or to the testimony of its own witness at the suppression

hearing—both points in time before the OUC would have destroyed the recording. 4

      The remand court asked the parties to brief the issue of the appropriate

sanction, but before it ended the hearing, it allowed the government to recall the

OUC witness and the defense to recall Officer Thomas. The OUC witness testified

      4
        The court asked the prosecutor representing the government on remand
about his contact with OUC in 2020, while the case was on appeal the first time.
The prosecutor explained that he had reached out to OUC to ensure that the
government had not missed anything on the seventh district channel, but he did not
speak to Officer Thomas at this time and did not do so until the court scheduled the
remand hearing.
                                          11

that there are “maybe about 100 channels that [are] out there” but that some of these

channels “are not consistently used on a daily basis”; and, although it would be time

consuming, if they had been able to get more specifics about who had made the

broadcast when and under what circumstances, OUC could have located a recording

of it. Officer Thomas testified that given the setup of his radio, if he “accidentally

switched to another channel” using the buttons on the device, he would have

switched to “[o]ne of five or six other channels”; but if he switched zones using the

dial at the top, he might have accessed 80-100 channels.

      As directed by the remand court, the parties submitted in writing their

arguments about whether the government had been grossly negligent, which the

defense asserted would require the court to strike Officer Thomas’s testimony. The

remand court subsequently issued an order concluding that the government had

failed to fulfill its Jencks obligations. Specifically, the court found that “there was,

in fact, another recording of Officer Thomas’s lookout, made prior to the one the

government played at the suppression hearing” but “that recording [of Officer

Thomas’s broadcast] has been destroyed pursuant to the government’s regular

retention policy.”

      The remand court also found that “both the police and the prosecutor were

negligent in failing to discover the error before or during the hearing on the motion

to suppress.” The court stated that:
                                          12

      [g]iven Officer Thomas’s testimony – that he broadcast the lookout
      immediately upon receiving the tip – the government should have
      realized that the radio run it produced, which contained Officer
      Williams’s lookout, was not the only recording in this case. This was
      especially so after defense counsel raised the point at the suppression
      hearing, prompting the prosecutor and Officer Thomas to examine the
      issue again. Had the government followed the point to its logical
      conclusion, it would have known to look for the first recording at the
      OUC. And, as it acknowledges, had the government looked for the
      other radio run it likely would have found it, albeit with some difficulty.

(internal quotation marks and citation omitted).

      Although the remand court quantified this negligence as “significant,” the

court declined to find that the government was grossly negligent. The remand court

reasoned that “[t]he issue of the missing radio run here arose in the middle of the

suppression hearing, and appears to have confounded not only the officer and the

prosecutor, but also the trial court.” Contrasting this scenario with the government’s

loss of physical evidence of “obvious significance” in violation of Rule 16 in Smith

v. United States, 169 A.3d 887, 893 (D.C. 2017), the court found the existence of a

missing radio run was “not ‘obvious,’” and did not become so until the remand

hearing. (The remand court also noted that Officer Thomas’s testimony about

broadcasting on the wrong channel “shed[] light on why both he and the prosecutor

believed there were no additional radio runs.”) After weighing the degree of

negligence, the importance of the evidence lost, and the totality of the evidence

adduced at the suppression hearing, the remand court found that the “balance of

factors” did not warrant sanctions even if the government had been grossly
                                         13

negligent. Mr. Henderson timely appealed.

                                   II.   Analysis

      The government has “an affirmative duty” under the Jencks Act, 18 U.S.C.

§ 3500(b), and Super. Ct. Crim. R. 26.2 “to preserve ‘statements’ of its witnesses

and, upon motion of the defendant, to disclose and produce those statements” which

relate to the subject of their testimony. Slye v. United States, 602 A.2d 135, 138

(D.C. 1992); see also Robinson v. United States, 825 A.2d 318, 325-26 & n.4 (D.C.

2003). “The purpose of the Jencks Act is to aid in the search for truth by permitting

access to prior statements of government witnesses for possible impeachment.”

Slye, 602 A.2d at 138 (internal quotation marks omitted); see also United States v.

Perry, 471 F.2d 1057, 1062 n.21 (D.C. Cir. 1972). “That purpose is frustrated when

the government . . . allows potential Jencks Act statements to be needlessly

destroyed or lost,” Slye, 602 A.2d at 138, and the government bears the “heavy

burden . . . to explain the loss of” any Jencks material. Robinson, 825 A.2d at 330.

When the government violates its Jencks obligation, the trial court typically has

discretion to craft appropriate sanctions depending on, among other things, the

government’s degree of negligence and the importance of the lost evidence. Id. at

331. If the government’s culpability in the loss of Jencks material rises to the level

of gross negligence or bad faith, however, this court has said “the trial court must

exclude the . . . testimony” of the witness whose statement was lost. United States
                                           14

v. Jackson, 450 A.2d 419, 427 (D.C. 1982) (citing Johnson v. United States, 298

A.2d 516, 520 (D.C. 1972)); see also Jones v. United States, 535 A.2d 409, 411-12

& n.10 (D.C. 1987) (upholding imposition of missing evidence instruction where the

court found less than gross negligence but noting that “[i]f more was involved,

striking would have been mandatory”).

      On appeal Mr. Henderson argues that, just as in Smith, “two responsible

government departments,” 169 A.3d at 894—the police and the prosecution—failed

to take the necessary steps to preserve and produce the recording of Officer

Thomas’s radio run, and thus the court should have concluded the government was

grossly negligent.    Mr. Henderson further argues that this case is “far more

egregious” than Smith, because the prosecution obfuscated the recording’s existence

while there was still time to find it before it was destroyed, by “offering the logically

impossible explanation that the radio run Officer Thomas was talking about was

given after the Williams lookout.” Mr. Henderson argues that, as a result of this

gross negligence, striking Officer Thomas’s testimony at Mr. Henderson’s

suppression hearing was the required sanction; but even if a discretionary assessment

of sanctions was warranted, anything less than striking Officer Thomas’s testimony

would be unreasonable. The government has not contested that a determination of

gross negligence would require Officer Thomas’s testimony at the suppression

hearing to be struck. The government argues only that its negligence in failing to
                                          15

produce the recording of Officer Thomas’s radio run did not rise to the level of gross

negligence and that, in light of the government’s ordinary negligence, the remand

court reasonably exercised its discretion not to impose a sanction.

      A.     Whether the Government’s Conduct Was Grossly Negligent

      In a number of cases, this court has said that “[d]etermination by a trial court

regarding the degree of negligence involved in the loss of Jencks material is a finding

of fact which we will not disturb on appeal unless ‘clearly erroneous.’” See Jones

v. United States, 535 A.2d at 411; accord Slye, 602 A.2d at 139. The “ultimate

inquiry” of “appl[ying] the controlling legal standard to the historical facts,” see

Thompson v. Keohane, 516 U.S. 99, 112-13 (1995) (internal quotation marks

omitted), may well be more appropriately termed a mixed question of fact and law

that we review de novo. See Socash v. Addison Crane Co., 346 F.2d 420, 422 (D.C.

Cir. 1965) (Bazelon, C.J., concurring) (internal quotation marks omitted) (opining

that “ultimate determinations, such as negligence vel non, are mixed questions of

law and fact freely reviewable on appeal”); cf. Miller v. United States, 14 A.3d 1094,

1121-23 (D.C. 2011) (concluding that the trial court’s determination of whether

evidence was suppressed for Brady purposes involved the “legal consequences of

the undisputed historical facts” and so was not entitled to appellate deference). But

we need not divert our attention to that question in this case because we conclude

that the remand court’s determination of less-than-gross negligence on this record
                                          16

was clearly erroneous. 5 See Lawrence v. United States, 566 A.2d 57, 60 (D.C. 1989)

(explaining “the judge’s factual findings will not be disturbed unless they are clearly

erroneous, i.e., without substantial support in the record.”); see also D.C. Code

§ 17-305(a) (granting this court authority to overturn factual determinations that are

“plainly wrong or without evidence to support [them]”).

      The remand court found that “both the police and the prosecutor were

negligent in failing to discover” that the government did not have Officer Thomas’s

      5
        This court has not articulated a standard definition of gross negligence in the
Jencks or Rule 16 sanctions context, and we do not attempt to do so in this case. We
focus instead on the particular record facts. Although the government relies on
Atkinson v. District of Columbia, 281 A.3d 568, 571 (D.C. 2022), this court has not
resolved whether to embrace civil negligence standards when assessing whether to
impose sanctions for discovery violations in criminal cases. See Crocker v. United
States, 253 A.3d 146, 159 & n.39 (D.C. 2021) (declining to apply civil standards to
evidentiary issues in a criminal case, but not deciding what constitutes gross
negligence in the Rule 16 context). But see Battocchi v. Wash. Hosp. Ctr., 581 A.2d
759, 766-67 (D.C. 1990) (importing standards for missing evidence instructions
from the Jencks context into the civil context). Moreover, the government provides
no explanation why the particular definition of gross negligence discussed in
Atkinson, regarding governmental liability for emergency vehicle accidents under
D.C. Code § 2-412, should apply in this case. Atkinson, 281 A.3d at 570-71. This
standard is only one of many. And for that reason, gross negligence in tort law has
been called “a legal twilight zone which exists somewhere between ordinary
negligence and intentional injury,” Blain LeCesne, Crude Decisions: Re-examining
Degrees of Negligence in the Context of the BP Oil Spill, 2012 Mich. St. L. Rev.
103, 122, 129 (2012) (internal quotation marks omitted), ranging from “a lack of
even slight diligence or care” to “a conscious, voluntary act or omission in reckless
disregard of a legal duty and of the consequences to another party,” Negligence,
Black’s Law Dictionary (11th ed. 2019).
                                          17

recording to provide to the defense, but the government’s collective conduct did not

amount to gross negligence because “the issue of the missing radio run . . . arose in

the middle of the suppression hearing, and . . . confounded” both Officer Thomas

and the prosecutor at the suppression hearing. 6 Based on its findings that the

existence of the recording was “not ‘obvious,’” the remand court, citing Smith v.

United States, 169 A.3d 887 (D.C. 2017), 7 concluded that the government actors

involved could not be grossly negligent for failing to investigate further until it was

too late to save the recording from being destroyed. The record does not support

these findings.

      6
         The remand court further observed that the issue “confounded . . . the trial
court,” but that is not a mitigating factor in assessing the government’s negligence
on this record. As discussed below, the suppression court’s confusion is attributable
at least in part to the misdirection the court received from the prosecution.
Nevertheless, the suppression court had an “affirmative duty to conduct an
independent inquiry into the existence of Jencks material,” Lazo v. United States, 54
A.3d 1221, 1232 (D.C. 2012) (internal quotation marks omitted) (quoting Flores v.
United States, 698 A.2d 474, 481 (D.C. 1997)), and its failure to fulfill that
obligation necessitated a remand.
      7
        Although we agree that the obviousness of the existence of another recording
is an appropriate consideration in assessing the government’s negligence in this case,
the “obviousness” consideration in Smith, a Rule 16 case, related to a different issue:
the evidentiary import of the destroyed physical evidence (a pair of shorts in which
drugs were found). See Smith, 169 A.3d at 893-84. Here the evidentiary import of
the recording of Officer Thomas’s broadcast was established by the Jencks Act, see
supra note 2, and Super. Ct. Crim. R. 26.2(f)(2) (defining a statement subject to
disclosure under the rule to include “a substantially verbatim, contemporaneously
recorded recital of the witness’s oral statement”) and was not contested.
                                         18

      Although the existence of a missing recording was fully exposed by defense

counsel at the suppression hearing, to say the issue “arose” at that time overlooks

the government’s obligation before a court proceeding to locate, preserve, and

produce the statements of its witnesses. Slye, 602 A.2d at 138 (explaining that the

Jencks Act “imposes an affirmative duty upon the government to preserve

‘statements’ of its witnesses and, upon motion of the defendant, to disclose and

produce those statements”). Thus, the issue “arose” when defense counsel requested

that all police radio runs be preserved, or, at the latest, the day before the hearing

when the prosecutor obtained the recording of Officer Williams’s 59-second

broadcast—the recording that could not have been Jencks for the witness the

government intended to put on the stand, Officer Thomas.

      Nor did any evidence come to light at the remand hearing that made it newly

clear that the recording of Officer Thomas’s broadcast was missing. To the contrary,

the evidence at the remand hearing regarding the government’s knowledge of the

existence of a missing recording was precisely the same as it had been at the

suppression hearing. Consequently, it was just as obvious at the suppression hearing

that the government had not done—and continued not to do—what was necessary to

locate the recording.

      In particular, we see no evidence supporting either the remand court’s finding

that the suppression prosecutor was “confounded” or its assessment that he “believed
                                          19

there were no additional radio runs.” Because the government did not call the

suppression prosecutor to testify at the remand hearing, but see Robinson, 825 A.2d

at 330 (explaining the government bears the “heavy burden . . . to explain the loss

of” any Jencks material), the only evidence of his state of mind is from the transcript

of the suppression hearing, the review of which led the remand court to conclude

that the prosecutor should have realized the government had not fulfilled its Jencks

obligation, i.e., there was no basis for any confusion. There is no point in that

transcript at which the suppression prosecutor expressed confusion, nor did the

prosecutor act confused. Rather he ignored the evidence, he did not ask questions,

and he attacked the only person (defense counsel) who did.

      Both Officer Thomas’s testimony that he was alone when he broadcast the

anonymous tip and defense counsel’s cross-examination of Officer Thomas

establishing that his voice was not on the recording produced by the government

could not have made more plain that the recording of Officer Thomas’ broadcast

was missing. But the prosecutor’s immediate response was to deny there was

anything else to turn over. To be sure, the prosecutor volunteered to speak to Officer

Thomas and subsequently represented to the court that the officer had told him

during a recess that the broadcast to which the officer had been referring in his

testimony was the broadcast Officer Williams made in Officer Thomas’s presence.

This could not be squared with Officer Thomas’s sworn testimony, however, as
                                         20

defense counsel immediately pointed out. And, if in fact it was what Officer Thomas

told the prosecutor—but we note the prosecutor did not call Officer Thomas back to

the stand 8—it should have prompted a confused prosecutor to ask probing questions

to get to the bottom of the matter (as was ultimately done at the remand hearing),

instead of to simply accept an explanation that was patently illogical. Lastly, when

defense counsel continued to press the already clear points that the recording the

government had provided could not be Jencks for Officer Thomas, the prosecutor’s

explanation that the recording produced was the one about which Officer Thomas

had testified could not be correct, and thus a recording was missing, the prosecutor

did not indicate that he did not understand the operative facts. 9 Instead, he reacted

      8
        Given that this proffer did not align with Officer Thomas’s testimony at the
suppression hearing (or at the remand hearing reaffirming the truth of his
suppression hearing testimony), the government should have put Officer Thomas
back on the stand at the suppression hearing if it wanted to rely on his out-of-court
statements. Cf. Johnson v. United States, 347 F.2d 803, 805 (D.C. Cir. 1965) (“It is
elementary . . . that counsel may not premise arguments on evidence which has not
been admitted.”). The government asserts, however, that “[t]he prosecutor . . .
offered to recall Officer Thomas for further inquiry, which defense counsel
declined.” This is factually wrong; the court offered defense counsel that
opportunity. See supra Part I. It is also legally irrelevant because it is the
government’s burden to preserve evidence and disprove potential Jencks violations
once the defense makes a prima facie case that Jencks material has not been
produced. See Williams v. United States, 355 A.2d 784, 788 (D.C. 1976).
      9
        The fact that it did not become clear until the remand hearing what had
happened to the missing recording is beside the point. It was clear at the suppression
hearing that the recording was missing, and had the prosecutor accepted that fact, he
could have made the necessary inquiries to find it before its destruction. The obvious
                                          21

first by attacking defense counsel for doing their job, and then by making the

nonresponsive assertion that the government had produced the only recording it had

located. We thus see no foundation for the remand court’s determination that the

prosecutor was “confounded” or that he legitimately “believed” there was nothing

else to turn over under Jencks.

      Our dissenting colleague cites Anderson v. City of Bessemer City for the

proposition that “[w]here there are two permissible views of the evidence, the

factfinder’s choice between them cannot be clearly erroneous,” 470 U.S. 564, 574

(1985). But that principle only comes into play when there is some substantial

evidence pointing in different directions. See Johnson v. United States, 232 A.3d

156, 167-68 (D.C. 2020) (explaining “[a] finding is clearly erroneous when although

there is evidence to support it, the reviewing court on the entire evidence is left with

the definite and firm conviction that a mistake has been committed” but that “[w]here

there are two permissible views of the evidence, the factfinder’s choice between

them cannot be clearly erroneous”) (quoting United States v. United States Gypsum

Co., 333 U.S. 364, 394-95 (1948) and Anderson, 470 U.S. at 574) (emphasis added)).

Here our point is that the government had put forward no evidence to support the

first step would have been to review the five or six channels Officer Thomas testified
at the remand hearing he might have switched to by pressing the wrong button on
his radio.
                                          22

remand court’s particular finding that the prosecutor was confounded, and our law

is clear that the absence of supporting evidence for factual findings constitutes a

basis to disregard them. See Lawrence, 566 A.2d at 60 (explaining that “the judge’s

factual findings will not be disturbed unless they are clearly erroneous, i.e., without

substantial support in the record”); see also Hawkins v. United States, 663 A.2d

1221, 1225 (D.C. 1995) (“We are bound by the trial court’s factual findings unless

clearly erroneous or not supported by the evidence.” (internal citation omitted)

(emphasis in the original)).

      Instead of being confounded, the suppression hearing transcript shows that the

prosecutor failed to take the steps he should have taken to obtain the recording of

Officer Thomas’s broadcast, actively disregarded evidence that it was missing, and

sowed confusion in the wake of his negligence. First, the prosecutor, who told the

suppression court that he had met with Officer Thomas before the suppression

hearing and listened to the 59-second recording of Officer Williams’s radio run at

least twice—once before he turned it over to the defense, and then with Officer

Thomas—should have known that this recording could not be Jencks for Officer

Thomas: even if the prosecutor could not distinguish Officer Thomas’s voice from

Officer Williams’s and even if he had not been told by Officer Thomas that his voice

was not on the recording, the prosecutor should have known that a recording with

two voices on it could not be the recording of Officer Thomas’s solo broadcast.
                                           23

Second, the prosecutor failed to acknowledge on his own that the produced recording

was not Jencks material for Officer Thomas after the officer testified at the

suppression hearing that the radio run played by defense counsel was “not [his] radio

transmission with the lookout in this case”; he had been “alone . . . going to get [his]

lunch” when he got the tip about the person with the gun; and he had broadcast the

tip to his “teammates . . . [as he] was going back to the station, because [he] was by

[him]self, and [he] didn’t want to go in the area by [him]self.” Third, the suppression

prosecutor refused to accept that the recording of Officer Thomas’s broadcast was

missing once defense counsel pointed it out. As the remand court found, the

prosecutor should have realized the recording of Officer Williams’s lookout:

      was not the only recording in this case. . . . especially . . . after defense
      counsel raised the point at the suppression hearing. . . . Had the
      government followed the point to its logical conclusion, . . . it would
      have known to look for the first recording at the OUC.

(emphasis added) (internal quotation marks omitted). Fourth, instead of following

the point to its “logical conclusion,” the prosecutor went in the opposite direction

and pursued an illogical argument: the prosecutor argued that the radio run Officer

Thomas testified to making alone and the radio run later made by Officer Williams

with Officer Thomas at his side were one and the same. This simply could not be,

as defense counsel pointed out. Fifth, the prosecutor then attacked defense counsel

for pointing out the illogic of his argument and accused counsel of “opening the door

to some sort of witch-hunt for something that does not exist” when defense counsel
                                          24

was simply zealously advocating for the discovery to which Mr. Henderson was

clearly entitled based on the sworn testimony of the government’s own witness.

Sixth, the prosecutor’s argument confounded the suppression court, leading to the

court’s erroneous determination that no Jencks violation had occurred.

      As we discuss further below, this conduct, in our view, is sufficient to support

a finding of gross negligence and the court should have found so here. But, for

completeness, we consider the trial court’s findings regarding Officer Thomas. As

with the prosecutor, we conclude that there is no evidence that Officer Thomas was

confounded by the missing radio run. Indeed, there is evidence to the contrary. At

the suppression hearing he testified very clearly on direct examination that he was

alone when he made his broadcast and on cross examination that the 59-second

recording the prosecution had turned over to the defense was not his voice. The

missing Jencks issue was not discussed until after Officer Thomas finished

testifying. At that point, the prosecutor did not seek to recall Officer Thomas to ask

him about a missing recording under oath. The prosecutor merely proffered to the

court that Officer Thomas had told him there was no recording other than Officer

Williams’s. This is not evidence. Cf. Johnson, 347 F.2d at 805 (“It is elementary . . .

that counsel may not premise arguments on evidence which has not been admitted.”).

Where the government never put Officer Thomas back on the stand at the

suppression hearing to explore the issue of the missing recording and never elicited
                                         25

any testimony on remand to demonstrate that he had been confused about its

existence, the remand court should not have attributed any confusion to Officer

Thomas, particularly given that when he did take the stand again at the remand

hearing, he readily explained that the reason the broadcast had not been found on the

seventh district channel was likely because he had accidentally switched radio

channels.

      But just as there is no evidence that Officer Thomas was confused, there is

very little in the way of evidence regarding what Officer Thomas did or did not do

to preserve and produce the recording of his broadcast. Officer Thomas never

testified either at the suppression hearing or the remand hearing about when he first

learned that the prosecution was looking for a recording of his broadcast, what he

had done or not done to help the prosecution find it, or when he first listened to the

59-second recording of Officer Williams’s broadcast that was turned over to defense

counsel. And again he was never asked at the remand hearing about the statements

the prosecutor had attributed to him via proffer at the remand hearing. In the absence

of such testimony, there is not much in the way of support for the conclusion that

Officer Thomas was negligent beyond accidentally broadcasting on the wrong

channel (which did not impede his broadcast from being recorded and preserved),

an act which seems more appropriately characterized as a mere “mishap all of us
                                         26

may encounter,” as opposed to gross negligence. (Earl W.) Jones v. United States,

343 A.2d 346, 349 n.6, 352 (D.C. 1975) (internal quotation marks omitted).

      We acknowledge that the government has not challenged the remand court’s

determination that Officer Thomas was negligent. Nevertheless, we are reluctant to

endorse Mr. Henderson’s argument that the loss of Officer Thomas’s recorded

broadcast was attributable to the combined negligence of two government entities—

the police and the prosecution—and that a finding of gross negligence was thus

compelled pursuant to Smith.      Instead, we view Smith as informative and as

supporting a more general proposition that repeated acts of negligence attributable

to the government, taken together, may amount to gross negligence. In Smith, the

negligent acts were attributable to two separate government actors: neither the police

nor the prosecutor preserved clothing in which the drugs the defendant was charged

with possessing were found, though they both had opportunities to do so. Smith, 169

A.3d at 893-94. In Mr. Henderson’s case, the prosecutor alone repeatedly neglected

his duty under Jencks. We conclude that this was “no less than gross negligence,”

just as in Smith. Id. at 894.

      We buttress this determination by looking to our ordinary negligence cases in

the Jencks context. Although these cases do not establish a bright line divide

between ordinary and gross negligence, the government’s actions in this case far

surpass the “mishaps” deemed ordinary negligence in our case law. See (Earl W.)
                                          27

Jones, 343 A.2d at 349 n.6, 352 (officer was unable to find notes months later

although he had taken steps to “safeguard” them); see also, e.g., Woodall v. United

States, 684 A.2d 1258, 1260 n.3, 1261 (D.C. 1996) (officer followed protocol to turn

in contact card but department was later unable to find it after thorough search);

Moore v. United States, 353 A.2d 16, 19 (D.C. 1976) (officer generally stored notes

in his locker but later could not find them). Here, there were aggravating factors:

the prosecutor actively disregarded that more steps were required to find and produce

the missing radio run even when he was confronted with facts and argument at the

suppression hearing that made the need for further action patently clear; he put

forward an illogical argument as to why nothing was missing and wrongly accused

defense counsel of pursuing a “witch-hunt”; and his denial of the existence of the

recording of Officer Thomas’s broadcast led to its destruction. As both the remand

court and the government acknowledged, if the government had taken steps to find

the radio run at the time of the suppression hearing, it “likely would have found it.”

      We disagree with the government that our decision in Slye v. United States,

should compel us to put this case on the ordinary negligence side of the line. In Slye,

the prosecutor took no action in response to a defense request for recordings of 911

calls by the complainant and those recordings were destroyed. 602 A.2d at 137. On

appeal, we concluded that the record supported a determination that “the

government’s failure to produce was the result of negligence but not gross
                                         28

negligence or willful misconduct.” Id. at 139. But we noted that “we [were] deeply

disturbed by the indifference shown by the government in its failure to preserve

discoverable evidence.” Id. at 138. The government argues that because the

prosecutor took action in Mr. Henderson’s case, his conduct cannot be deemed worse

than the prosecutor’s complete failure to act in Slye. To the contrary, Slye only

reinforces our conclusion of gross negligence in Mr. Henderson’s case. Unlike in

Slye, the prosecutor here did not just fail to act in time for the radio run to be

preserved; the government repeatedly denied that there was anything to further

investigate or preserve in the face of conflicting sworn testimony by its witness. The

government’s active resistance to its Jencks obligation pushed its “indifference” over

the threshold of “deeply disturb[ing]” into the realm of gross negligence. Slye, 602

A.2d at 138.

                           B.     Appropriate Sanction

      We review the remand court’s choice of sanction for abuse of discretion. See

Robinson, 825 A.2d at 331-32.       The remand court erroneously quantified the

government’s negligence as merely “significant,” but, citing Smith, a Rule 16 case,

noted that even if the government had exhibited gross negligence, striking Officer

Thomas’s testimony as Mr. Henderson requested “would not necessarily follow.” In

making this ruling, the court did not address clear statements of law from our Jencks
                                           29

cases, cited by Mr. Henderson, uncontested by the government, 10 and based in the

language of the statute itself, 11 that require a court to strike a witness’s testimony in

its entirety once there is a finding that Jencks material has been lost or destroyed as

a result of gross negligence. See Jackson, 450 A.2d at 427 (per curiam) (“Where the

loss is a result of bad faith or gross negligence, the trial court must exclude the

witness’[s] testimony.”) (citing Johnson, 298 A.2d at 520); see also Jones v. United

States, 535 A.2d at 411 n.10 (“If more [than ordinary negligence] was involved,

striking would have been mandatory.”). As the trial court’s decision not to strike

Officer Thomas’ testimony fell outside the conceded “range of permissible

alternatives,” Johnson v. United States, 398 A.2d 354, 365 (D.C. 1979), and the

government has not argued that the court’s refusal to strike the testimony of Officer

Thomas—the only witness who it called to testify at the suppression hearing—was

harmless, see id. at 366 (recognizing harm is a component of an abuse of discretion

analysis); Hairston v. United States, 908 A.2d 1195, 1199-1200 (D.C. 2006) (per

      10
         As noted above, the government’s arguments against sanctions are premised
on the assumption that it committed only ordinary negligence.
      11
         18 U.S.C. § 3500(d) (“If the United States elects not to comply with an
order of the court . . . the court shall strike from the record the testimony of the
witness . . . .”); Super. Ct. Crim. R. 26.2(e) (“If the party who called the witness
disobeys an order to produce[,] . . . the court must strike the witness’s testimony
from the record.”); see also Perry, 471 F.2d at 1063 (rejecting a “literal” reading of
“elects not to comply” and interpreting it as a “purposive or negligent act on the part
of the Government which [leads to] . . . the loss or destruction of documents which
otherwise the Government could be compelled to produce”).
                                           30

curiam) (government may waive harmlessness where it is not obvious), we conclude

the court abused its discretion.

                                   III.   Conclusion

      For the foregoing reasons, we remand to the trial court to strike Officer

Thomas’s testimony, vacate Mr. Henderson’s convictions, and conduct further

proceedings consistent with this opinion.

                                                             So ordered.

      FISHER, Senior Judge, dissenting: If I were a trial judge, I might well decide

to strike the testimony of Officer Thomas. That would be a reasonable decision

based on this record. But I am not a trial judge, and my colleagues in the majority

are not either. It seems to me that they have reached their decision based on a

combination of appellate fact-finding and de novo review.

      The Supreme Court has instructed “that the administration of the Jencks Act

must be entrusted to the ‘good sense and experience’ of the trial judges subject to

‘appropriately limited review of appellate courts.’” United States v. Augenblick, 393

U.S. 348, 355 (1969) (quoting Palermo v. United States, 360 U.S. 343, 353 (1959)).

Our own cases confirm that our review should be limited. Thus, “[t]he decision

whether or not to impose sanctions for Jencks Act violations, as well as the choice

of sanctions, is within the trial court’s discretion. Its decision either way will not be
                                           31

overturned on appeal unless the appellant can show that this discretion has been

abused.” Slye v. United States, 602 A.2d 135, 138 (D.C. 1992) (citing Jones v.

United States, 535 A.2d 409, 411 (D.C. 1987)).

      “Discretion signifies choice,” and “[t]he concept of ‘exercise of discretion’ is

a review-restraining one.” Johnson v. United States, 398 A.2d 354, 361-62 (D.C.

1979). Because Judge Becker did a careful and conscientious job of complying with

our remand order, and considered the proper factors, I cannot agree that she abused

her discretion in deciding not to strike the officer’s testimony.

      The majority concludes to the contrary by saying that the government was

guilty of gross negligence and that the trial court therefore had no choice but to strike

the testimony. But here, again, our review is limited. “Determination by a trial court

regarding the degree of negligence involved in the loss of Jencks material is a finding

of fact which we will not disturb on appeal unless it is clearly erroneous.” Jones,

535 A.2d at 411 (internal quotation marks omitted).            Although the majority

acknowledges this standard of review, it fails to apply it correctly.

      The clearly erroneous “standard plainly does not entitle a reviewing court to

reverse the finding of the trier of fact simply because it is convinced that it would

have decided the case differently.” Anderson v. City of Bessemer City, 470 U.S. 564,
                                         32

573 (1985). “[A]ppellate courts must constantly have in mind that their function is

not to decide factual issues de novo.” Id. (internal quotation marks omitted).

      According to the majority, there was no evidence to support the trial court’s

finding that the prosecutor was “confounded” during the suppression hearing or the

court’s assessment that he believed there were no additional radio runs. It is true

that the prosecutor did not say that he was confused, but that does not mean that he

wasn’t.    Perhaps the prosecutor should not have been confounded, but the

transcript of the hearing certainly suggests that he was not thinking clearly.1

More to the point, the majority relies upon the very same record to conclude that

the prosecutor was not “confounded.” The Supreme Court has cautioned that

“[w]here there are two permissible views of the evidence, the factfinder’s choice

between them cannot be clearly erroneous.” Bessemer City, 470 U.S. at 574.

      We should adhere to the standards that govern our review and should affirm

the trial court’s decision.

      1
        Defense counsel did not claim that the prosecutor was acting in bad faith,
and Judge Becker concluded that there was no basis for a finding of bad faith. The
majority does not assert otherwise.