Brown v. United States

• Decision Date: 19 December 1979
• Docket Number: No. 12161.,12161.
• Citation: 409 A.2d 1093
• Parties: James A. BROWN, Appellant, v. UNITED STATES, Appellee.
• Court: D.C. Court of Appeals

409 A.2d 1093

James A. BROWN, Appellant, v. UNITED STATES, Appellee.

No. 12161.

District of Columbia Court of Appeals.

Argued October 11, 1978.

Decided December 19, 1979.

Thomas W. Ullrich, Alexandria, Va., appointed by this court, for appellant.

Michael W. Farrell, Asst. U. S. Atty., Washington, D. C., with whom Earl J. Silbert, U. S. Atty., Washington, D. C., at the time the brief was filed, John A. Terry, Steven R. Schaars and Joseph B. Valder, Asst. U. S. Attys., Washington, D. C., were on brief, for appellee.

Before NEBEKER and FERREN, Associate Judges, and YEAGLEY, Associate Judge, Retired.

YEAGLEY, Associate Judge, Retired:

A jury found appellant guilty of rape (D.C. Code 1973, § 22-2801). On appeal, he asserts reversible error was committed because (1) he was denied his right to call witnesses in his own behalf and to provide exculpatory evidence; and (2) his Sixth Amendment right to confrontation was unconstitutionally abridged by the trial court's undue limitation of his right to impeach the complainant's credibility by cross-examination. We have considered appellant's claims and find no errors nor abuse of discretion which warrant reversal. Accordingly, we affirm his conviction.

Appellant and Joseph Wormley were friends of the complainant's husband. On March 5th and 6th, 1976, both appellant and Wormley stayed at the complainant's apartment, sleeping in the living room while complainant and her husband slept in their bedroom, Early in the morning of March 7, complainant's husband, appellant, and Wormley left the apartment together. Complainant's husband never returned and was later found murdered in Virginia.¹

At trial, the complainant testified that later the same day, but before she knew of her husband's death, appellant returned to her apartment. With her permission, he stayed in the apartment for the next two days, sleeping on the living room sofa. During that time he made various statements to her concerning the whereabouts of her husband, although at no time did he tell her that her husband was dead. As time passed, the combination of her husband's continued absence and appellant's changing stories about the cause of his absence made her afraid and suspicious of appellant. On March 8, at approximately 8:00 p. m., she and appellant argued briefly but violently over her husband's whereabouts. Suddenly appellant attacked and raped her. During the attack appellant choked her, the choking causing her to bleed heavily from her mouth and throat.

After the rape, appellant heard voices in the hallway outside the apartment including the voice of the victim's sister-in-law. She screamed for help but once more appellant choked her, again causing her to bleed from her nose and mouth, and this time also making her lose consciousness. When she awoke, she again heard her sister-in-law and another woman calling to her and knocking at her bedroom window. She went to the front door of the apartment and let them in. Apparently appellant had left by then, but because the complainant was unsure of his departure, she was afraid to tell the other two women what had happened to her. In the meantime, her sisters-in-law helped the complainant bathe and dress. Then she and the other woman took complainant to the house of complainant's mother-in-law. On the drive there, complainant told the two women she had been raped by "Ambrose," which is appellant's nickname.

The complainant learned of her husband's murder shortly after she arrived at her mother-in-law's. By then, the police had been summoned and they arrived soon thereafter.

Complainant's sister-in-law and her companion testified at appellant's trial. Their testimony corroborated those portions of the complainant's testimony regarding the events which transpired from the time complainant first heard their voices outside her apartment, including the fact that they heard complainant's screams. In addition, both women testified that before entering the apartment building they saw a man walking away from it. Each woman noticed his clothes and later was able to give a general description of him to the police, but neither woman saw his face or was otherwise able to identify him.²

The results of the police investigation of the alleged rape were presented at trial, including photographs of the apartment as it looked immediately after the attack, photographs of complainant's injuries, and photographs of the bed sheets and bedspread. The police testified that when they arrested appellant one day later, they found blood stains on his shirt, pants and shoes, and that he had scratch marks on the back of his hands that could have been made by fingernails. Dr. Maria Peterson, who was qualified by the court as an expert in gynecology and obstetrics,³ testified that she had examined the complainant on March 8th after the alleged rape, and found her nervous, agitated, and angry, and had discovered injuries to her neck and eyes which were caused by a "tremendous amount of pressure" applied to the blood vessels of her neck. There also was testimony as to the presence of intact sperm within her vagina after the rape. In the doctor's opinion, the complainant was the victim of forced vaginal intercourse.

An FBI special agent, an expert in forensic seriology, testified that blood discovered on appellant's clothing after his arrest could have come from either appellant or the complainant. Another special agent, an expert in forensic analysis and identification of hair and fiber, testified that foreign pubic hair mixed with pubic hair taken from the complainant matched a sample of pubic hair later taken from appellant. In addition, both sides stipulated that numerous fingerprints of appellant were found throughout the apartment.

I. THE ATTEMPT TO PRESENT EXCULPATORY EVIDENCE.

In light of the overwhelming evidence that appellant and the complainant had engaged in sexual intercourse, appellant presented an alternative defense at trial to the effect that the complainant had consented to their intercourse, and if she was raped it was after their liaison and by someone else, most probably Joseph Wormley. As part of the effort to establish these defenses, appellant's counsel alerted the trial judge that he wished to call Joseph Wormley as a defense witness to testify that at the funeral of complainant's husband, the complainant had seen Wormley and became hysterical. Wormley had already testified as a government witness in its case-in-chief and had stated that appellant told him that he, appellant, was going to. "take the place" of complainant's husband. Both Wormley and the complainant had also testified that Wormley had returned to complainant's apartment before she allegedly was raped by appellant, and that at that time appellant was asleep on the living room couch. The trial judge refused to allow Wormley to testify for the defense, ruling that his proffered testimony was ambiguous and irrelevant and thus not probative.

Appellant claims that Wormley's proffered testimony, as well as other evidence presented or proffered at trial, linked Wormley to the supposed rape, and that the trial court's refusal to allow Wormley to testify for the defense therefore denied appellant his due process right to call witnesses in his own defense and to establish his own innocence by proving that another person was guilty of the crime.⁴

Of course, the accused in a criminal prosecution has a fundamental right to call witnesses in his own defense. Chambers v. Mississippi, 410 U.S. 284, 93 S.Ct. 1088, 85 L.Ed.2d 297 (1973); Washington v. Texas, U.S. 14, 87 S.Ct. 1920, 18 L.Ed.2d 1019 (1967). Evidence that someone other than the accused has committed the crime for which the accused is charged may be presented through the testimony of defense witnesses when there are sufficient indicia that the evidence is reliable. Chambers v. Mississippi, supra, 410 U.S. at 298-803, 93 S.Ct. 1088. One commentator has stated the rule to be: "When guilt of another person is inconsistent with the guilt of the defendant, it is always relevant for the defendant to present evidence that such other person committed the crime." 1 Wharton's Criminal Evidence § 195 at 404 (18th ed. 1972). However, before evidence of the guilt of another can be deemed relevant and thereby admissible, the evidence Met clearly link that other person to the commission of the crime. See, e. g., State v. Perelli, 125 Conn. 321, 5 A.2d 705 (1939); White v. State, 52 Nev. 235, 285 P. 503 (1980). Even when such evidence is relevant, the trial court must weigh its probative value against its prejudicial impact, including its propensity to mislead the jury or confuse them, to determine whether to admit the evidence. Punch v. United States, D.C.App., 877 A.2d 1353, 1858 (1977). The record reflects that the trial court has weighed these factors before reaching its decision to admit or exclude the evidence. We will not overturn that decision absent a clear abuse of discretion. Id.

We cannot say that the trial court erred in holding that Wormley's proposed testimony — that the complainant became hysterical when she saw him at her husband's funeral — was irrelevant. At best it was a description of an ambiguous act. In fact, it would have been reasonable for the trial court to interpret her reaction as an indication that she believed Wormley was involved in her husband's murder, since at the time of the funeral she knew her husband had been murdered and the last two people she had seen with her husband while he was alive were appellant and Wormley. The prosecutor pointed out that if Wormley's testimony was admitted to support the inference as proffered, the prosecutor would have to bring out Wormley's connection to the Williams murder to establish the alternative explanation for the widow's reaction.

The record reflects that the court considered the extremely prejudicial impact such evidence would have. Moreover, both counsel and the court had been...