Johnson v. U.S., No. 05-CF-1000.

• Decision Date: 13 November 2008
• Docket Number: No. 05-CF-1000.
• Citation: 960 A.2d 281
• Parties: Markus JOHNSON, Appellant, v. UNITED STATES, Appellee.
• Court: D.C. Court of Appeals

960 A.2d 281

Markus JOHNSON, Appellant, v. UNITED STATES, Appellee.

No. 05-CF-1000.

District of Columbia Court of Appeals.

Argued March 19, 2008.

Decided November 13, 2008.

Sandra Levick, Public Defender Service, with whom James Klein, Public Defender Service, was on the brief, for appellant.

Suzanne C. Nyland, Assistant United States Attorney, with whom Jeffrey A. Taylor, United States Attorney, and Roy W. McLeese III, Mary B. McCord, David J. Gorman, Roy L. Austin, and Gregory G. Marshall, Assistant United States Attorneys, were on the brief, for appellee.

Before WASHINGTON, Chief Judge, THOMPSON, Associate Judge, and FERREN, Senior Judge.

WASHINGTON, Chief Judge:

On March 17, 2002, Markus Johnson, an aspiring model, killed Michael Myers, the owner of a modeling agency, by inflicting numerous wounds with, among other implements, two knives, a screwdriver, a floor buffer, and finally, a hacksaw. That Johnson committed the act is uncontested. And by all accounts, the scene of the killing was horrific.

A grand jury indicted Johnson for first-degree premeditated murder while armed with aggravating circumstances (that "the murder was especially heinous, atrocious or cruel"),¹ first-degree felony murder while armed (while attempting to perpetrate robbery),² and armed robbery.³ At trial, Johnson argued that he killed Myers in self-defense. Johnson claimed that after Myers pressured him about posing for nude photographs, Myers approached Johnson from behind while Johnson was dressing and pressed his groin up against Johnson's buttocks. This led to a struggle that culminated in Myers's violent death. Johnson portrayed his actions as defensive reactions to Myers's unrelenting attacks. The jury disagreed and found Johnson guilty of first-degree premeditated murder.⁴

On appeal, Johnson asserts that the trial court erred in making three evidentiary rulings. First, Johnson claims that the court should have allowed him to testify that at the time of the murder, he was consumed with thoughts about how his step-grandfather had raped Johnson's mother with Johnson's conception being the product of that rape. Second, Johnson contends that the trial court should have allowed him to call a witness who would have testified that Myers sexually assaulted her several years before the killing. Third, Johnson argues that the court erred in denying him the right to explore a government witness's most recent employment. We affirm.

I. The Government's Evidence

Michael Myers owned Washington Models, Inc., ("WMI") a small modeling studio located in an apartment at 1133 13th Street, N.W., in Washington, D.C. WMI provided portfolio photography services and advertising for aspiring models. For $75.00, WMI would schedule a photo shoot with Myers or another photographer and then produce a composite card with the model's pictures that the model could use to seek work. For an additional amount, WMI would post the model's pictures online.

In early 2001, Markus Johnson applied to WMI and paid for a composite card. Later that year, Johnson paid to have his pictures posted on WMI's website. Two of WMI's former employees, Duane Hanlon and Crystal Wells, testified about their interactions with Johnson between early 2001 and March of 2002. Hanlon saw Johnson four to five times in person and spoke with him on the phone several times as well. Meanwhile, Crystal Wells — a woman whom Myers met while scouting for models, but whom he later had a romantic relationship with and had named vice president of WMI — testified that she met Johnson in either January or February of 2002. During their first encounter, Johnson arrived at WMI without an appointment and asked to see either Myers or Hanlon. He looked "agitated" and was "bug-eyed" and clutched his shirt and pants while looking around erratically. This scared Wells, who testified that she "felt like he wanted to do harm to [her]." She claimed that she "felt like [her] life was in danger." When Wells told Johnson that neither Hanlon nor Myers were there, Johnson informed her that Hanlon had called him about a modeling job offer from "Sean John," a popular fashion label, but that no one had called him back with further information. Wells, however, had not heard of any association between WMI and Sean John.⁵ Nonetheless, Wells sought to keep Johnson, a client, happy, so she told him that she would set up a new photo shoot for him.⁶

Sometime later, Johnson again arrived at WMI without an appointment, asking Wells to make copies of his composite card. While Johnson waited, Myers arrived and began to argue with Wells: Myers was upset because he did not want Wells to leave early to go see her boyfriend. Wells eventually left. Shortly thereafter Johnson approached Wells across the street from the apartment and asked about the argument. Wells explained that Myers was "overprotective." Johnson then began criticizing Myers's management of WMI. Upon learning that Wells had a fifty percent interest in WMI, Johnson suggested that she try to gain control over it. Wells agreed that Myers was not running the agency well. She then offered to print more composite cards for Johnson, but said that she would change the listed phone number from WMI's to Johnson's cell phone, so that he would not have to bother with WMI anymore.

On March 12, 2002, Wells moved to Los Angeles. Three days later, Johnson called her to complain that although he had scheduled a photo shoot with Myers, he had repeatedly visited or called WMI and no one had gotten in touch with him. Wells suggested that Johnson keep trying; Johnson responded that he would, but added that "if nothing was done, he would have to go there and handle it." Wells knew that Johnson was upset: his tone was serious. She told him to calm down and try to contact Myers again. She also told him that she intended to return to D.C.

The day after Johnson's conversation with Wells, he left three messages for Myers with Jung-Ah Park, who had started working at WMI after Wells left. Park did not work on the following day, Sunday, March 17, 2002. She did not believe that Johnson was scheduled for a photo shoot on that day.

On the 17th, Myers spoke to his older brother Robert on the phone from about 5:30 until 6:00 p.m. Myers was working at WMI that evening and at times seemed distracted. At 6:00 p.m., he spoke to Hanlon on the phone; he sounded normal. The two of them had planned to meet at WMI at 7:30 p.m. and then go recruit models at Platinum night club. But when Hanlon showed up at 7:15 p.m., no one at WMI answered to buzz him into the building. A resident later let him in and another resident let him up to the third floor. No one answered the door at WMI. Shortly after returning to the lobby to wait, Hanlon saw Johnson come out of the apartment stairwell, holding an electronic box and a nylon bag. Johnson looked anxious and tired. Johnson told Hanlon that he was very tired and then exited the front door.⁷ Hanlon then saw Myers's car pull into a parking lot across the street, wait, turn around, and leave. Five minutes later, he saw the car pass the building again. Hanlon eventually left, as Myers never showed up. The next day, Park arrived at WMI and found the front door unlocked, the apartment disheveled, the walls in the waiting room covered with blood, and Myers's dead body on the floor, wrapped in plastic.

Other than Myers and Johnson, no one witnessed what happened in that apartment. But forensic evidence revealed a violent killing. Police reporting to the scene discovered no signs of forced entry.⁸ Inside the apartment's kitchen, located next to the front door, cabinets and drawers appeared rifled. The kitchen contained, among other things, tools such as hammers and screwdrivers.⁹ Shoe prints on the kitchen floor matched the pattern of a pair of shoes bearing Myers's blood later recovered from Johnson's apartment. Police also discovered a bloodied towel and two bloodied latex gloves on the kitchen counter. The blood on the outside of the gloves was Myers's; the inside of one contained both Myers's and Johnson's blood.

Inside the apartment's office, the police recovered a computer file, dated March 17, 2002, 5:11 p.m., featuring thirty-eight digital photographs of Johnson. In the hallway connecting the office with the agency's waiting room, police discovered a pegboard featuring explicit, nude photographs of Crystal Wells and a hacksaw with Myers's flesh caught in its teeth.

The waiting room door appeared to have been forced open. Shoeprints, again matching shoes recovered from Johnson's apartment, appeared on the exterior of the door; the door's interior featured different shoe prints. The waiting room itself was in disarray. The remnants of a bookshelf, a television set, a screwdriver, a radio, papers, a tripod, and a computer were among the items littered across the floor, many of them bearing Myers's blood. Police also recovered an unbroken but empty vodka bottle, glass from a broken bottle, and a bloodied floor buffing machine. Myers, wrapped in thick plastic, lay on the floor.

According to the medical examiner, Myers died from "multiple injuries, including blunt impact[s] and stab wound[s] to [the] head and neck with strangulation." Myers suffered blunt impact trauma, bruises, lacerations, abrasions, cuts, and stab wounds. Included in these were several stab wounds and cuts to the face made by knives and a three-to-four inch deep stab wound to Myers's right eye. That stab fractured his orbital bone; it appeared to have been made by a screwdriver. In all, Myers suffered nine blunt impact traumas to the head, fracturing his skull in three places, along with internal neck injuries consistent with strangulation.¹⁰ Myers's neck also bore a three and a half inch long gaping wound; his jugular vein and carotid arteries were severed. According to the medical examiner, Myers would have died shortly after suffering the neck wound.¹¹ His body also featured further...