Martinez v. U.S.

• Decision Date: 21 November 1989
• Docket Number: No. 85-1085.,85-1085.
• Citation: 566 A.2d 1049
• Parties: Antonio MARTINEZ, Appellant, v. UNITED STATES, Appellee.
• Court: D.C. Court of Appeals

566 A.2d 1049

Antonio MARTINEZ, Appellant, v. UNITED STATES, Appellee.

No. 85-1085.

District of Columbia Court of Appeals.

Argued November 2, 1988.

Decided November 21, 1989.

Thomas B. Mason, Public Defender Service, with whom James Klein and Scott W. Howe, Public Defender Service, were on the brief, for appellant.

Ann K.H. Simon, Asst. U.S. Atty., with whom Jay B. Stephens, U.S. Atty., and Michael W. Farrell, Asst. U.S. Atty., at the time the brief was filed, were on the brief, for appellee.

Before TERRY, Associate Judge, GALLAGHER, Senior Judge, and MACK, Associate Judge, Retired.^*

TERRY. Associate Judge:

Appellant Antonio Martinez and his brother, Geremias Martinez, were tried jointly for second-degree murder while armed.¹ A jury acquitted appellant's brother of all charges, but found appellant guilty of the lesser included offense of voluntary manslaughter while armed.² At trial the court permitted the government, on cross-examination, to impeach appellant's credibility with a prior inconsistent statement made by him to two police detectives. Appellant contends that the impeaching statement was elicited in violation of his Sixth Amendment right to counsel and therefore should not have been admitted for any purpose, including impeachment. We hold that the court did not err in allowing the prior inconsistent statement to be admitted as impeachment evidence, and accordingly we affirm appellant's conviction.

I

A. The Government's Evidence

On August 6, 1981, the day Santos Berrios was killed, Antonio Martinez and his brother Geremias³ lived in an apartment building on Mount Pleasant Street, N.W., Geremias on the fifth floor and Antonio on the third floor. The evidence showed that on many prior occasions Antonio and his brothers Geremias and Fredis, along with Santos Berrios, Oscar Plaitez, Jose Saravia (the uncle of the Martinez brothers), and others gathered in Geremias' apartment to drink beer, play records, and dance to the music. All of them had come from the same small town in El Salvador.⁴ In the late afternoon of August 6 such a gathering took place, and again, as on past occasions, there was dancing and beer-drinking.

Sometime during the evening, Antonio and Berrios began to dance together in a playful but rough manner. Both appeared to be drunk. The two men's bodies touched several times while they danced, and both of them started to use foul language. Saravia saw Berrios pull a knife from his sock, wrap it in something, and put it back inside his sock. Not long after that, Antonio said to Berrios, "I am not queer, I am going to kill you." Antonio said that he was going down to his apartment to get a knife, and that he would be back.

When Antonio left Geremias' apartment, Plaitez warned Berrios to go before Antonio returned. Berrios declined, saying instead, "What is that dummy going to do to me?" Having announced his intention to remain, Berrios sat down on the couch and pulled his cap over his eyes. Antonio returned about five minutes later. Shortly thereafter, Berrios screamed and uttered a Spanish word ("grosero") which means rude or uncouth. At that moment Saravia, who was seated next to Berrios on the couch, looked over and saw Antonio standing in front of Berrios. Antonio's hands were on Berrios' chest, and Berrios' hands were clutching Antonio's. Plaitez heard the scream, turned, and saw Antonio remove a knife from Berrios' chest. Then Antonio pulled Berrios' cap down over his face and said, "Old man." Berrios' shirt slowly became stained with blood.

Plaitez told Geremias that they should call an ambulance. Geremias, however, threatened Plaitez with a hammer⁵ and said that they should "throw [Berrios] into the garbage." Antonio then lifted Berrios' body off the couch and dragged it through a hallway into the bedroom. Geremias and Fredis followed and watched as Antonio pushed Berrios' body head first out the bedroom window.⁶ Two persons in a neighboring apartment saw the body fall to the ground. Berrios' body was later found face down next to a garbage can in the stairwell beneath Geremias' bedroom window. He was pronounced dead at the scene. A knife lay near his head.

It appeared to Plaitez that Berrios was still alive when he was dropped from the window. This testimony was corroborated by the medical examiner, Dr. Silvia Comparini, who concluded that Berrios was alive at the time his body hit the ground and that he probably survived for a few minutes after the fall. Although Berrios had received at least two stab wounds to the upper part of his chest, Dr. Comparini concluded that his death was due to a broken neck. In Dr. Comparini's opinion, however, the main stab wound would have been fatal even if Berrios had not fallen five stories⁷

After the body was thrown from the window, Geremias and Fredis, together with Plaitez, ran out of the apartment, down the stairs, down Mount Pleasant Street, down Irving Street, and finally down 16th Street, where they hailed a taxicab. Accompanied by Plaitez, the two brothers went immediately to their sister's apartment in Silver Spring, Maryland. Antonio was not with them but followed shortly thereafter. He stayed with his sister for a few days, then fled to El Salvador. He eventually reentered the United States and was arrested in California.

B. The Defense Evidence

Antonio took the stand and asserted that he had stabbed Berrios in self-defense. He testified that he and Berrios' niece, who lived in El Salvador, had been corresponding regularly and that Berrios disapproved of their relationship. On the day of the stabbing, Antonio said, he spent about a half-hour in Geremias' apartment before going downstairs to his own apartment to get a bottle of rum. When he returned with the rum,⁸ he rejoined the dancing with Berrios and Plaitez. After a few minutes Berrios touched him twice on the buttocks in an offensive manner. He warned Berrios not to touch him like that again, but despite the warning, Berrios touched him a third time in the same way. Antonio reacted by hitting Berrios, whereupon the two men exchanged comments about each other's masculinity or lack thereof.

A few minutes later Antonio was sitting on the couch when he saw Berrios coming toward him with a large kitchen knife in his hand,⁹ looking "very serious." As Antonio stood up, Berrios pointed the knife at him and said, "I have two for you," and called him a "very offensive" name. Hearing this, Antonio knocked the knife out of Berrios' hand. Antonio testified that as he reached down to grab it, he saw Berrios coming at him with another knife. In self-defense he stabbed Berrios with the knife he had just picked up from the floor.

Antonio testified that he sustained a cut on the hand and a stab wound to the chest as a result of his encounter with Berrios. He denied throwing Berrios' body out the window. He said that he ran from the apartment and took a bus to his sister's apartment in Silver Spring, where he stayed for two or three days before fleeing to Los Angeles, and thence to El Salvador.¹⁰

C. The Post-Arrest Statement

On November 17, 1982, more than fifteen months after Berrios' death, a grand jury indicted Antonio and Geremias for second-degree murder while armed. This was the first formal charge against Antonio in connection with this case, since he had never been arrested or otherwise placed in police custody. A "notice of arraignment" was sent to Antonio (at his Mount Pleasant Street address) and to his newly appointed attorney the following day, advising them that arraignment was scheduled for December 1, 1982. Because Antonio 1:1, that time had fled to El Salvador, however, he failed to appear for the arraignment, and the court issued a bench warrant. Antonio remained a fugitive for more than two years until he was arrested in California on December 15, 1984.

Metropolitan Police Detective Rocco Cianciotti was sent to Fresno, California, to attend Antonio's extradition hearing. Before the hearing, Cianciotti was told by Antonio's court-appointed attorney that he "would not be able to talk to him [Antonio] in Fresno." There is nothing in the record to indicate that Cianciotti violated the admonition not to talk to Antonio in Fresno.

After the extradition proceedings were concluded, Antonio was brought back to the District of Columbia on January 25, 1985, and upon his arrival he was taken to an interview room in the office of the Homicide Branch at police headquarters. He was seated at a table when Detective Cianciotti entered the room to process him, a procedure which included giving Miranda warnings¹¹ and obtaining background information. It soon became apparent to Cianciotti, however, that he would be unable to complete the processing because he was not proficient in Spanish. Cianciotti therefore left the room and enlisted the aid of Detective Daniel Villars, a native of Honduras who did speak Spanish. When Cianciotti returned, Villars was with him.

Villars read Antonio his Miranda rights from the front of a Form PD-47-B, a standard police form containing "the Miranda rights in Spanish." When Villars finished reading the front of the card, he turned it over and asked Antonio the four questions on the back. After Antonio orally responded to the four questions, Villars handed the card to Antonio and asked him to read the front and back, write out a "yes" or "no" answer to each question, and then sign the card. Antonio did as he was asked. The four questions and Antonio's verbal and written responses to each of them (here translated) were as follows:

(1) "Have your rights been read to you?" "Yes."

(2) "Do you understand your rights?" "Yes."

(3) "Do you wish to answer the questions now?" "No."

(4) "Are you willing to answer questions now, without an attorney present?" "No."

Antonio told Villars that he was not going to answer any questions on the advice of his brother's lawyer. Villars was not translating Antonio's responses verbatim for Cianciotti, but...