People v. Harris

• Decision Date: 14 May 2014
• Citation: 2014 N.Y. Slip Op. 03532,985 N.Y.S.2d 643,117 A.D.3d 847
• Parties: The PEOPLE, etc., respondent, v. Dupree HARRIS, appellant.
• Court: New York Supreme Court — Appellate Division

117 A.D.3d 847
985 N.Y.S.2d 643
2014 N.Y. Slip Op. 03532

The PEOPLE, etc., respondent,
v.
Dupree HARRIS, appellant.

Supreme Court, Appellate Division, Second Department, New York.

May 14, 2014.

[985 N.Y.S.2d 644]

Lynn W.L. Fahey, New York, N.Y. (Warren S. Landau of counsel), for appellant, and appellant pro se.

Kenneth P. Thompson, District Attorney, Brooklyn, N.Y. (Leonard Joblove and Morgan J. Dennehy of counsel; Jesse Oppenheim on the brief), for respondent.

RANDALL T. ENG, P.J., REINALDO E. RIVERA, PLUMMER E. LOTT, and ROBERT J. MILLER, JJ.

Appeal by the defendant from a judgment of the Supreme Court, Kings County (Demarest, J.), rendered March 17, 2005, convicting him of bribing a witness (three counts), upon a jury verdict, and imposing sentence.

ORDERED that the judgment is affirmed.

[985 N.Y.S.2d 645]

The defendant stands convicted of three counts of bribing a witness for conduct aimed at convincing three teenage girls to recant their statements identifying his brother, Wesley Sykes, as the man who shot and killed Dennis Brown in a park in Brooklyn. The primary issue raised on appeal is whether the trial court's evidentiary rulings, which permitted the prosecution to offer evidence that a fourth eyewitness to the Brown shooting, Bobby Gibson, was murdered the weekend before he was scheduled to testify against Sykes, deprived the defendant of a fair trial. We conclude that the defendant was not deprived of a fair trial and, accordingly, affirm.

The evidence presented at the defendant's trial reveals that on the evening of September 4, 2001, Sykes rode his bicycle into a park in the Bedford–Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn, exchanged a few words with Brown, and fired several shots at him. On September 27, 2001, Brown died of the injuries he suffered in the shooting. A number of Brown's friends were in the park and witnessed the shooting, including three teenage girls, Shaquanna Edmonds, Latisha Smith, and Naia Hardison, and one young man, Bobby Gibson. Sykes was arrested for Brown's murder on October 23, 2001, and that night five eyewitnesses, including Gibson and two of the girls, identified him from a lineup as the shooter. All three girls subsequently gave sworn audiotaped statements to police detectives and an assistant district attorney identifying Sykes as the shooter.

In May and June of 2002, as the date scheduled for his brother's murder trial approached, the defendant made contact with each of the teenage girls who had witnessed the Brown shooting, and began to shower them with gifts and attention. Prior to meeting the defendant, each of the girls heard rumors that he was a dangerous man, and that he was looking for them. Describing these events, Shaquanna Edmonds testified that before she met the defendant for the first time in June 2002, a friend told her that the defendant wanted to talk to her, and that he was “mad about his brother.” The friend urged Edmonds to talk to the defendant because the defendant was a “very dangerous person,” and the friend did not want to see anything happen to Edmonds. However, once Edmonds actually met the defendant, he was “very nice,” took her out to restaurants to eat, and gave her $100 on two different occasions. On one occasion, Edmonds accompanied the defendant to a hotel, where he made “romantic overtures.”

Latisha Smith similarly testified that in the months after the defendant's brother was arrested, two different friends told her that the defendant wanted to talk to her, and one of these friends warned her that the defendant was “capable of hurting people.” She met the defendant in late May 2002, and for a period of about a month, he called her frequently, took her out and bought food for her, and gave her money on a couple of occasions. During this period, Smith became so close to the defendant that they engaged in sexual relations.

The third girl, Naia Hardison, also testified that she was nervous when the defendant initially approached her and asked to talk to her, because she had heard a lot of rumors about him on the street. She had heard “that it's either lie or die. He supposed to do this to us if we don't testify.” Despite the rumors, the defendant was nice to her, showed her love like a big brother, took her out for meals, and gave her $500 or $600.

After establishing a relationship with the three girls, the defendant asked each one to speak to Michael Warren, the attorney defending his brother in the Brown murder case, and recant their identifications of Sykes as the shooter. On separate

[985 N.Y.S.2d 646]

occasions in June 2002, the defendant brought each girl to Warren's office to make recorded statements in which each recanted her prior identification of Sykes as the shooter, and stated instead that Corey McCollough, who had been with Sykes in the park that night, shot Brown over a gang-related dispute. The defendant gave each of the girls $500 shortly after they made their statements to Warren.

A jury was selected in the Sykes trial on Thursday, June 27, 2002, and the presentation of evidence was scheduled to commence on Monday, July 1, 2002. On Thursday, June 27, Assistant District Attorney Steven Murphy met with Bobby Gibson, one of the eyewitnesses scheduled to testify against Sykes. Although Murphy had also arranged to meet with Edmonds and Smith, they did not appear, and Smith expressed reluctance to meet with him and come to court.

In the early morning hours of Saturday, June 29, 2002, Gibson was shot and killed. A man named Travis Ragsdale subsequently confessed to the murder, claiming that he was drunk when he got into an argument with Gibson at a party, resulting in the shooting. Although Ragsdale was charged with murder in the first degree on a witness-elimination theory, he was ultimately acquitted of that charge, and convicted of murder in the second degree.

Meanwhile, Edmonds was awakened from her sleep by the sound of gunshots on the morning of Saturday, June 29, 2002, and looked out her window to see Gibson's body lying on the ground. She recalled thinking to herself, “What's next? I guess I'm next.” Smith was also scared when she heard that Gibson had been killed, because at that time nobody knew who had killed him. Detective Warren Bond located all three girls that evening, and went to see them to ensure that they were all right. Although the girls “seemed very edgy,” they told Bond that they were okay. When asked why she did not reveal her contact with the defendant to the police at that point, Edmonds replied that she was worried about her “life,” explaining that she “didn't know what was next,” and what the consequences of the shooting would be.

On the following evening, Sunday, June 30, 2002, Detective Bond received a phone call from Smith, who said that she had something to tell him. When Bond went to Smith's location to meet with her, he found Edmonds and Hardison there as well. All three girls were very nervous and edgy. After much discussion, Smith told Detective Bond that she had been approached by an individual who told her that the girls “can either take money not to testify against Wesley Sykes or they can take a bullet.” Smith then disclosed that the girls had taken money from the defendant not to testify against Sykes. The three girls were transported to the police precinct, where they gave recorded statements to Assistant District Attorney Murphy. Murphy asked each of the girls whether they wished to be relocated, and each replied that she did. The three girls and their families were immediately relocated to hotels by the District Attorney's office. Smith, Edmonds, and Hardison all testified at the Sykes trial, and identified Sykes as the shooter. The defendant was present in court for his brother's trial on the morning of Monday, July 1, 2002. However, as court officers gathered in the courtroom to arrest him that day, he left the courthouse and disappeared. The defendant was eventually located in Virginia using a false name, and was arrested on December 19, 2002. He was thereafter indicted on charges of witness tampering in the third degree (three counts) and bribing a witness (three counts).

Whether and to what extent to admit evidence that Gibson had been murdered

[985 N.Y.S.2d 647]

just before he was to testify against Sykes was the subject of extensive discussion between the court, the prosecutor, and defense counsel during the course of the trial. The issue was first raised by the court prior to jury selection, because the trial judge was concerned that prospective jurors might have seen press coverage of Gibson's murder, linking it to his role as a witness in the Sykes trial and implicating the defendant. Defense counsel argued that no reference at all should be made to the Gibson murder at trial because it was “wholly immaterial, separate and entirely unrelated” to the bribery and witness tampering charges against the defendant. The prosecutor argued that testimony regarding Gibson's death was relevant to explain why the three teenage girls came forward to the District Attorney, and that absent evidence of Gibson's death, the jury would be left to wonder why these witnesses “turned around” on the day of the Sykes trial. The prosecutor also emphasized that defense counsel had “explored” the files related to the relocation of the girls, “which are ugly” and which showed that the girls were “difficult” witnesses who had misbehaved in the hotels where they had been placed. He urged that it would be “obscene” to allow defense counsel to impeach the credibility of the girls by cross-examining them about the money given to them by the District Attorney's office for housing and living expenses during their relocation “without knowing the dangers involved and why all these things took place.” After hearing arguments by counsel, the court indicated that it would formulate an instruction that would inform the jury that another person had been tried and found guilty of killing Gibson, and that there was...