Robinson v. U.S., 03-CF-1180.

• Decision Date: 26 July 2007
• Docket Number: No. 03-CF-1180.,03-CF-1180.
• Citation: 928 A.2d 717
• Parties: Steven ROBINSON, Appellant, v. UNITED STATES, Appellee.
• Court: D.C. Court of Appeals

928 A.2d 717

Steven ROBINSON, Appellant, v. UNITED STATES, Appellee.

No. 03-CF-1180.

District of Columbia Court of Appeals.

Argued April 7, 2006.

Decided July 26, 2007.

Michael L. Spekter, Washington, DC, appointed by the court, for appellant.

Vasu B. Muthyala, Assistant United States Attorney, with whom Kenneth L. Wainstein, United States Attorney at the

time the brief was filed, John R. Fisher, Assistant United States Attorney at the time the brief was filed, Thomas J. Tourish, Jr., Kevin F. Flynn, and Kimya I. Jones, Assistant United States Attorneys, were on the brief, for appellee.

Before WASHINGTON, Chief Judge, KRAMER, Associate Judge and SCHWELB, Senior Judge.^*

WASHINGTON, Chief Judge:

On May 16, 2002, the grand jury indicted appellant Steven Robinson for first-degree murder while armed.¹ Following a jury trial, the appellant was convicted of second-degree murder while armed as a lesser included offense of first-degree murder while armed. On appeal, the appellant argues that: (1) the trial court erred in admitting into evidence his inculpatory videotaped statement; (2) the trial court erred in failing to grant the appellant's motion for judgment of acquittal; and (3) the trial court erred in failing to strike, sua sponte, several alleged improper statements made by the prosecutor during closing argument. Finding no error, we affirm.

I.

On August 7, 2001 at 11:00 p.m., officers of the Metropolitan Police Department ("MPD") responded to a call that a man was being beaten at 1706 L Street N.E., Washington, D.C. Upon arrival, officers found James Junior Osborne on the ground suffering from severe head injuries. The police also discovered a bloodied baseball bat in the alley behind the house where they found Osborne. At 11:50 p.m., doctors pronounced James Osborne ("decedent") dead. A subsequent police investigation led to the appellant's arrest for the murder of James Osborne.

Alphonso Belton, appellant's cousin, accompanied the appellant to the Superior Court on the morning of his arrest. Belton claimed that the appellant asked to see his attorney as soon as the officers confronted him at the Superior Court entrance. He also stated that the detectives told the appellant that he could see his lawyer once they arrived at the station house. When the appellant asked why he was being arrested the officers replied that it was for murder, to which the appellant replied that "he knew [they] were going to get him." The appellant also stated that he had a scheduled court date for an unrelated drug charge. According to Detective Truesdale, at no point during the arrest did the appellant request his attorney in the drug case or any other attorney.

Following the arrest and arrival at the police station, Detective Truesdale placed the appellant in an interview room and secured one of his hands to the floor. The appellant was offered access to the bathroom, something to eat or drink, and cigarettes. A short time later, Detectives Truesdale and Darryl Richmond entered the interview room and began the formal interrogation of the appellant. Detective Richmond read the appellant his Miranda rights from a PD-47 Rights Card and the appellant responded by nodding his head in the affirmative as if he understood the meaning of his rights. When Detective Richmond asked the appellant the "waiver of rights" questions on the PD-47 card, the appellant answered yes, initialing each question. The appellant did not ask the Detectives to repeat any of the instructions and the officers had no other indication that the appellant had difficulty understanding what was transpiring. Before signing the PD-47 card and submitting to questioning, the appellant asked Detective Truesdale if he needed a lawyer, to which Detective Truesdale responded, "I can't answer that for you, you have to make that decision on your own." The appellant then signed the PD-47 card and did not inquire about an attorney again.

Detective Truesdale asked the appellant about his involvement in the beating death of the decedent. The appellant responded that he had no part in the decedent's death, but when the detective told the appellant that he didn't believe him, the appellant relented, confessed to some culpability and consented to a videotaped recording of his statement.

II.

A. The Suppression Hearing

Prior to trial, appellant filed a motion to suppress a videotaped post-arrest statement he made to MPD detectives on the grounds that: (1) he invoked his right to speak with an attorney; (2) he lacked the intellectual capacity to knowingly and intelligently waive his Miranda² rights; and (3) there was an unreasonable and unnecessary delay from the time of the appellant's arrest to his presentment before the court.

At the pretrial suppression hearing, the government called Dr. David Shapiro to testify as an expert in forensic psychology. Dr. Shapiro testified that he interviewed the appellant on January 29, 2003. After reviewing the results of the Grisso Miranda Instrument ("Grisso Test"),³ Dr. Shapiro believed that the appellant understood his Miranda rights when they were read to him based on the appellant's high score on the Grisso Test. Additionally, Dr. Shapiro testified that it was not possible for the appellant to have acquired his level of understanding of Miranda rights between the time of his arrest and administering of the test by virtue of having someone teach him.

After the government presented Dr. Shapiro's testimony, Dr. Ronald Jack Klein, a District of Columbia Correctional Treatment Facility psychologist, was called by the defense. Like Dr. Shapiro, Dr. Klein was recognized by the court as an expert in the field of clinical psychology with forensic experience. Dr. Klein testified about the results of a psychological evaluation he had performed on the appellant in his pending, but unrelated, drug case. Based on a battery of tests that he performed in that case, Dr. Klein testified that the appellant read at less than a second grade level and that he suffered from a learning disability. He also stated that the appellant scored in the second percentile on a verbal IQ test, placing him in the "high end of the mental retardation range."

The defense also called Dr. Charles Richard Filson, a private psychologist whom the court qualified as an expert in the field of forensic psychology. Dr. Filson testified that he conducted six tests in order to evaluate the cognitive ability of the appellant. Like Dr. Klein, Dr. Filson concluded that the appellant bordered "mild mental retardation" with reading spelling, and arithmetic skills at the first or second grade level. More importantly, Dr. Filson opined that the PD-47 card requires a sixth-grade level of reading and comprehension, and therefore the appellant could not have been able to read and understand the card.⁴

Dr. Filson asserted that the appellant's results on Grisso Test demonstrated an "adequate understanding and appreciation of his Miranda rights." Dr. Filson noted, however, that the Grisso Test demonstrated the appellant's comprehension of his Miranda rights at the time he was tested and not a year earlier when he was arrested. For that reason, Dr. Filson suggested that the results might not reflect the appellant's comprehension on the day of his arrest because the appellant could have learned about his Miranda rights from speaking with his attorney or from having someone in jail read him the suppression motion prepared by defense counsel. Based on this testimony, Dr. Filson concluded that the appellant was not competent to waive his Miranda rights and that whatever awareness he showed on the Grisso Test could be attributed to his being held in custody pending trial.

The trial court denied the motion to suppress statements and made several factual findings. First, the court discredited the testimony of Belton, noting his strong bias, and found that the appellant had not asked for an attorney when he was taken into custody.⁵ The court then looked to the totality of the circumstances in determining the appellant's ability to make a knowing and intelligent waiver of his Miranda rights. While finding the testimony of the experts informative, the court ruled that the videotape of his statement was the "best evidence of [the appellant's] mental condition contemporaneous with the giving of the statement and [the appellant's] level of understanding at the time." The court specifically cited a lack of coercive conduct on behalf of the detectives, that the appellant appeared comfortable, smoking a cigarette and drinking soda, and that he gave a chronological and logical narrative of the events without signs of anxiety. The court also reasoned that the appellant's use of complex vocabulary and his attempt to implicate another individual, while minimizing his own level of culpability in his videotaped statement, suggested a level of intelligence demonstrating the appellant's understanding of the gravity of the situation. The court credited Detective Truesdale's testimony stating that the appellant showed no signs of not understanding his Miranda rights and that the officers felt no need to repeat any of the Miranda warnings to him.

The court discussed the expert testimony, finding that all three doctors agreed that while the appellant likely suffered from some learning disabilities, the appellant did not have any mental illnesses. In weighing the contradicting opinions of the doctors, the court gave greater weight to those of Dr. Shapiro, emphasizing his experience evaluating the ability of subjects to competently waive their Miranda rights, his work with Dr. Grisso, the creator of the Miranda competency test, and his thirty years of conducting competence evaluations for the Superior Court. In discussing Dr. Filson's testimony, the court mentioned his limited body of experience in Miranda competency and his failure to rely on the videotaped statement to evaluate the appellant's ability to make...