Sanchez v. United States

• Decision Date: 19 January 2023
• Docket Number: 20-CF-221
• Parties: Gabriel Sanchez, Appellant, v. United States, Appellee.
• Court: D.C. Court of Appeals

Gabriel Sanchez, Appellant, v. United States, Appellee.

No. 20-CF-221

Court of Appeals of The District of Columbia

January 19, 2023

Submitted September 21, 2022

Appeal from the Superior Court of the District of Columbia (2018-CF1-001326) Hon. Juliet J. McKenna, Trial Judge.

Cecily E. Baskir was on the brief for appellant.

Matthew M. Graves, United States Attorney, and Chrisellen R Kolb, Nicholas P. Coleman, Raymond Hulser, Sitara Witanachchi, and David B. Goodhand, Assistant United States Attorneys, were on the brief for appellee.

Before Blackburne-Rigsby, Chief Judge, and Easterly and McLeese Associate Judges.

McLeese, Associate Judge:

Appellant Gabriel Sanchez was convicted of assaultive offenses, weapons offenses, and obstruction of justice, all arising from the shooting of Wuilian Cruz. We affirm in part, vacate in part, and remand in part.

I. Factual Background

The evidence at trial was as follows. Just before the shooting, Francisco Rosales was driving on Connecticut Avenue N.W. near Dupont Circle in Washington, D.C., with his friend Mr. Cruz in the passenger seat. As the car drove slowly along the street, Mr. Rosales noticed two men and a group of women looking or staring at the car. One of the men appeared to be light-skinned, clean-shaven, and Hispanic, and was wearing a black shirt. That man stepped off the sidewalk, walked on the road toward the driver-side door of a parked car (later determined to be Mr. Sanchez's Honda Accord) and approached the passenger side of Mr. Rosales's car, which was moving at that point. A witness testified that security footage from a nearby jewelry store showed a man wearing a black shirt and black hat reach down into the parked Honda Accord and look toward the street as Mr. Rosales's car approached. According to Mr. Rosales, the man in the black shirt said something to Mr. Cruz and then shot Mr. Cruz. Mr. Cruz survived but lost an eye.

Earlier that evening, Mr. Sanchez parked his dark gray Honda Accord in the 1300 block of Connecticut Avenue NW. After a few minutes, a man later identified as Mr. Sanchez was captured on security footage emerging from the car, accompanied by several others. Mr. Sanchez was wearing a black short-sleeved shirt and a black baseball hat. A parking ticket the Honda received that evening indicated that the car was registered to Mr. Sanchez.

The day after the shooting, Mr. Sanchez traded in his Honda Accord for a Honda Pilot. While at the Honda dealership, Mr. Sanchez, who had a new phone, threw his old phone on the ground, used a hammer to "smash up" the old phone, and threw the old phone into a dumpster. Mr. Sanchez did that in the presence of a salesperson at the dealership, Michael Mulcahy, with whom Mr. Sanchez was friendly. After Mr. Sanchez discarded his old phone, Mr. Sanchez's demeanor changed and he said that "the car was hot" and that "he was in some shit." Mr. Sanchez later expressed concern that some other dealership patrons might be "feds." After initially expressing some hesitancy about speaking with detectives, Mr. Mulcahy eventually spoke with law enforcement about his observations of Mr. Sanchez. Mr. Sanchez thereafter called Mr. Mulcahy several times in an effort to keep tabs on the investigation. When Mr. Mulcahy ultimately disclosed that he had received a subpoena to appear before a grand jury, Mr. Sanchez asked Mr. Mulcahy not to say that he had seen Mr. Sanchez breaking the phone and directed him to stick with the story that the two men used the hammer to remove a license-plate bracket instead.

II. Preclusion of Recross-examination

Mr. Sanchez argues that the trial court erred by denying Mr. Sanchez's request to recross-examine Mr. Rosales. We uphold the trial court's ruling.

A. Procedural Background

During direct examination, Mr. Rosales testified that as he drove away immediately after Mr. Cruz was shot, he saw the man who shot Mr. Cruz just standing there staring at Mr. Rosales's car. Mr. Rosales further testified that he saw the same individual reaching into a parked car as Mr. Rosales and Mr. Cruz approached, but he did not see anything in the individual's hand. On cross-examination, after Mr. Rosales reaffirmed that he had not seen anything in the individual's hand, Mr. Rosales and defense counsel engaged in the following exchange:

Q: And you didn't see a hand being raised, right?

A: I was never asked that, sir.

Q: Well, you testified in the grand jury before; is that right?

A: Right, yes.

Q: And in the grand jury, you said that the guy that you saw was just standing there in the street with his hands by his side; is that correct?

A: Yes. After the-

Q: Well, no, I'm asking you beforehand. You were asked, grand jury, page 18, line 6: Did you see the gun? And your answer was: I mean, no. Because there is-when we-when we first just got to him, he didn't have his hand raised or nothing. His hands were just at a normal posture. A normal posture meaning down, right?

A: Uh-huh.

Q: Right. So beforehand you never saw any hands raised; is that right?

A: Beforehand?

Q: Before you heard a shot, you didn't see a gun?

A: No.

Q: You just saw a guy with his hands down, right?

A: Before the shot, no, I didn't see no gun.

In response to subsequent questioning by defense counsel, Mr. Rosales reaffirmed that the individual was "standing there" before the shooting and after the shooting. Defense counsel did not ask where the individual's hands were after the shooting.

On redirect examination, the prosecutor asked Mr. Rosales where the individual's hands were before, during, and after Mr. Rosales and Mr. Cruz drove by. The following exchange ensued:

Q: And as you approached-where are his hands as you approached?

A: As I approached him, his hands, I believe, are by his side.

Q: As you went past, did his hands-did you see his hands change positions?

A: As we approached him, right next to us, I believe, he walked up to the vehicle, but I didn't see his hand gesture.

Q: Did you see a hand gesture at any time as you went past?

A: When I went past after Wuilian got shot, yeah, I seen him lower his arm, but I didn't see nothing else. I just seen his face.

Defense counsel sought to recross-examine Mr. Rosales, arguing that the "lowered arm" comment came out for the first time on cross-examination. Concluding that Mr. Rosales's grand-jury testimony had sufficiently impeached Mr. Rosales on that point, the trial court did not allow defense counsel to recross-examine Mr. Rosales.

B. Standard of Review and Legal Background

After the government's case in chief, defense counsel is "given the opportunity to cross-examine the government's witnesses about those matters that are raised by the direct examination . . . . At the conclusion of cross-examination, the government can request an opportunity for redirect examination, which is usually restricted by the scope of cross-examination . . . ." Green v. United States, 209 A.3d 738, 741 (D.C. 2019) (citations and internal quotation marks omitted). Although the Sixth Amendment provides the defendant with a right to cross-examination, "[t]here is . . . generally no constitutional right to recross-examine a witness." Singletary v. United States, 383 A.2d 1064, 1073 (D.C. 1978). "In the rare case in which material new matters are brought out on redirect examination," however, the Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment requires that the defendant have the opportunity to recross-examine with respect to the new matters elicited on redirect examination. Id. at 1073. In determining whether redirect examination brought out a new matter, we consider whether the defendant had an adequate opportunity to explore the matter at issue on cross-examination. See Washington v. United States, 760 A.2d 187, 195 (D.C. 2000) (concluding that trial court properly declined to allow recross-examination where "counsel had let his earlier opportunity [to ask particular question] slip by"). We review de novo whether Mr. Sanchez had a constitutional right to recross-examination in the circumstances of this case. Green, 209 A.3d at 742.

C. Analysis

For two principal reasons, we conclude that Mr. Sanchez did not have a constitutional right to recross-examination. First, Mr. Sanchez cross-examined Mr. Rosales extensively about Mr. Sanchez's position and movements during the incident. It is true that redirect examination elicited a new piece of information on that topic-that Mr. Rosales saw Mr. Sanchez lower his arm after the shooting. Our cases, however, have drawn a distinction between new matters and new information about a matter that has previously been explored on cross-examination. Compare Green, 209 A.3d at 742-44 (concluding that recording of 911 call introduced on redirect examination was "unquestionably new," where call had not been introduced into evidence on cross-examination but rather discrete portions of call had only been used to refresh recollection of witness 911 caller), with Green v. United States, 718 A.2d 1042, 1061 (D.C. 1998) (concluding that specific fact elicited about phone conversation on redirect examination was not new matter, where defense counsel previously questioned witness about phone call on cross-examination).

We acknowledge that the distinction between a new matter and new information about a previously explored matter is a question of degree. At one extreme, any new piece of information brought out on redirect examination could be viewed as a new matter. On that theory, all non-repetitive redirect examination would trigger a constitutional right to recross-examination. On the other extreme, the matter could be understood broadly to be the defendant's guilt or innocence, and all relevant information elicited on redirect examination would simply be new...