State v. Doctor
| Decision Date | 19 February 1997 |
| Docket Number | No. 95-566-C,95-566-C |
| Citation | 690 A.2d 321 |
| Parties | STATE v. Jose DOCTOR et al. A. |
| Court | Rhode Island Supreme Court |
This case comes before us on the appeals of Jose and Alexis Doctor (Jose, Alexis or defendants) from judgments of conviction for murder, conspiracy, and two counts of assault with a dangerous weapon after a Superior Court jury trial. For the reasons set forth below, we deny the defendants' appeals.
On August 11, 1990, John Norman (Norman), Rodney Perry (Perry), Kimani Morris (Morris), Ronald Nelson (Nelson), Mark Ellis (Ellis), and Willie Davis (Davis) went to Sonny and Dennis', a club on the corner of Eddy and Globe Streets in Providence. Nelson was driving the car, Ellis sat in the middle of the front seat, and Davis sat on the front passenger side. Morris sat in the back seat on the driver's side, Norman sat next to Morris, and Perry was on the passenger side in the rear of the car. After patronizing Sonny and Dennis' for about one hour, they went to the River Cafe in the Fox Point section of Providence. They never actually entered the River Cafe, after having tried unsuccessfully to avoid paying a cover charge in order to gain entrance, but instead socialized outside for about a half hour. They thereafter returned to Sonny and Dennis'. When they arrived there, traffic was heavy around the area of Sonny and Dennis', and as a result the car in which the six men were traveling was stopped in front of the club. Suddenly three men appeared from behind the club and approached the car. One of the men, later identified as the defendant Alexis Doctor, ran to the passenger side, another, later identified as Jose Doctor, went to the driver's side, and the third, a juvenile, went to the front of the car. All three were carrying guns. The three men began shooting at the six passengers in the car and continued shooting for about five minutes. The gunmen then ran back to the rear of the club. As a result of the shooting, Davis was fatally shot in the head, and Perry was shot in the shoulder. Nelson then drove the car to Rhode Island Hospital, where the two injured men were taken inside for treatment.
On March 1, 1991, a Superior Court indictment was filed charging Jose and Alexis with four offenses: (1) the murder of Davis, (2) conspiracy with an unindicted juvenile to commit murder, (3) assault with intent to murder Nelson, and (4) assault with intent to murder Perry. 1 Their jury trial commenced in February 1992, but, after a state witness invoked his Fifth Amendment privilege in front of the jury, a mistrial was declared. A second jury trial commenced in March 1992. That trial resulted in convictions, but those convictions were reversed by this Court because the trial justice had improperly restricted the scope of defense counsel's cross-examination of a trial witness. State v. Doctor, 644 A.2d 1287 (R.I.1994).
A third trial, and the trial we are concerned with here, commenced in January 1995. At that trial Norman, testifying for the state, told the Court and jury that the area around Sonny and Dennis', where the shooting incident occurred, was well lighted by street lights and that he was able to see the gunmen as they approached the car. He testified that he recognized them as Jose and Alexis Doctor and Junior. He testified further that he knew Jose and Alexis for some three to four years and knew Junior for about one year. He remembered that the gunmen were wearing "hoodies," oversized hooded sweatshirts. He also testified at trial that just before the gunmen began shooting, he heard Alexis Doctor say, "[W]here is my brother, Shit, at?" He then estimated for the jury that the shooting went on for about five minutes and that the three gunmen then ran back to the rear of Sonny and Dennis'. Norman, at that time, noticed that Davis and Perry had been shot and accompanied the other occupants of the car when they brought Davis and Perry to Rhode Island Hospital. Norman did concede that he never actually saw Jose Doctor fire the weapon Jose was carrying at the time of the shooting.
When the police first questioned Norman about the incident, he denied having any relevant information about the shooting, but he later provided the police with his eyewitness account. That police statement was consistent with his testimony given at the March 1992 trial as well as his testimony given at the January 1995 trial at issue herein.
Another witness testifying for the state was Vicky Brown Strong (Strong), the sister of the mother of the decedent Davis. Davis's mother is a deaf-mute, and as a result Strong had a close relationship with her sister and often assisted her in communicating with other people. Strong and Davis's mother were able to communicate through sign language.
Strong testified that on August 11, 1990, a Saturday night, she had been socializing with some friends outside a house at 275 Rhodes Street. She testified that while socializing, she had drunk two wine coolers and had smoked marijuana but that notwithstanding she was still "very positive" about her recollection of the events that occurred on the night in question. She recalled that when she arrived at Rhodes Street at about 7 or 8 p.m., Alexis was already there. Soon thereafter Junior and Jose arrived at the social gathering independently of each other. She appeared slightly confused in her testimony when questioned about the exact times of the arrival of Junior and Jose. However, she had no difficulty in recalling that when Junior arrived, he began talking to Alexis and then they showed each other their guns. She recalled also at one point that when Jose drove to the house on Rhodes Street, he was wearing a black, hooded sweater. She also recalled seeing him reach into the back seat of the car he was driving to obtain a gun. She testified that Jose, Alexis and Junior then left together in a car belonging to Junior. Strong testified further that, as the three men were leaving the gathering at Rhodes Street, she heard Alexis say to Jose and Junior, "[L]et's go do this."
Strong then testified that Jose and Alexis returned to Rhodes Street some forty-five minutes later, and that Junior was not with them. At that time she saw Jose and Alexis run out of and from Junior's car and run into Jose's car. She testified that Jose was running "like he was scared to death" and that Alexis, running with gun in hand, was "jumping up in the air hollering 'Yeah, Yeah' " and "Fuck that nigger, Fuck that nigger."
Strong found out later that night that her nephew, Davis, had been shot. She went to Rhode Island Hospital with her daughter and niece at about 1 or 1:30 a.m. She claimed that she tried to give a statement to the police at the hospital but that no one wanted to talk to her. She testified that, in fact, the police had harassed her and had pushed her away.
Strong did not testify at any of the two previous trials or at any preliminary hearings, perhaps, in part, because she had never given a statement concerning the events to the police. She testified that the reason she had never testified at any of the prior trials or hearings was because she was often out of town with her boyfriend, a truck driver, during the pendency of the earlier hearings and trials. However, she testified that at one point she did attend a Family Court hearing concerning Alexis. After being shown, on cross-examination, a report from the Department of Children, Youth and Families (DCYF) that confirmed that she had spoken to a DCYF officer in February or March 1992, at or about the time of the second trial she acknowledged that she had also attended one or two Superior Court hearings, but that she had been asked to leave the courtroom. She was never called to testify as a witness, however, at any of those hearings.
Nelson was also called to testify for the state. He proved to be a highly uncooperative witness and testified that he did not know who the gunmen were. He explained to the jury that his prior statement to the Providence police, his prior statement given at a September 1990 bail hearing, and a prior statement he had given at Alexis's Family Court waiver hearing, all of which identified Jose and Alexis as two of the gunmen, were all incorrect. He told the court and jury that
As part of the state's case, Walter Williams (Detective Williams), a detective in the Bureau of Criminal Identification of the Providence police department, testified that in the early morning hours of August 12, 1990, he found three shell casings from a .45-caliber semiautomatic weapon around the vicinity of Sonny and Dennis'. He testified that he also found some 9-millimeter live ammunition on Eddy Street and on the corner of Eddy and Globe Streets. He further testified that after searching around Sonny and Dennis', he went to Rhode Island Hospital where he recovered a .38-caliber projectile. The next morning, he said that he retrieved two .45-caliber projectiles from the driver's door of the car in which the six men had been traveling on the night of the shooting. A .38-caliber projectile was found in Davis's body during his autopsy. Detective Williams conceded while testifying, however, that he could not be certain that all the casings that he found in the vicinity of Sonny and Dennis' came from the shooting incident in question, because the corner of Eddy and Globe Streets was and is, generally, a high crime area.
Richard Wilkinson, a ballistics expert and an employee of the State Crime Laboratory, also testified. He told the jury that the .38-caliber projectiles collected by Detective Williams were fired from the same gun and that the .45-caliber projectiles...
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