U.S. v. Akers

• Decision Date: 15 March 1983
• Docket Number: No. 82-1425,82-1425
• Citation: 702 F.2d 1145,226 U.S.App.D.C. 408
• Parties: , 12 Fed. R. Evid. Serv. 1304 UNITED STATES of America v. Alan Ronnie AKERS, Appellant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — District of Columbia Circuit

Page 1145

702 F.2d 1145

226 U.S.App.D.C. 408, 12 Fed. R. Evid. Serv. 1304

UNITED STATES of America v. Alan Ronnie AKERS, Appellant.

No. 82-1425.

United States Court of Appeals, District of Columbia Circuit.

Argued Oct. 29, 1982.

Decided March 15, 1983.

As Amended March 15, 1983.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Columbia (D.C.Criminal No. 81-00293).

W. Edward Thompson, Washington, D.C., for appellant.

Wendy Bebie, Asst. U.S. Atty., with whom Stanley S. Harris, U.S. Atty., Michael W. Farrell, John R. Fisher and Deborah Robinson, Asst. U.S. Attys., Washington, D.C., were on brief, for appellee. John A. Terry, Asst. U.S. Atty., Washington, D.C., at the time the brief was filed, also entered an appearance for appellee.

Before MacKINNON, MIKVA and SCALIA, Circuit Judges.

Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge MacKINNON.

Statement filed by Circuit Judge MIKVA concurring in the judgment.

MacKINNON, Circuit Judge:

Alan Ronnie Akers and John Henry Doughty were indicted for unlawful possession of a controlled substance (phenmetrazine) with intent to distribute, 21 U.S.C. Sec. 841(a), and with possession of a dangerous drug (phenmetrazine), D.C.Code 33-702. When the jury was unable to reach a verdict, a mistrial was declared and a new trial ordered. Thereafter Doughty became a fugitive and Akers was the sole defendant in the second trial. The jury found Akers guilty on the federal count charging unlawful possession with intent to distribute. ¹ He was sentenced to twelve to forty-eight months of imprisonment with a special parole term of two years.

The sole issue on appeal concerns the court's refusal to admit five photographs, offered by the defense, which depicted the environs of the crime.

At trial, the government's case was based primarily upon the testimony of two detectives from the Drug Enforcement Unit of the Metropolitan Police Department who observed the defendant as he engaged in drug transactions. These officers were stationed with binoculars on the second floor of a vacant house at 941 French Street, N.W., for the purpose of conducting narcotics-related surveillance. The officers used the second floor back room of the house which had two windows, one overlooking the alley in the back to the north and another which faced onto 10th Street, N.W. on the west. Observations were also conducted from a window in the second floor bathroom which also provided a westerly view of 10th Street, N.W. The principal testimony of the officers concerned the drug related activities which they observed in the alley behind the house. They also observed events on 10th Street at the end of the block. ²

The officers testified that Akers' van was parked in the alley immediately behind the vacant house at 941 French Street, that they had an "unobstructed" view of Akers' and Doughty's actions in the alley (Detective Robinson, Tr. at 70-71 and 72; Detective Thomas, Tr. at 121-22 and 126), ³ and that they observed a transaction in which Doughty, the absent co-defendant, conversed with an individual in a car on the street who handed Doughty some money. Doughty then walked into the alley, handed the money to the defendant, and the defendant counted out pink pills to Doughty from a paper bag which he was holding. Doughty returned to the parked car, gave the driver the pills, and the car drove away.

The officers testified that, shortly thereafter, they observed a similar transaction. Doughty walked up to the van and handed the defendant some money, and the defendant counted pills to Doughty from the paper bag. As he was counting the pills to Doughty, Akers dropped some on the ground. Officer Robinson testified that he clearly saw these "pink pills" on the ground and that Doughty picked them up. (Tr. at 54-55). After this second transaction, Doughty put the pills he received from the defendant into a different paper bag, walked to a nearby parked car and drove away. The officers radioed police in a patrol car, Doughty's car was stopped within several blocks, and Doughty was placed under arrest. A search of the car subsequent to arrest produced a paper bag containing fifty pink pills. This information was radioed to the officers at the vacant house who then proceeded to arrest defendant Akers.

When he was arrested, Akers was seated in the van in the alley. A contemporaneous search of the van produced a yellow napkin covering approximately nine pink pills, a paper bag with approximately twenty-five pills, and a black camera case with approximately five hundred and fifty-two pills.

At trial, Akers contended that he had no knowledge that the pills were in his van. He testified that the van had been borrowed that morning by a cousin, and that the pills must have been left in the van by the individuals who borrowed it. Additionally, Akers disputed the officers' version of the transactions. He denied that such transactions ever occurred and further asserted that the officers could not have seen what they described because their view was obstructed by trees. ⁴ That the police saw Akers handling the pills belied his disclaimer, and the jury did not believe his testimony.

To support his contention that the officers' view was obstructed, Akers proffered five photographs of the area in and around 941 French Street, N.W. The government objected to their admission on the ground that they did not reflect the view which the officers had from the second story windows of the French Street residence. After extensive and detailed testimony and discussion with counsel (Tr. 309-21), the court refused to admit the five photographs. ⁵ (Tr. 334-35)

Following the guilty verdict, the defendant moved for a new trial, asserting that the exclusion of the five photographs denied him a fair trial. The court denied the motion. Akers appeals the denial of a new trial, contending that the photographs were wrongfully excluded. This contention basically involves two principal points: (1) Did the admission of the five photographs at the first trial require their admission at the second trial? (2) Were the pictures admissible as a fair representation of the view which the officers had from the second story of the vacant building? In other words, were the photographs relevant and probative.

(1) Appellant suggests that the admission of the photographs in the first trial supports his justifiable reliance that

they would be admitted in the second trial. ⁶ Such suggestion is baseless. No doctrine of the law of the case operates under these circumstances. ⁷ The evidentiary ruling at issue was rendered in a new trial which was ordered pursuant to a mistrial. ⁸ When, as here, "the previous trial [is] a nullity," the court in the new trial tries "the case as if it were being tried for the first time ..., as if there had been no prior trial." Hobbs v. State, 231 Md. 533, 536, 191 A.2d 238, 239, cert. denied, 375 U.S. 914, 84 S.Ct. 212, 11 L.Ed.2d 153 (1963). See also United States v. Paroutian, 319 F.2d 661, 663 (2d Cir.1963), cert. denied, 375 U.S. 981, 84 S.Ct. 494, 11 L.Ed.2d 426 (1964) (at new trial prosecution is not precluded from introducing additional proof that evidence excluded at first trial had an independent source); United States v. Watson, 146 F.Supp. 258, 259 (D.D.C.1956) (fact that defendant did not move to suppress certain evidence prior to first two trials does not preclude him from making the motion prior to third trial); State v. Osburn, 216 Kan. 638, 533 P.2d 1229, 1233 (Kan.1975) (granting new trial places defendant in same position as if no trial had been had); State v. Darwin, 161 Conn. 413, 288 A.2d 422, 425-26 (Conn.1971) (The failure, at the first trial, to contend that the search warrant was invalid does not preclude defendant from raising the issue at new trial. "The trial is 'new' in every sense. It is as if no trial had ever taken place.... [E]vidence which was not objected to at the first trial may be contested at the second."). Thus, the fact that the photographs were admitted in first trial does not compel their admission in the new trial. Any reliance the defendant's attorney placed upon the earlier ruling in planning for the new trial was therefore unjustified. The mere fact that the same judge happened to be sitting did not entitle counsel to assume that the judge would rule the same way ⁹--especially since the judge's exercise of his broad discretion on an evidentiary ruling (which ultimately pertains to relevancy) must turn upon the evidence as developed in the particular trial. See United States v. Allison, 474 F.2d 286, 289 (5th Cir.1973) ("The relevancy or irrelevancy of particular evidence, therefore, turns on the facts of the individual case.").

(2) We also find here that, unlike what occurred in Miller v. Poretsky, 595

F.2d 780 (D.C.Cir.1978), the trial judge properly evaluated the admissibility of the photographs at the second trial on the basis of the actual testimony at that time. Photographic evidence is admissible only if it is relevant to the specific issues at trial. Richardson v. Gregory, 281 F.2d 626, 630 (D.C.Cir.1960). The determination of relevance can only be made with reference to the specific testimony adduced at trial. In this instance, after carefully reviewing the photographs and the testimony, the trial court determined that the photographs were inadmissible because they were not relevant. Rulings as to the admissibility of photographs are clearly within the discretion of the trial judge and will only be overturned upon a showing of abuse of discretion. Jackson v. United States, 395 F.2d 615 (D.C.Cir.1968). The decision to exclude these five photographs was correct and was not an abuse of discretion.

None of the photographs depicted the view the officers had from the second story window at the rear of the building from which they observed the principal transactions and articles (pills) which prove Akers' guilt. Nonetheless, the photographs were offered to...