United States v. Brown

• Decision Date: 28 December 1973
• Docket Number: No. 72-1066.,72-1066.
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America v. Roland W. BROWN, Appellant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — District of Columbia Circuit

490 F.2d 758 (1973)

UNITED STATES of America v. Roland W. BROWN, Appellant.

No. 72-1066.

United States Court of Appeals, District of Columbia Circuit.

Argued February 22, 1973.

Decided December 28, 1973.

As Amended January 10, 1974.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Walter R. Choroszej, Washington, D. C. (appointed by this court) for appellant.

John C. Lenahan, Asst. U. S. Atty., with whom Harold H. Titus, Jr., U. S. Atty., John A. Terry, Theodore Wieseman, and John F. Evans, Asst. U. S. Attys., were on the brief, for appellee.

Before BAZELON, Chief Judge, and WRIGHT and MacKINNON, Circuit Judges.

MacKINNON, Circuit Judge:

Appellant was charged in a four-count indictment on September 9, 1969, with first degree murder and with carrying a dangerous weapon. On October 6 and 9, 1969, the trial court heard and denied appellant's motion to dismiss the indictment for lack of a speedy trial. Thereafter, on October 13, a jury trial commenced, and on October 24 appellant was found guilty of (1) second-degree murder and (2) carrying a dangerous weapon (D.C.Code § 22-3204). On November 12 the trial court granted appellant's motion for a mental examination, and on November 14 it ordered appellant's commitment to Saint Elizabeths Hospital.

On May 25, 1971, the court ordered a separate trial to determine appellant's mental responsibility for the crimes committed. Following a jury trial on September 14-22, appellant was found to be mentally responsible for both offenses. On December 14, 1971, the court heard and denied appellant's motion for judgment of acquittal notwithstanding the verdict or, in the alternative, for a new trial; and on the same date appellant was sentenced to (1) ten years to life imprisonment on the murder count and (2) two to ten years' imprisonment for carrying a dangerous weapon, the sentences to run concurrently. This appeal followed.

Under the Government's theory of the case, the victim, Parks, was a link in appellant's drug distribution network, peddling his merchandise on consignment from appellant. Upon falling into arrears in turning over to the appellant the money received from the drug sales, Parks was "disciplined" in traditional gangland fashion.

The case for the prosecution consisted principally of the testimony of another of appellant Brown's "outlets," one Dyson, who placed Brown at the scene of the crime and related a number of highly incriminating surrounding circumstances.¹ Other witnesses corroborated the basic pattern of Brown's narcotics operations and "disciplinary" methods as well as chronicling a variety of threats uttered by appellant against Parks and others.

The defense sought to impeach Dyson's credibility and also placed in issue the identity of the murderer by raising an alibi defense. The government apparently was successful in rebutting the alibi since the jury found Brown guilty of second-degree murder.²

Appellant raises a wide array of issues. One issue, which we discuss at some length, is an evidentiary issue involving the improper admission of certain highly prejudicial hearsay testimony. Since we reverse on this narrow ground alone, we do not reach most of the issues argued by appellant since these alleged errors would be obviated by a new trial. However, since the speedy trial claim and the alleged defects in the separate trial on mental responsibility would recur in a new trial, we deal with them only very briefly here since we find these claims to be without merit. There simply was no substantial prejudicial delay attributable to the government in this case, and we agree with the trial judge's ruling in this regard. Barker v. Wingo, 407 U.S. 514, 92 S.Ct. 2182, 33 L.Ed.2d 101 (1972).³ As to the separate trial on mental responsibility, there is no question that this was conducted without prejudicial error and that the verdict is amply supported by the evidence.⁴

The evidentiary question upon which we focus our attention involves certain testimony elicited by the prosecution from the victim's wife. The government made a proffer that Mrs. Parks would testify to the effect that Mr. Parks had told her prior to his death that he was frightened that he would be murdered by appellant, Roland Brown. Defense counsel objected to this as hearsay, and the prosecution sought to justify it under the state of mind exception to the hearsay rule as somehow explaining the deceased's actions around the time of death.⁵ The government realized that the testimony could not be considered as probative of the fact that Brown was the killer and even offered to delete the reference to Brown, leaving only the statement that Parks was afraid of being killed by someone. The trial court, however, refused to allow the deletion, being under the impression that this would have been improper.⁶ The trial court also denied defense counsel's request for a limiting instruction at the time of the testimony⁷ but did give the requested instruction at the close of the trial along with all the other charges.

The testimony that was finally elicited, and objected to, not only included the name of the defendant but dramatically emphasized it:

Q: You mentioned, Mrs. Parks, that he was frightened. What was he frightened of?

A: Frightened that he may be killed.

Q: And who did he say he was frightened was going to kill him?

A: Mr. Roland Brown.

MR. HOUCK: No further questions.

Tr. 451

Ultimately at the end of the trial, the judge did give an instruction on the permissible scope of the jury's consideration of the above testimony:

You have heard testimony in the course of this trial from Mrs. Thelma Parks that her husband, the deceased, Ricardo Parks, was afraid that he was going to be killed by Roland W. Brown. You ladies and gentlemen of the jury are instructed that this testimony is to be considered by you in connection with evaluating the state of mind of Ricardo Parks and its effect, if any, on his, Ricardo Parks\' subsequent conduct.

You are not to consider this testimony to evaluate the state of mind or the conduct of the defendant, Roland W. Brown, nor infer nor conclude that the defendant inflicted injuries upon Ricardo Parks from which he died solely from this testimony.⁸

I. GENERAL PRINCIPLES

Briefly stated, the state of mind exception to the hearsay rule allows the admission of extrajudicial statements to show the state of mind of the declarant at that time if that is at issue in the case. See Proposed Rules of Evidence for the United States Courts, Rule 803(3) (1973); note 55 infra. It also allows such statements to show a future intent of the declarant to perform an act if the occurrence of that act is at issue. Mutual Life Ins. Co. v. Hillmon, 145 U.S. 285, 12 S.Ct. 909, 36 L.Ed. 706 (1892). In showing the declarant's state of mind the statements may either consist of direct or circumstantial evidence. Thus the statement "X is no good" circumstantially indicates the declarant's state of mind toward X and, where that mental state is a material issue in the case, such statement would be admissible with a limiting instruction. Technically it is not even hearsay since it is not being admitted for the truth of the matter alleged. We do not care whether X is in fact "no good" but only whether the declarant disliked him. However direct statements are also admitted. Thus the statement "I hate X" is direct evidence of the declarant's state of mind and, since it is being introduced for the truth of the matter alleged, must be within some exception to the hearsay rule in order to be admissible. Since the state of mind exception does permit just such testimony, the distinction is not very important.⁹ However, where the statement is of the former type (circumstantially probative of the declarant's state of mind), it invariably involves certain extraneous factual elements. In these situations a limiting instruction is always necessary to ensure that such factual matters are to be considered solely on the issue of the declarant's mental state and not for the truth of the matters contained therein.¹⁰

This is, of course, the familiar rule of multiple admissibility.¹¹ In this context it operates in this manner: A statement which would be pure hearsay as to the truth of the matters alleged is not made inadmissible thereby if introduced solely to show the declarant's state of mind and if accompanied by a limiting instruction. This represents a basic policy judgment that the possibility of misuse of the evidence for the impermissible purpose, when minimized by a limiting instruction, is a risk worth chancing when compared to the harms that would likely result from the total exclusion of valuable relevant evidence. Yet recognition of the limited effectiveness of the special instruction has produced marked inroads on the rule of multiple admissibility where great prejudice inheres in the statement in question.¹²

These principles must be applied with due deference to another fundamental concept in the law of evidence — that of relevance. It is well established that some evidence, while bearing some logical relevance to the case, may in the discretion of the judge nevertheless be excluded where its probative value is substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice, confusion or delay.¹³ This concept of "relative relevance," a rule of extrinsic policy,¹⁴ allows the court to balance the need for such evidence against its probable dangers.

II. RELEVANCE BALANCING OF STATE OF MIND TESTIMONY

A. Prejudice

In order to examine this balancing process in this context, we must begin by asking what exactly is the "prejudice" with which we are concerned here. Since such statements invariably contain two components — the circumstantial facts themselves and the inference to be drawn from such facts as to the declarant's state of mind — the prejudice lies in the danger of jury misuse of the evidence. Despite a limiting instruction to the effect that the evidence is to be considered solely on the issue of the...