United States v. McClain, 22652.

• Decision Date: 27 January 1971
• Docket Number: No. 22652.,22652.
• Citation: 142 US App. DC 213,440 F.2d 241
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America v. Earnest McCLAIN, Appellant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — District of Columbia Circuit

142 US App. DC 213, 440 F.2d 241 (1971)

UNITED STATES of America v. Earnest McCLAIN, Appellant.

No. 22652.

United States Court of Appeals, District of Columbia Circuit.

Argued March 9, 1970.

Decided January 27, 1971.

As Amended February 25, 1971, and April 9, 1971.

Messrs. Albert F. Beasley and Alexander W. Sierck, Washington, D.C. (both appointed by this Court), for appellant.

Mr. Edwin K. Hall, Asst. U. S. Atty., with whom Messrs. Thomas A. Flannery, U. S. Atty., and John A. Terry, Asst. U. S. Atty., were on the brief, for appellee. Mr. David G. Bress, U. S. Atty. at the time the record was filed, also entered an appearance for appellee.

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

BAZELON, Chief Judge:

Appellant was charged with second degree murder, 22 D.C.Code § 2403, for pushing his wife from the porch of a house near their home, causing injuries which resulted in death. After trial, the jury returned a verdict of manslaughter, 22 D.C.Code § 2405. Judgment of conviction was entered on October 11, 1968, and appellant was sentenced to serve two to ten years imprisonment.

On appeal, appellant raises several issues, and we find that one of these requires reversal of the conviction. In particular, we find reversible error in the admission, without cautioning instruction, of evidence of a prior act of violence committed by appellant upon his wife.

For the avowed purpose of proving malice, the prosecuting attorney offered to elicit testimony from appellant's daughter that on August 5, 1967, about seven months prior to the alleged homicide, appellant had struck his wife with a chair, causing injuries which required medical attention at a local hospital. Defense counsel objected, and the trial judge held a lengthy conference at the bench in which the legal issues were carefully explored. At the end of this conference, the trial judge noted that premeditation and deliberation were not at issue in this case and that the parties had continued to live together as husband and wife for the seven months following the incident in question. He concluded:

* * * I shall not permit the Government to use any prior act of violence between this defendant and the decedent on August 5, 1968 sic, in the course of this trial.

I have permitted testimony with respect to the incidents that started allegedly the night before, and presumably from the evidence, as we have heard from the evidence that there was some continuation of it several hours before this incident happened. But beyond that I will not permit the Government to go.

After this ruling, defense counsel cross-examined appellant's daughter, at one point asking whether she had seen any altercations between her parents during the day, the week, or the month before the alleged homicide.¹ Another question could be interpreted as asking whether appellant had ever hit his wife in the face. After very brief redirect and recross-examination, the trial judge himself stepped in to ask questions which brought out the chair incident of seven months before.² Defense counsel objected, and the trial judge replied:

I ruled, Counsel, in your favor and stated that the Government would not be permitted to introduce through its direct examination that line of testimony, and you chose to go into the whole matter in cross-examination of the witness. Therefore, you opened it up for the Government to present whatever evidence that is relevant to rebut your line of questioning on cross-examination.

Defense counsel: My recollection was I went back a month.

THE COURT: My recollection is and my notes indicate you asked her did the mother and father ever fight. Isn\'t that correct?

Defense counsel: The past day and within the past week and within the past month.

THE COURT: All right.

The prosecuting attorney proceeded to examine appellant's daughter on the subject of the chair incident, and he later introduced a hospital report to substantiate the story. Defense counsel voiced his objection each time.

There is some doubt in our minds as to whether the trial judge in fact exercised his discretion upon a correct understanding of the circumstances when he held that defense counsel had opened up the matter of the chair incident. It is difficult to tell if the trial judge simply cut off argument about what precisely defense counsel had asked appellant's daughter, or if he did take in consideration counsel's correction to his notes and his recollection.

If the trial judge did understand the circumstances correctly, his exercise of discretion seems highly questionable. Whether or not he intended to do so, defense counsel's cross-examination brought out a history of fighting and arguing which, according to the witness, was appellant's fault. It is most peculiar then to admit testimony of an additional act of violence — one which the judge had already decided was prejudicial — to rebut the defense's line of questioning. The doctrine of curative admissibility is one dangerously prone to overuse. Here the issue of previous acts of violence had been laid squarely before the judge by the Government, and he had made a ruling in favor of the defense. If he then thought that defense counsel was stepping into forbidden territory, it would have been wiser to caution counsel or to rule out the questions.

In addition, it is troublesome that the trial judge himself carried out the examination which elicited from appellant's daughter the first mention of the chair incident. Here again, the judge had the alternative of calling the prosecuting attorney to the bench and telling him that the matter of prior acts of violence had now been opened up by defense counsel.³

We need not decide whether these circumstances surrounding the admission of testimony concerning the chair incident would by themselves lead us to reverse this conviction. For we have no doubt that it was reversible error for the trial judge to fail to give an instruction cautioning the jury that the evidence of prior violent acts came in only on the issue of malice, and that the jury might consider such evidence only after they may have determined that defendant was guilty of the unlawful killing of decedent on the date in question. Here, the relation between the various pieces of evidence and the offenses charged was not simple; the jury, in fact, found it necessary to ask the judge to repeat that part of the instructions which concerned the elements of second degree murder and manslaughter. Whenever prosecution evidence is introduced which is admissible only for a limited purpose, the defendant is entitled to instructions which inform the jury of the proper use which may be made of that evidence. And the failure of defense counsel to request such an instruction does not automatically bar this court from reaching the error if the instruction is not given.

The rule requiring an objection at trial to any error in the jury instructions must be read in conjunction with the rule permitting an appellate court to notice "plain error" in the absence of an objection.⁴ The requirement of an objection at trial serves several functions. It affords the trial judge the opportunity to rule on counsel's contention, and minimizes the danger that a desired instruction will be omitted through inadvertence.⁵ In this case, of course, the trial judge had ample notice of the importance defense counsel attached to the issue of the prior violent act, and there had been extensive colloquy at bench over the admissibility of the proffered evidence. No one disputed that the evidence was admissible only to prove malice, and the Government even observed that if the evidence were allowed in, an instruction would be appropriate.

The requirement of an objection at trial is also said to allow for the possibility that trial counsel may make a tactical decision against requesting certain instructions, on the theory that it might hurt the defendant to call the jury's attention to the relevant portion of the evidence.⁶ Waiver of an instruction, then, will usually mean that omission of the instruction is not error at all, much less plain error.⁷ If the waiver is going to have such an effect, however, it must be explicit; there must be a clear statement that the particular instruction in question is being waived, and it must appear from the record that the waiver was made on tactical grounds, rather than counsel's misapprehension as to the law.⁸

In this case it is clear that defense counsel did not explicitly waive his right to an instruction on the proper use of the evidence of the prior act of violence. Since no instruction was given and the prejudicial testimony was admitted without limitation, we must reverse this conviction.

In addition, we find the problem raised by this case indistinguishable from Jones v. United States, 128 U.S. App.D.C. 36, 385 F.2d 296 (1967), in which this court held that when a party seeks to impeach any witness by a prior inconsistent statement, then it is plain error not to give an immediate instruction limiting the effect of the prior statement, unless the party explicitly waives the instruction. We would hold that whenever evidence is admitted only for a limited purpose, it is plain error, in the absence of manifest waiver, to omit an immediate cautioning instruction. The danger of prejudicial effect from such evidence is so great that only an immediate and contemporaneous instruction can be considered sufficient to protect defendants. As long as we continue to have rules of evidence which admit testimony for some purposes but not for others, we must guard against its misuse by the jury.

Reversed.

MacKINNON, Circuit Judge (dissenting):

The majority opinion would reverse the judgment of conviction and order a new trial because evidence was admitted at the trial of a prior act of violence by appellant against his wife without instructing the jury (1) that such evidence was admitted only on the issue of malice and (2) that...