Weber v. State
| Citation | 457 A.2d 674 |
| Parties | Paul E. WEBER, Defendant Below, Appellant, v. STATE of Delaware, Plaintiff Below, Appellee. . Submitted: |
| Decision Date | 23 November 1982 |
| Court | United States State Supreme Court of Delaware |
Upon appeal from Superior Court. Reversed and remanded.
L. Vincent Ramunno, Wilmington, for defendant below, appellant.
Gary A. Myers, Deputy Atty. Gen., Georgetown, and Charles M. Oberly, III, Deputy Atty. Gen., Wilmington, for plaintiff below, appellee.
Before HERRMANN, C.J., HORSEY and MOORE, JJ.
Paul E. Weber killed 17 year old Dirk T. Henson and was then convicted by a jury of second degree murder 1 and possession of a deadly weapon during the commission of a felony. 2 Weber appeals these convictions on several grounds, but we address only three:
1) the refusal of the trial court to permit the jury to hear that the State's eye-witnesses to the alleged crime had received cash payments from the victim's family before testifying;
2) the police failure to inform Weber during custodial interrogation that both his father and a privately retained lawyer were present at the police station and wanted to see him, aggravated by the investigator's later deceptive representation to them that Weber had been advised of his rights, declined the lawyer's services and made a statement; and
3) the lack of jury instructions defining the elements of second degree murder.
These are fundamental errors mandating reversal and a re-trial, but we do not arrive at that conclusion lightly. After oral argument we granted the State's motion for supplemental argument so that its trial counsel in this case could appear and reargue certain limited issues which the State believed it had not properly addressed at the first argument. Thus, we have considered the State's position in detail and our reversal is limited to the above-stated grounds. 3
On January 8, 1981, Weber, then 18 years old, stabbed Dirk T. Henson in an apartment building in Newark, Delaware. The knife penetrated Henson's heart, and he died en route to the hospital. This, however, was not a random killing, but the tragic conclusion of a long-standing feud, punctuated by several prior confrontations of a very threatening nature, between the two youths.
The evidence is totally conflicting and replete with charges, countercharges and wholesale denials between the stories told by the prosecution and defense witnesses as to threats Weber and Henson had made to each other, and the acts of physical aggression between the two which finally led to the confrontation that ended in Henson's death.
On January 8, 1981, the day he died, Henson called Weber between 5:00 p.m. and 5:30 p.m., accusing Weber of making derogatory remarks to and attempting to run over Henson's girlfriend. Henson invited Weber to meet him in a park in his neighborhood. Weber called two of his friends to relate the conversation and then went to the park to see if anyone was there. About thirty minutes after Henson had called, Weber phoned the New Castle County police. When an officer responded to the call, Weber related Henson's phone call. Though expressing his fear of being confronted by Henson and his companions, Weber told the officer that he "wasn't afraid of [Henson] if he was alone" and if "he got in a conflict with him, he could take him, wouldn't be any problem with that". The officer went to the park to investigate, advising Weber to call again if there were further problems.
In the meantime, Henson, who had been drinking, and several of his friends had gone to the park to see if Weber had arrived. Not seeing Weber, Henson and three friends then drove to Weber's house. Encountering Weber and a friend of his, they shouted threats and obscenities at Weber from their car but soon left. The evidence was conflicting whether any weapons were displayed and whether anyone left the car.
Weber returned to the house and called the police. After the police left, Weber went to the apartment of his girlfriend, Sonya Felmy, to keep a previously arranged date. Henson, who knew Felmy, coincidentally decided to see her to ask her to mediate between Weber and him. Henson was accompanied by James Brian Kane, Terry Owens, and Ronald Richard, two of whom had been with him earlier at Weber's house. Upon their arrival, Henson spotted Weber's car and surmised that Weber was in Miss Felmy's apartment.
According to the State's witnesses, Henson went into the building, while his friends waited outside, knocked on Miss Felmy's door, and asked to speak to Weber. When Weber appeared, an argument started over Weber's previous conduct toward Henson's girlfriend. In the meantime, Henson's companions had entered the building and formed a semi-circle behind him. Although the argument was loud, two other residents in the building, attracted at first by the noise, testified that neither Henson nor his friends physically threatened Weber or exhibited any weapon. At Weber's request, Henson's friends left. The arguing subsided, and Henson asked Weber to come outside to settle the matter, but Weber pulled a knife. Henson, his arms outstretched, calmly told Weber to put the knife away since he was unarmed. As Henson approached, Weber stabbed him once.
Weber gave a different account of this fatal meeting. After Henson's friends had entered the building, they became loud and abusive and jostled him several times. The four youths had moved him away from the apartment door, and they were less than an arm's length from him. They also reportedly threatened to take him behind the apartment building and beat him. When their attention was diverted by the appearance of Miss Felmy's mother, Weber produced his own knife. When the mother went back into the apartment, Henson's friends left the hallway. Henson started to pull Weber from the wall and downstairs to the rear of the building. Weber broke away and Henson approached him again, appearing to reach for brass knuckles in his pocket. In the meantime, Henson's friends had re-entered the hallway, carrying some type of weapon. Weber, claiming self-defense, then stabbed Henson once in the chest.
Weber was subsequently indicted for second degree murder and possession of a deadly weapon during the commission of a felony. His main defense was that the use of deadly force was justified. 4 The jury rejected that claim and found Weber guilty as charged. With the circumstances of Henson's death before us, we turn to the issues mandating reversal.
A most serious matter arose on the third day of trial. Weber's counsel informed the court that it appeared the Henson family had paid money to several State witnesses. The record does not suggest that the prosecutors knew of this until the defense raised the subject. When one of the prosecutors asked the victim's parents if they had given money to any witness, the Hensons denied having done so. The prosecutor then reported these representations to the court and defense counsel. That night Mrs. Henson telephoned one of the prosecutors and revealed her involvement, thus confirming the defense allegation of her payments to witnesses.
At defense request, a hearing into the alleged payments was held the next day outside the presence of the jury. James Kane, a 19 year old friend of Henson, testified that during the week before trial Henson's grandmother, Jocelyn P. Jamison, had provided eighty-five dollars for a new suit and a haircut. The cash was actually delivered by Henson's girlfriend, Kandice Owens, who had received it from Henson's mother. Kane stated that immediately prior to receiving the cash, he had told Mrs. Henson what his testimony would be in general terms. Kane and Owens denied that Mrs. Henson coached Kane, but Mrs. Henson did voice her approval of Kane's statements. Kandice Owens testified that she had delivered similar sums of cash to her 17 year old brother, Terry, and to Ronald Richard, aged 19, who were also State witnesses.
Mrs. Henson confirmed these accounts. Defense counsel then queried her motives for the payments. According to Mrs. Henson, Mrs. Jamison had learned that Weber was buying new clothes for his trial. Mrs. Jamison believed that she should do something similar for her grandson's friends and asked Mrs. Henson to arrange it. Pressed by defense counsel, Mrs. Henson admitted that she and Mrs. Jamison wanted to make the witnesses appearing against Weber look better to the jury. 5
Weber's counsel urged that the jury hear this evidence primarily because it was essential to the jury's assessment of the witnesses' character and credibility. The trial judge refused on the ground that there was no difference between the witnesses' testimony and their prior statements to the police. Accordingly, there was no evidence that the cash payments influenced their testimony. 6
We believe that this was too narrow a focus by the trial court, particularly since the physical appearance of these witnesses was an issue in the case. The State's rebuttal argument to the jury highlights the error of this ruling. To persuade the jury that the witnesses were not members of a gang, but clean-cut teenagers, the prosecutor made this comment about their courtroom appearance:
He (defense counsel] described the individuals in the hallway, Terry Owens, Ronald Richard, Brian Kane, and he describes them in various parts during the trial; describes them as a mob, a gang, the debris, a gang of thugs, the gutter sweepings of Newark.
You saw them testify. You saw each and every one of them on the stand. Are they the gutter sweepings of Newark? I submit not. (Emphasis added.)
Weber contends that he was denied his constitutional right to impeach the credibility of the three witnesses, relying on Davis v. Alaska, 415 U.S. 308, 94 S.Ct. 1105, 39 L.Ed.2d 347 (1974) and Wintjen v. State, Del.Supr., 398 A.2d 780 (1979). He further argues that the error was compounded by the State's reference, during its rebuttal argument, to the witnesses'...
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