Williams v. State

• Decision Date: 23 July 1999
• Docket Number: No. 49S00-9712-CR-689.,49S00-9712-CR-689.
• Citation: 714 N.E.2d 644
• Parties: Roosevelt WILLIAMS, Appellant (Defendant Below), v. STATE of Indiana, Appellee (Plaintiff Below).
• Court: Indiana Supreme Court

714 N.E.2d 644

Roosevelt WILLIAMS, Appellant (Defendant Below), v. STATE of Indiana, Appellee (Plaintiff Below).

No. 49S00-9712-CR-689.

Supreme Court of Indiana.

July 23, 1999.

S. Sargent Visher, Indianapolis, Indiana, Attorney for Appellant.

Jeffrey A. Modisett, Attorney General of Indiana, James D. Dimitri, Deputy Attorney General, Indianapolis, Indiana, Attorneys for Appellee. BOEHM, Justice.

A jury convicted Roosevelt Williams of murder and he was sentenced to sixty-five years imprisonment. In this direct appeal he raises claims, which we restate as: (1) the trial court erred by denying his motion for mistrial based on the State's failure to disclose an agreement not to prosecute a witness who gave a statement to police and testified against him at trial; (2) the trial court's instructions to the jury on witness credibility and the definition of "reasonable doubt" were erroneous; (3) the trial court erred by admitting the testimony of a DNA expert in the face of the State's nondisclosure of her file; and (4) the trial court erred by excluding the testimony of a defense witness. We affirm the trial court.

Factual and Procedural Background

Jerome Wade and his stepson Jerry Williams, Jr. ("Jerry," no relation to the defendant) were at their apartment on Staughton Drive in Indianapolis on June 25, 1995. At approximately 2:15 p.m., as Wade stood in the kitchen fixing dinner, Jerry ran to the back of the apartment. Wade turned around and saw two men standing in the doorway holding pistols. One was wearing all blue clothing and had pulled a blue mask over his face. The other was clad entirely in white. The man in blue ran after Jerry, while the man in white told Wade to sit on the couch and repeatedly ordered Wade not to look at him.

Minutes later Wade heard the man in blue say "I know you got it, give it up," then heard several shots fired. When the man in white headed toward the back of the apartment, Wade tried to hide behind a recliner, and the man in white fired several shots at Wade, one of which struck him in the leg. The two intruders then left the apartment. Cynthia Tutt was sitting in her car in front of Wade's apartment building when she saw two men, one of whom had his hand wrapped in a towel, run out of the building, and drive off in a "big cream colored car."

Jerry had been hit by six bullets and died from gunshot wounds to the chest and abdomen. Two 9 millimeter bullets were recovered during the autopsy. When police arrived they discovered a trail of blood leading from the apartment door to the sidewalk outside the building, and also found blood on a small rock across the street from the apartment. Police took several samples from this trail of blood and one sample from the rock.

On the same afternoon at about 2:45 p.m., Williams appeared at Wishard Hospital with gunshot wounds to his arm and his leg. He told a Wishard special deputy that he had been carjacked. Detectives investigating Jerry's murder heard a police radio transmission about a man who had arrived at Wishard Hospital claiming to have been shot in the course of a carjacking that occurred in the general vicinity of the murder. Two days later police obtained and executed a search warrant to draw blood from Williams, who was still at Wishard Hospital. After the blood was drawn, the detectives told Williams that they wanted to talk to him about Jerry's murder. Williams told the detectives that he would like to have some time to think about it, and the detectives told Williams that they would return in about an hour. When they returned, the detectives were unable to locate Williams. Hospital personnel told police that Williams "was not there," but had not been discharged.

DNA analysis of the blood found at the scene compared with samples from Williams, Wade, and Jerry excluded Wade and Jerry, but not Williams, as a source of the blood found at the scene. The DNA profile of Williams, which matched that of the blood found at the crime scene, occurs in one in 22,500 African-Americans.

Almost a year after Jerry's death, Ronald Rush was at his aunt's house when narcotics officers executed a search warrant. Rush was taken to the police station where he was asked if he knew anything about the murder of Jerry Williams. After being told that he was facing twenty to fifty years for a Class A felony drug charge, Rush agreed to talk to the police. According to Rush's statement, Williams and his cousin, Ian Gentry, arrived in Williams' cream-colored Buick to visit Rush. Rush reported that Williams was carrying a 9 millimeter handgun and said he and Gentry were going to rob Jerry. He also displayed a blue mask that he said he would wear to conceal his identity. Rush also told police that he went to Wishard Hospital the following day to speak to Williams, where Williams told him that, although he had planned only to rob Jerry, "it got deeper than just a robbery and he killed Jerry." Williams also told Rush that Jerry shot him in his arm and in his leg. Williams said that after Jerry shot him he "pulled the nine millimeter out and shot Jerry several times."

At trial, Rush changed his story. He testified that Williams never told him that he had killed Jerry and that his statement to police was based on details he heard from someone else. He also testified that a detective had told him "if I told him what I knew he'd let me go, and I just told him what I heard, you know, because I was scared." Later in the trial, defense counsel asked the detective who took Rush's statement whether Rush received any benefits for giving a statement, and the detective responded that drug charges were not filed. The detective also testified that he had informed a deputy prosecutor in the screening division about this "deal," but had not told the deputy in charge of trying Williams' case. Defense counsel moved for a mistrial based on the State's failure to disclose the arrangement with Rush. In the alternative, Williams asked that the detective's testimony and Rush's testimony be stricken from the record. The trial court denied the motion for mistrial but granted the request to strike the testimony of Rush and admonished the jury that "the testimony and prior statement of Ronald Rush, as well as any testimony concerning them from any other witness are no longer evidence in this case and are stricken from the record."

The jury found Williams guilty of both murder and felony murder. The trial court entered judgment of conviction only for murder and sentenced Williams to sixty-five years imprisonment.

I. Late Disclosure of the "Deal"

Williams contends that the trial court erred by denying his motion for mistrial based on the State's failure to disclose the "deal" made with Rush. It is undisputed that the detective's knowledge of an agreement not to prosecute Rush for a drug charge is imputed to the State. See Kyles v. Whitley, 514 U.S. 419, 437, 115 S.Ct. 1555, 131 L.Ed.2d 490 (1995) ("the individual prosecutor has a duty to learn of any favorable evidence known to the others acting on the government's behalf in the case, including the police").

Williams knew that Rush would be called by the State to testify against him. Rush had given a statement to the police that provided numerous details of the murder and Williams' alleged involvement in it. A copy of this statement was provided to defense counsel months before trial. Defense counsel also deposed Rush before trial and, although that deposition is not part of the record, it is clear from the trial record that defense counsel were aware that Rush had been taken to the police station because of his alleged involvement in a narcotics charge.¹ Defense counsel did not know, however, that there was a "deal" with Rush not to file felony drug charges in exchange for his giving a statement.

Because the "deal" became known to Williams and the jury before the trial concluded, there was no Brady violation.²Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83, 83 S.Ct. 1194, 10 L.Ed.2d 215 (1963), and its progeny apply to the State's failure to disclose evidence that is favorable to the accused and material to the accused's guilt or punishment. Id. at 87, 83 S.Ct. 1194; see also Kyles, 514 U.S. at 432,115 S.Ct. 1555; United States v. Bagley, 473 U.S. 667, 105 S.Ct. 3375, 87 L.Ed.2d 481 (1985); United States v. Agurs, 427 U.S. 97, 96 S.Ct. 2392, 49 L.Ed.2d 342 (1976). Brady applies to evidence impeaching the credibility of State's witnesses. See Bagley, 473 U.S. at 676,105 S.Ct. 3375 (citing Giglio v. United States, 405 U.S. 150, 154, 92 S.Ct. 763, 31 L.Ed.2d 104 (1972)). Evidence is material under Brady "only if there is a reasonable probability that, had the evidence been disclosed to the defense, the result of the proceeding would have been different. `A reasonable probability' is a probability sufficient to undermine confidence in the outcome." Bagley, 473 U.S. at 682,105 S.Ct. 3375. However, in each of the cases cited, evidence was not made known to the defendant until after the conclusion of the trial. Indeed, the Bagley standard assesses materiality in terms of the effect on "the result of the proceeding" or the "the outcome." If the favorable evidence becomes known to the defendant before or during the course of a trial, Brady is not implicated. Agurs, 427 U.S. at 103,96 S.Ct. 2392 (Brady rule applies to "the discovery, after trial, of information which had been known to the prosecution but unknown to the defense"); United States v. Kime, 99 F.3d 870, 882 (8th Cir.1996) (quoting Nassar v. Sissel, 792 F.2d 119, 121 (8th Cir.1986)) ("Brady does not require pretrial disclosure as long as ultimate disclosure is made before it is too late for the defendant to make use of any benefits of the evidence."); Braswell v. State, 550 N.E.2d 1280, 1283 (Ind.1990) ("[I]n the instant case, the discovery of the recorded statement occurred before the trial concluded. Thus appellant's reliance on Brady is misplaced.").

In the absence of a Brady v...