Woodard v. US

• Decision Date: 26 August 1999
• Docket Number: No. 94-CF-1600 | 97-CO-1710.
• Citation: 738 A.2d 254
• Parties: Raynard WOODARD, Appellant, v. UNITED STATES, Appellee.
• Court: D.C. Court of Appeals

738 A.2d 254

Raynard WOODARD, Appellant, v. UNITED STATES, Appellee.

Nos. 94-CF--CO-1710.

District of Columbia Court of Appeals.

Argued November 3, 1998.

Decided August 26, 1999.

Jeffrey T. Green, with whom Colleen M. Lauerman, Washington, DC, was on the brief, for appellant.

Stephen R. Martin, Assistant United States Attorney, for appellee. Wilma A. Lewis, United States Attorney, and John R. Fisher, Elizabeth Trosman and Clark W. Metz, Assistant United States Attorneys, filed the brief for appellee.

Before STEADMAN, SCHWELB and RUIZ, Associate Judges.

RUIZ, Associate Judge:

After a jury trial, appellant, Raynard Woodard, was convicted of second-degree murder¹ and sentenced to a term of imprisonment of twenty years to life.² Woodard contends on appeal that the trial court erred in denying his § 23-110 motion,³ and in imposing a minimum sentence of twenty years. Because we find that counsel's performance did not prejudice appellant, we affirm the trial court's denial of Woodard's § 23-110 motion, but remand for resentencing in accordance with this opinion.

I.

On October 16, 1992, at about 5:00 or 5:30 p.m., Raymond Adams saw Woodard entering his home at 924 Ingraham Street, N.W., with a woman wearing a skirt.⁴ Around 5:30 p.m., Sheila Oden, who was in her home next door at 922 Ingraham Street with her boyfriend, Jeffrey Owens, heard a window break and someone screaming. She and Owens went outside and concluded that the noise was coming from Woodard's home at 924 Ingraham Street. Oden then heard a woman screaming from the second-floor bedroom of 924 Ingraham Street, "Stop! Stop! Leave me alone! Help! Help!" Several minutes later, Raymond Adams came out of his house, entered the backyard of 924 Ingraham Street, and tried to get inside the house. He yelled, "Raynard, open the door," but Woodard did not answer and Adams went back to his own house. Soon thereafter, Adams came back outside and Oden expressed concern that no one could enter the house to help. After the screaming stopped, Oden, Owens and Adams went back inside their respective homes.⁵

Between 6:45 and 7:30 p.m., David Attaway, a neighborhood acquaintance, saw Woodard emerge from behind the laundromat, at the corner of Hamilton Street and Georgia Avenue, N.W., with a torn shirt and looking agitated and as though he was in a hurry.⁶ At about 7:45 p.m., James Butler went out the back door of his house, which leads to the Ingraham Street alley, and saw what he believed to be a body lying on top of some brush. After getting his next-door neighbor and a nearby woman, they confirmed that it was a body, and Butler's mother called the police.

At about 8:00 p.m., police officers arrived on the scene and saw the corpse of a woman wearing dark-colored sweatpants and a blue and grey sweatshirt with no shoes.⁷ In response to a radio broadcast, a detective then entered 924 Ingraham Street to locate a broken, second-floor window, but the bedroom door was padlocked. That same day, Woodard moved out of 924 Ingraham Street. In the course of investigation, the decedent was identified by her fingerprints as Sherrie Sajko. Sometime after the murder, Woodard's half-brother, Marvin Douglas, who also lived at 924 Ingraham Street, found a ring in the house which had belonged to Sherrie Sajko.

On November 24, 1992, police officers entered 924 Ingraham Street with a search warrant and found a broken window in Woodard's second-floor bedroom. They also discovered blood on the side of a dresser inside the room. In the basement, the police found a large light-blue plastic trash can which had dried blood on it and contained a blanket with a very large blood stain on one end. The door to the basement opened out of the rear of the house into the Ingraham alley where the victim's body was found.

At trial, a Federal Bureau of Investigation special agent testified that the DNA from the blood on the mattress pad found in Bullock's second-floor bedroom matched DNA from the victim's blood. Another FBI agent, assigned to the Hairs and Fibers Unit, testified that the carpet fibers found on Sajko's sweatshirt matched those in Woodard's second-floor bedroom. He also testified that the dog hairs found on Sajko's sweatpants and on Sajko's transport sheet matched the dog hairs in Woodard's home. The Deputy Medical Examiner determined Sajko's death was due to "blunt force injuries" to the head, which were too scattered to have resulted from a fall. The examiner also determined that the alcohol and cocaine in Sajko's blood-stream did not cause her death. At the close of the government's evidence, defense counsel rested without putting on any witnesses, and, after a colloquy with the judge, Woodard waived his right to testify on his own behalf. The trial judge then excused the jury and invited the parties to propose jury instructions. When the judge asked whether either party would be requesting jury instructions on lesser-included offenses, defense counsel requested instructions on second-degree murder and involuntary manslaughter. The government responded that it was reluctant to "say much about jury instructions," but didn't believe that involuntary manslaughter was appropriate. After closing arguments, the judge instructed the jury on first-degree murder, second-degree murder and involuntary manslaughter. In doing so, he guided the jury on the order in which the offenses should be considered:

You should first consider whether Mr. Woodard is guilty of the greater offense of first-degree murder. If you find that. . . the defendant is guilty of first-degree murder, do not go on to consider the other two charges. If you find the defendant not guilty of first-degree murder, or if after making all reasonable efforts to reach a verdict with respect to that offense you are not able to do so, you are allowed to consider and should consider the offense of second-degree murder. . . .

The jury convicted Woodard of second-degree murder.

II.

Woodard contends that the trial court erred in denying his § 23-110 motion alleging ineffective assistance of counsel. He asserts that trial counsel's failure to consult with him before requesting lesser-included offense jury instructions constituted deficient performance, and that counsel's unilateral decision to request such instructions was prejudicial because, absent these instructions, he would have been acquitted of first-degree murder. Under the familiar Strickland test, to prove ineffective assistance of counsel, Woodard must demonstrate both that 1) trial counsel's performance was deficient, and 2) the deficiency prejudiced the defendant to the extent that he was deprived of a reliable and fair trial. Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 687, 104 S.Ct. 2052, 80 L.Ed.2d 674 (1984); see also Bowman v. United States, 652 A.2d 64, 73-74 (D.C.1994); Robinson v. United States, 565 A.2d 964, 970 (D.C.1989); Curry v. United States, 498 A.2d 534, 539-40 (D.C. 1984). When evaluating the performance of counsel, trial counsel must be given sufficient latitude to make tactical decisions and strategic judgments which involve the exercise of professional abilities. See Strickland, supra, 466 U.S. at 689, 104 S.Ct. 2052; see also Washington v. United States, 689 A.2d 568, 574 n. 9 (D.C.1997). In addition, appellant bears a "heavy burden" of proving prejudice. Curry, supra, 498 A.2d at 540 (citing Jennings v. United States, 431 A.2d 552, 557 (D.C.1981), cert. denied, 457 U.S. 1135, 102 S.Ct. 2964, 73 L.Ed.2d 1353 (1982)). Appellant must show that there is a "reasonable probability" that, but for counsel's professional errors, he would not have been convicted. Strickland, supra, 466 U.S. at 694, 104 S.Ct. 2052. Ineffective assistance of counsel claims present mixed questions of law and fact in which we yield to the trial court's factual findings when supported by the record, but review its legal conclusions de novo. See James v. United States, 718 A.2d 1083, 1089 (D.C.1998).

A. Deficient performance.

Woodard argues that the decision whether to request jury instructions on lesser-included offenses is critical to the protection of a defendant's liberty interest and, therefore, defense counsel should have consulted or advised him before asking the court to instruct the jury on second-degree murder and involuntary manslaughter.⁸ In its order denying Woodard's claim of ineffective assistance of counsel, the trial court noted that, in this jurisdiction, it is an open question whether the defendant or counsel makes the ultimate decision regarding lesser-included offense jury instructions. The trial court concluded that the decision to ask for lesser-included instructions is essentially one of trial strategy, and therefore the prerogative of trial counsel, but that the decision is of such importance that it requires full consultation with the defendant. The trial court held, however, that failure to consult with a defendant on lesser-included offense jury instructions does not constitute ineffective assistance of counsel as a matter of law absent some finding of prejudice. We agree with the trial court that the issue of who makes the ultimate decision whether to request lesser-included offense jury instructions has not been decided in this jurisdiction.⁹ Moreover, other jurisdictions differ on this issue. Compare People v. Brocksmith, 162 Ill.2d 224, 205 Ill.Dec. 113, 642 N.E.2d 1230, 1235 (1994) (Freeman, J., concurring) (noting decision to tender lesser-included offense instruction is a matter of trial strategy and is, therefore, ultimately counsel's to make), and Chao v. State, 604 A.2d 1351, 1358 (Del.1992) (placing burden of requesting lesser-included offenses in jury instructions on defense counsel who "determine trial tactics and presumably act in accordance with a formulated strategy"), superseded by statute as stated in Lawrie v. State, 643 A.2d 1336 (Del.1994),and Van Alstine v. State, 263 Ga. 1, 426 S.E.2d 360, 363 (1993) (concluding that decision to...