Walker v. United States

CHAMONTAE WALKERANDCOREY D. YATES, APPELLANTS, v. UNITED STATES, APPELLEE.

No. 12-CF-1871

No. 12-CF-1985

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA COURT OF APPEALS

Argued July 1, 2015

August 24, 2017

Notice: This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in the Atlantic and Maryland Reporters. Users are requested to notify the Clerk of the Court of any formal errors so that corrections may be made before the bound volumes go to press.

Appeals from the Superior Court of the District of Columbia

(CF1-5957-11, CF1-14652-11)

(Hon. Thomas J. Motley, Trial Judge)

Thomas C. Paynter for appellant Walker.

Todd F. Braunstein, with whom Matthew Thome was on the brief, for appellant Yates.

James M. Perez, Assistant United States Attorney, with whom Ronald C. Machen Jr., United States Attorney at the time the brief was filed, and Elizabeth Trosman, Sharon Donovan, and Emily A. Miller, Assistant United States Attorneys, were on the brief, for appellee.

Before GLICKMAN and FISHER, Associate Judges, and REID, Senior Judge.

GLICKMAN, Associate Judge:

Appellants Chamontae Walker and Corey Yates were indicted with Meeko Carraway on charges relating to the September 25, 2010, murder of Darrell Hendy. Carraway, who fired the shots that killed Hendy, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder. Walker and Yates, charged as Carraway's accomplices in the shooting, went to trial. Walker was convicted of three felonies - first-degree murder while armed, conspiracy to commit murder, and accessory after the fact to murder - and a misdemeanor charge of assaulting, resisting, or interfering with the police officer ("APO") who arrested him shortly after the shooting. Yates was convicted of second-degree murder while armed and accessory after the fact. In these consolidated appeals, Yates claims the government presented insufficient evidence to convict him of murder and suppressed evidence that he was not guilty of being an accessory after the fact. In addition, both appellants claim the trial court erred in rulings on evidence and in allowing the prosecutor to misstate the evidence in closing argument.

I.

On September 25, 2010, Darrell Hendy was walking in the 800 block of Southern Avenue when Meeko Carraway approached him from behind and shot him. At appellants' trial, the government presented evidence that Walker had been feuding with Hendy and instigated the shooting, and that he and Yates were Carraway's accomplices and after-the-fact accessories.

Ebony House, Walker's girlfriend at the time of the murder, testified that Walker and Hendy had a falling out in the spring of 2010 and were not on speaking terms. Walker told House about a month before the shooting that he believed Hendy and another man had "put a hit out on him." During the summer of 2010, Walker acted "paranoid" whenever he saw Hendy.

On the morning of September 25, Walker and House had what she described at trial as a long and physically violent fight at his mother's house, where the two were living. Walker eventually calmed down, but as far as House was concerned, their relationship was "over." House recalled that after the fight, Walker received two phone calls that she partially overheard. The first call, at around noon, was from either Carraway or Yates. House heard Walker say "yeah, I'll meet you at the building." The second call was from a man she knew as "Uncle Poochie." Walker told her that Uncle Poochie, who was in his car outside, was taking him to Realco, a gun store in Maryland, "to go get bullets."

Uncle Poochie, whose real name was Kenneth Buchanan, testified that Walker had called him and asked to be picked up. Buchanan drove Walker to Realco, where Walker purchased a box of 9mm ammunition. Buchanan recalled that Walker was in a solemn mood and said he was "angry at his girl."

After buying the ammunition, Walker asked Buchanan to drive him to 10th Place S.E. in the District to pick up his "cousins," Yates and Carraway. They went to 10th Place and Savannah Street, which was where Yates resided with his grandfather. Walker got out of Buchanan's car and spoke privately with Yates and Carraway in the alley. Buchanan was unable to hear their whole conversation, but he did hear Walker say "something B" with regard to "his girl." The three men - Walker, Carraway, and Yates - returned to Buchanan's car and asked him to drive them to an apartment building at 800 Southern Avenue. On the way, Yates sat in the back of the car next to the box of ammunition Walker had purchased. Buchanan heard Yates ask what kind of bullets they were.

As they approached their destination, Walker told Buchanan to slow down, and both Walker and Yates said, "There goes the van." This was an apparent reference to Darrell Hendy's van, which subsequently was found in a parking lot at 800 Southern Avenue. Buchanan asked, "What van?" Yates told him, "Don't worry about it." Walker said "they was just looking for somebody" and he and Yates told Buchanan to keep going and drive around the corner. Yates then said, "Let's suit up." Over defense objection, Buchanan testified he understood this "to mean to do bodily harm to somebody. . . . you want to hurt somebody." Frightened, Buchanan said to the group, "Y'all ain't about to do nothing crazy, because if you is, get out the car." Buchanan dropped Walker, Yates, and Carraway off at the side of the building at 800 Southern Avenue and left them there.

Two months later, Walker and Ebony House started dating again and she asked him about the rumors she had heard concerning Hendy's shooting on September 25.¹ Walker admitted his involvement in the shooting and described to House what happened. Over Yates's objection, the trial court ruled that Walker's incriminating statements to House were declarations against Walker's penal interest and hence admissible as affirmative evidence against Yates.² Houserecalled Walker telling her that after "Uncle Poochie" took him to Realco to get bullets, they drove directly to the "high-rise" at 800 Southern Avenue, where Walker met up with Carraway and Yates.³ After leaving Uncle Poochie, the three men went to apartment 405. There, House testified, Walker "said he was mad because we had broken up, and he told Meeko and Corey, you all I got, you all I got, somebody gonna die today."

Carraway then told Walker that Darrell Hendy was "down the street." Walker retrieved his gun from somewhere in the apartment and gave it to Carraway. Carraway loaded the weapon with Walker's bullets. The three men then went downstairs "[a]nd all three of them walked down the street" in Hendy's direction.

Walker told House they found Hendy sitting on a stoop in the Tiger Market parking lot on the Maryland side of Southern Avenue. The three men crossed over to that side and remained there for a while, keeping watch on Hendy. At some point, Carraway announced, "I'm about to do it, Cuz. I'm about to do it," butWalker warned him not to because there were too many cameras in the area. Walker and Yates then crossed back to the District side of Southern Avenue and waited there while Carraway stayed on the Maryland side in their sight. In the course of the encounter, Walker told House, Hendy asked "what's up," Walker said "what's up" back to him, and he and Hendy "was giving each other dirty looks, like mugging on each other."

It appeared to Walker that Hendy did "not feel right about the situation." Hendy got up, crossed the street back to the District side, and headed on foot toward his van in the parking lot at 800 Southern Avenue. Walker gestured for Carraway to come back across the street to join them, which he did. Walker told House that he, Carraway, and Yates then proceeded to follow Hendy as he walked away. Carraway went ahead of Walker and Yates and closed in on Hendy from behind. Next, Carraway looked back at his two friends, told them to "watch this," and then shot Hendy multiple times from behind.⁴ Walker, Yates, and Carraway then fled together into the high-rise at 800 Southern Avenue and back to apartment 405.

Video footage taken by security cameras just before and after the shooting and introduced in evidence at trial corroborated much of the story House recounted. The footage showed Yates and Walker waiting across the street from Hendy; Hendy and another person⁵ walking toward Hendy's van; Carraway crossing the street and joining Walker and Yates; Carraway passing Walker and Yates, turning back to say something, and continuing after Hendy; and then, after the shooting, Carraway running into the apartment building at 800 Southern Avenue, followed by Walker and Yates. The shooting itself was not caught on video.

Walker's cousin, Orlando Smith, testified at trial that he was in apartment 405 at 800 Southern Avenue at the time of the shooting and heard the gunshots. Moments later, Walker, Yates, and Carraway arrived at the apartment. The three men were sweating. Smith testified that Walker advised Carraway to cut his hair and helped him begin doing it. Walker and Yates then left the apartment together.Carraway did not go with them. Police searching the building in the immediate aftermath of the shooting (based on witness reports that the suspects had fled into the building) found and arrested Carraway while he was still in apartment 405. However, because the police lacked sufficient evidence at that time to charge him for Hendy's shooting, Carraway soon was released.

The police search of the building continued, floor by floor. Officer Sean Corcoran, who had assisted in Carraway's arrest in apartment 405, found Walker in another apartment on the eleventh floor. When Corcoran discovered him, Walker was "straddling the balcony as if he was going to jump off or climb down." As Corcoran tried to handcuff him, Walker grabbed for the officer's service pistol, but Corcoran succeeded in restraining him. This was the conduct that led to the APO charge against Walker. Like Carraway, however, Walker was not charged at this time for Hendy's shooting, and he was released...