Williams v. United States

187 A.3d 559

MacArthur D. WILLIAMS, Appellant,

v.UNITED STATES, Appellee.

No. 14-CO-887

District of Columbia Court of Appeals.

Submitted January 9, 2018

Decided April 26, 2018^*

FILED August 2, 2018

Sicilia C. Englert was on the brief for appellant.

Chimnomnso N. Kalu, Assistant United States Attorney, with whom Channing D. Phillips, United States Attorney at the time the brief was filed, Elizabeth Trosman, Suzanne Grealy Curt, and Timothy Lucas, Assistant United States Attorneys were on the brief for appellee.

Before Blackburne-Rigsby, Chief Judge, Easterly, Associate Judge, and Ferren, Senior Judge.

Ferren, Senior Judge:

On June 30, 1998, appellant MacArthur Williams and his co-defendant, Michael McCullough, were convicted of a number of offenses in connection with the shooting death of Sharon Jackson.¹ This court affirmed his convictions on direct appeal.² Appellant subsequently filed a motion for relief pursuant to the Innocence Protection Act ("IPA"),³ in which he alleged there was new evidence proving his actual innocence.

After a two-day hearing, the trial court denied his motion. On appeal, appellant asserts that the trial court abused its discretion in denying his motion to vacate convictions for two reasons: (1) the trial court assessed the witnesses' credibility without addressing the remaining statutorily mandated IPA factors, and (2) the trial court impermissibly made credibility findings based on minor inconsistencies. Discerning no abuse of discretion, we affirm.

I.

The IPA provides that "[a] person convicted of a criminal offense in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia may move the court to vacate the conviction or to grant a new trial on grounds of actual innocence based on new evidence."⁴ On March 30, 2012, appellant filed a pro se motion for a new trial alleging actual innocence based on newly discovered evidence. Appellant submitted two affidavits in support of his request, one from a purported alibi witness, Larry Bradley, and one from appellant himself. The trial court subsequently appointed counsel for appellant and scheduled an evidentiary hearing.

In 1997, appellant and his co-defendant, Michael McCullough, learned that Sharon Jackson had "snitched on [Elliot] Wallace and [Andrew] Tillman" by cooperating with investigators on an open homicide case.⁵ "After confirming that Jackson had indeed gone to the police" to cooperate, appellant and his co-defendant "decided that the best thing to do was to kill Jackson."⁶ On December 1, 1997, Jackson was shot four times in front of an apartment building located on 1527 Park Road, N.W., Washington, D.C.⁷ Immediately after the shooting, Mack Williams, appellant's father, who was in the basement apartment at the time of the shooting, "heard [appellant's] voice in the area of the shooting urging someone to hurry as he fled and then saw his son leave through the backdoor of the apartment building, get into a car with another person, and leave the area."⁸ Both appellant's father, as well as appellant's brother, testified to hearing appellant discuss Jackson's impending death in the week prior to the shooting.⁹

Bradley testified, consistently with his affidavit, that in the evening hours of December 1, 1997, he was in the front passenger seat of a car parked in the alley of 14th Street and Park Row in between 14th Street and Monroe Street in Northeast Washington, D.C., drinking alcohol with a friend. While he was in the car, he saw a man known as Mikey-D come out of the back of the building and get into a vehicle in the alley. Shortly thereafter, Bradley saw appellant, who he knew as Mackavelli Love, come out of the same building and walk toward Mikey-D's vehicle.¹⁰ Bradley then observed appellant making what Bradley believed to be a drug transaction. While observing the transaction, Bradley heard gunshots. Immediately thereafter, appellant jumped into the vehicle with Mikey-D and "pulled off" out of the alley while "the individual that [appellant] was serving[ ] ran down the alley." Moments later, Bradley saw Travis Singleton and a man known as "Marcelle" running three or four feet in front of the car in which Bradley was sitting with his friend. Singleton was armed with a gun in his hand, and it also appeared that Marcelle was running with a gun, although Bradley could not definitively see a gun in Marcelle's possession.

A few days after the shooting, Bradley saw Singleton and Marcelle "in a poolroom on Park Row." Bradley inquired "what was all that about in the alley," to which Singleton allegedly responded, "Sharon set him up to get robbed, and so that's why he killed the bitch."¹¹ Bradley further testified that, after running into Singleton in the pool hall, he sought out appellant and went to appellant's father's home, asking "his father to tell [appellant's] lawyer" to contact him. Bradley, however, was never contacted regarding what he saw or heard on December 1, 1997. In 2011, Bradley and appellant were both incarcerated at a penitentiary in Coleman, Florida where Bradley told appellant what he had witnessed. Bradley subsequently provided appellant with an affidavit attesting to what he saw in the alley on December 1, 1997. Bradley's testimony was consistent with appellant's.

The trial court did not credit appellant's and Bradley's testimonies and ultimately found it was "unable to conclude either that there is clear and convincing evidence of [appellant's] innocence or that it is more likely than not that he is actually innocent." In the absence of credible evidence, the trial court denied appellant's IPA motion. This timely appeal followed.

II.

To obtain relief under the IPA, "appellant must prove by clear and convincing evidence that [he] is actually innocent of the crime."¹² In considering the motion for a new trial based on actual innocence, "the trial court may consider any relevant evidence, but shall consider the following: (A) The new evidence; (B) How the new evidence demonstrates actual innocence; [and] (C) Why the new evidence is or is not cumulative or impeaching."¹³ Also, the statute provides in subsection (D) that "[i]f the conviction resulted from a trial, and if the movant asserted a theory of defense inconsistent with the current claim of innocence," the court must consider "the specific reason the movant asserted an inconsistent theory at trial."¹⁴ "If, after considering those factors, the court concludes that it is more likely than not that the movant is actually innocent of the crime, the court shall grant a new trial."¹⁵

We review the denial of a motion to vacate under the IPA for abuse of discretion,¹⁶ giving "great deference to the trial court's role as the trier of fact on the ultimate issue of 'actual innocence' under the IPA."¹⁷ "[T]hus[,] we apply the clearly erroneous standard of review to the trial judge's rejection of alleged newly discovered evidence offered to prove 'actual innocence.' "¹⁸ As such, "the scope of our review is narrow[ ] on the question ... [of] whether that [new] evidence establishes appellant's 'actual innocence.' "¹⁹ However, "[w]hether the court applied the correct legal standard [in ruling on an IPA motion] is a question of law that we consider de novo."²⁰

III.

Relying on this court's decision in Caston v. United States ,²¹ appellant first suggests that the trial court "failed to analyze the new evidence according to the statutorily mandated factors" because it "ended its inquiry after finding Bradley and [appellant] not credible." Appellant's reliance on Caston is misplaced. In Caston , we found error because the trial court's consideration of the new evidence, i.e. , its credibility assessment of testimony from a new, alleged eyewitness, "depended upon the judge's assessment of [appellant's] credibility."²² In other words, the trial court found the appellant's testimony to be so incredible that it tainted even the credibility of the new witness supporting the appellant's innocence. Here, to the contrary, appellant does not assert that the trial court's credibility assessment of Bradley was tainted by its credibility evaluation of appellant, and we perceive no such improper assessment in our review of the record. Rather, unlike the trial court in Caston , the IPA court here made wholly independent credibility assessments of both appellant's and Bradley's testimonies—assessments fully within its purview of permissible considerations in evaluating whether the new evidence demonstrated actual innocence.²³

IV.

Without regard to Caston , appellant faults the trial court for failing to address, methodically, the statutorily mandated factors for resolution of an IPA claim.²⁴ As to each, appellant stresses that: (A) the new evidence (Bradley's testimony) revealed that appellant could not have been in the apartment at the time of the shooting because he was in the back alley of the building at that time conducting a drug transaction; (B) Bradley's testimony demonstrated that appellant could not have been one of the shooters; (C) Bradley's testimony was not cumulative or impeaching; and (D) this new testimonial evidence was consistent with appellant's defense at his 1999 trial.

Contrary to appellant's contention, we are not convinced that the trial court's inquiry needs to proceed any further once the court considers the new evidence and finds all of it, in all material respects, incredible.²⁵ In any event, we can perceive no prejudice where, as here, there is no new evidence (claimed to demonstrate actual innocence) which has not been substantially discredited. In discrediting Bradley's and appellant's testimonies, the court sufficiently addressed factors (A) and (B) and, as a result, mooted factors (C) and (D) as irrelevant.

Appellant's IPA claim, therefore, turns on whether the trial court's ultimate finding—that Bradley's testimony was not credible—is sustainable. Under the IPA,

[i]t cannot be gainsaid that the ultimate responsibility to determine [a witness's] credibility and whether appellant is

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