Players: Chief Judge Washington, Associate Judge
Fisher, & Senior Judge Reid. Opinion by Judge Reid. Opinion concurring in
the judgment by Judge Fisher. Peter H. Meyers for Mr. Williams. Abram J. Pafford
for Mr. Bullock. PDS for Ms. Norman. Judge: Gerald I. Fisher.
Facts: Mr. Chau encountered the defendants around 11:00
p.m. while waiting for a metro elevator on his way home from work. The
defendants walked past Mr. Chau, looked back, and then approached him. When the
defendants were three to four feet away from Mr. Chau, positioned around him in
an arc, two of them said, “What, what, what,” while the third looked around.
The defendants did not threaten him. Mr. Chau, who had limited ability to
communicate in English, interpreted “[w]hat, what, what” to mean, “do [you]
have any money.” Mr. Chau gave the defendants his wallet, and they left.
When the defendants were stopped soon after the
incident, Detective Tabron conducted a show-up identification procedure with Mr.
Chau. Detective Tabron testified at trial that he had “very little” trouble
understanding Mr. Chau’s English, though he testified in the grand jury that he
had understood Mr. Chau “[v]aguely.” According to Detective Tabron, Mr. Chau
told him that Mr. Williams “was demanding money from him” and “was asking for
money” and that Mr. Bullock “was asking for money.”
Issue: Was the evidence insufficient to show that the
defendants took Mr. Chau’s wallet “by violence or by putting him in fear”?
Holding: Yes. The government must show that a defendant’s
actions would “portend an immediate threat of danger to a person of reasonable
sensibility.” The only words ascribed to the defendants by Mr. Chau — “What,
what, what” — would not cause a reasonable person to perceive an immediate
threat of bodily harm. And Detective Tabron’s “hearsay testimony” — that Mr.
Chau had told him that two of the defendants demanded or asked for money — did
not count for much, as the record left the court “with doubts as to whether Detective
Tabron merely assumed what Mr. Chau told him.”
Of note:
- Cite the court’s reasons for dismissing Detective Tabron’s “hearsay testimony” when arguing that particularly unreliable evidence does not suffice to establish guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.
- More generally, the court helpfully reminds that insufficient-evidence claims must be assessed in light of the “demanding standard” of proof “beyond a reasonable doubt.” JM
No comments:
Post a Comment