The District of Columbia Court of Appeals, in affirming (PDF) a murder conviction Thursday morning, agreed with a trial judge that a jury instruction on how to consider statements made outside of court is confusing, calling for a review.
A District of Columbia Superior Court jury convicted Marc Fowler of first-degree murder and other charges in July 2008, in connection with the 2003 fatal shooting of Allen Price.
At trial, prosecutors presented two witnesses who testified that Fowler confessed to the murder. Before the jury began deliberations, Fowler’s attorney asked Superior Court Judge Frederick Weisberg to read an instruction from the court’s Criminal Jury Instructions having to do with the jury’s analysis of statements made by a defendant outside of court.
The instruction reads that, “A defendant cannot be convicted solely on his/her own statements concerning elements of the offense that s/he made out of court.” The instruction directs jurors to not consider statements “unless you find that there is substantial independent evidence that tends to establish the reliability of these statements.”
Weisberg denied the request. As quoted in the appeals court's opinion, he said the instruction is “at worst, inaccurate and, at best, misleading,” because it is up to the judge to decide whether statements are admissible. At that point, the judge said, “the jury decides whether [the defendant] made them or not and what weight to give them.”
Fowler, represented by the D.C. Public Defender Service, appealed. He argued that the jury should decide whether statements are corroborated, and that the judge took away their role as the fact-finder.
The three-judge panel disagreed, finding that whether evidence is admissible is “intertwined” with whether there is enough other corroborating evidence. Fowler “would have empowered the jury to overrule the trial court’s decision that his confessions were independently corroborated, and we are unwilling to adopt such a rule,” they wrote.
But the appeals panel also said that they understood Weisberg’s frustration, and recommended that the Criminal Jury Instructions Committee reconsider whether the instruction should exist or at least be revised. The court said the instruction should be clear that the jury can’t decline to consider evidence that’s been properly admitted, although they can decide whether to discredit it.
The U.S. attorney’s office, through a spokesman, declined to comment on the opinion. The Public Defender Service could not immediately be reached. Judges Kathryn Oberly and Vanessa Ruiz and Senior Judge Warren King heard the case.
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