MARLON WILLIAMS v. UNITED STATES, 130 A.3d 343

Background

Victim Min Soo Kang was found shot; police recovered three bullets from his vehicle and latent fingerprints from the vehicle’s interior and exterior.
AFIS returned Marlon Williams as a possible source of the latent prints; police obtained and executed a warrant for Williams’s apartment and seized a High Point handgun.
Forensic evidence at trial consisted mainly of a fingerprint examiner identifying the latent prints as Williams’s and a firearms/toolmark examiner test-firing the seized gun and testifying that the bullets from the victim matched bullets fired from that gun, stating the match was "unique" and that he had "no doubt."
A cooperating witness testified that Williams made incriminating statements in the courthouse cellblock about wiping prints and being linked to the car.
Defense counsel did not object at trial to the firearms examiner’s certainty testimony; Williams was convicted of first-degree felony murder, attempted robbery, two PFCV counts, and carrying a pistol without a license; aggregate sentence 480 months.
On appeal the court affirmed convictions except it held the attempted robbery and related PFCV count must merge with the felony-murder conviction and be vacated; it rejected Williams’s plain-error and Confrontation Clause challenges to the ballistics testimony and worksheets as not warranting reversal.

Issues

Issue	Williams' Argument	Government's Argument	Held
Sufficiency of evidence for attempted robbery (predicate for felony murder)	Evidence did not prove Williams, not someone else, stole Kang’s Escalade so attempted robbery not established	Fingerprint ID, eyewitness seeing person matching Williams near car, and ballistics linking Williams’s gun supported inference Williams stole the car	Evidence sufficient; jury could reasonably infer Williams committed attempted robbery, so felony-murder conviction stands on sufficiency grounds
Expert firearms/toolmark examiner’s certainty testimony ("unique"; "no doubt") — admissibility review	Such absolute-certainty testimony is scientifically unfounded and should be barred; admission is reversible error	No clear binding law in D.C. at time of trial prohibiting such testimony; government admits internal policy discouraged but that policy is not law	Because Williams did not object, review is for plain error; court found no "clear" or "obvious" legal rule forbidding the certainty statements and thus no plain error requiring reversal
Admission of ballistics worksheets signed by a second examiner (Confrontation/Hearsay)	Worksheets bore signature/initials of lead examiner (Rosalyn Brown) who did not testify; admission violated Confrontation Clause	Any error was harmless because jury heard Morales’s live testimony and worksheets did not attribute independent conclusions to Brown	Assuming worksheets contained testimonial statements, their admission was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt given Morales’s unequivocal live testimony and lack of emphasis on another examiner
Merger of attempted-robbery and PFCV convictions with felony murder	Attempted robbery and associated PFCV convictions should not stand alongside felony murder	Government did not contest merger rule applying here	Held: attempted robbery and related PFCV count merge into felony murder and must be vacated; remand to vacate those convictions

Key Cases Cited

Nero v. United States, 73 A.3d 153 (D.C. 2013) (standard for de novo sufficiency review)
Jones v. United States, 27 A.3d 1130 (D.C. 2011) (assumed without deciding that absolute-certainty toolmark testimony should be disallowed; harmless-error analysis)
(John) Jones v. United States, 990 A.2d 970 (D.C. 2010) (plain-error review framework for unpreserved evidentiary objections)
Conley v. United States, 79 A.3d 270 (D.C. 2013) (plain-error prongs and assessment of "clear" law)
Duvall v. United States, 975 A.2d 839 (D.C. 2009) (applying Chapman harmless-error standard to Confrontation Clause violations)
Matthews v. United States, 13 A.3d 1181 (D.C. 2011) (rule that cannot be convicted of both felony murder and the underlying felony)
Morris v. United States, 622 A.2d 1116 (D.C. 1993) (PFCV merger when predicate crimes merge)
Ray v. United States, 575 A.2d 1196 (D.C. 1990) (attempt doctrine principles)
Crawford v. Washington, 541 U.S. 36 (2004) (Confrontation Clause testimonial hearsay rule)
Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharm., 509 U.S. 579 (1993) (trial judge's gatekeeping role for scientific expert testimony)
United States v. Olano, 507 U.S. 725 (1993) (plain-error standard discussion)