DOMINIQUE BASSIL v. UNITED STATES
No. 13-CF-1133
District of Columbia Court of Appeals
October 6, 2016
Court of Appeals
No. 13-CF-1133
DOMINIQUE BASSIL,
Appellant,
v.
UNITED STATES,
Appellee.
CF1-15572-11
On Appeal from the Superior Court of the District of Columbia
Criminal Division
BEFORE: WASHINGTON, Chief Judge; GLICKMAN, Associate Judge; and BELSON, Senior Judge.
J U D G M E N T
This case came to be heard on the transcript of record and the briefs filed, and was argued by counsel. On consideration whereof, and as set forth in the opinion filed this date, it is now hereby
ORDERED and ADJUDGED that appellant’s convictions are affirmed.
For the Court:
Julio A. Castillo
Clerk of the Court
Dated: October 6, 2016.
Opinion by Associate Judge Stephen H. Glickman.
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA COURT OF APPEALS
No. 13-CF-1133
DOMINIQUE BASSIL, APPELLANT,
V.
UNITED STATES, APPELLEE.
Appeal from the Superior Court
of the District of Columbia
(CF1-15572-11)
(Hon. Robert E. Morin, Trial Judge)
(Argued: September 29, 2015 Decided: October 6, 2016)
Jaclyn S. Frankfurt, Public Defender Service, with whom James Klein and Christine A. Monta, Public Defender Service, were on the brief, for appellant.
L. Jackson Thomas, Assistant United States Attorney, with whom Ronald C. Machen Jr., United States Attorney at the time the brief was filed, and Elizabeth Trosman, Suzanne Grealy Curt, and Michelle D. Jackson, Assistant United States Attorneys, were on the brief, for appellee.
Before WASHINGTON, Chief Judge, GLICKMAN, Associate Judge, and BELSON, Senior Judge.
GLICKMAN, Associate Judge: Shortly after 2 a.m. on August 13, 2011, Dominique Bassil fatally stabbed her boyfriend, Vance Harris, in the kitchen of their apartment. There were no other witnesses to the encounter. Although Bassil
I. Governing Legal Principles
The principles of law governing our consideration of appellant’s contention are best set forth at the outset to frame our discussion. To find appellant guilty of second-degree murder, the jury must have been persuaded beyond a reasonable doubt that she killed Harris with “malice aforethought,”1 a “term of art embodying several distinct mental states” including “specific intent to kill,” “specific intent to
[A] killing in self-defense is excusable only as a matter of genuine necessity.”4 Appellant therefore was justified in stabbing Harris in self-defense provided that (1) she honestly believed she was in imminent danger of serious bodily harm or death, and that she needed to use deadly force to save herself from that danger; and that (2) both those beliefs were objectively reasonable under the circumstances.5 In addition, even if those conditions were met, appellant would not be able to justify the stabbing as self-defense if (3) she was the first aggressor or (4) she provoked Harris to attack her, unless she thereupon withdrew in good
Our obligation to view the evidence in the light most favorable to the prosecution almost always “commands that we assume that the jury in its assessment of credibility did not believe [the defendant’s] exculpatory testimony, and we must defer to the jury’s prerogative in this area.”13 That does not mean we will sustain a verdict relying on an inference from mere disbelief of a witness that the opposite of the discredited testimony is the truth. Often it may be illogical and hence impermissible to draw such an inference. “When the testimony of a witness is not believed, the trier of fact may simply disregard it. Normally the discredited
We acknowledge, however, that “disbelief of a defendant’s testimony can, in limited circumstances, give rise to a positive inference of guilt”17 sufficient, either by itself or, especially, in conjunction with other, affirmative evidence in the
At around 2:00 a.m. on August 13, 2011, appellant returned to her apartment with her boyfriend, Vance Harris. The couple had a stormy relationship and they had been quarreling earlier that evening and on their way home. About half an hour after they arrived there, appellant, half-naked and holding a large kitchen knife, fled the apartment. She ran down the stairs and out of the building to a security booth, where she told the guard – and later the police – that Harris had assaulted her and she had stabbed him in self-defense. Taken into custody, appellant repeated this claim to homicide detectives in a recorded interview, during which she learned that Harris’s stab wounds were fatal.
The issue in dispute at appellant’s trial was not whether she stabbed and killed Harris, but why. Appellant continued to assert that she acted in self-defense, testifying that she loved Harris and did not want to stab him, but did so because he had attacked her and she was scared. To disprove this, the prosecution impeached and contradicted appellant’s account of the incident and sought to show she stabbed Harris out of the “rage, jealousy, and anger” that his disrespect, indifference, and rejection had aroused in her.
The prosecution undertook to establish appellant’s motive for stabbing Harris with evidence of her long-standing grievances against him and her temperament and behavior in the hours immediately preceding the homicide. In the process, the jury learned a great deal about a tempestuous and often acrimonious (though non-violent23) relationship marked by Harris’s chronic infidelity, neglect of appellant, and indifference to her devotion to him and desire for him to change. Appellant, who was in love with Harris and had tattooed his name on her body, was frequently rebuffed and humiliated, but she repeatedly forgave or tolerated Harris’s unfaithfulness and sought his forgiveness for her angry outbursts. Their relationship did not improve, however.
About three weeks before the homicide, appellant, upset that Harris spent his money to take a trip without her to Miami instead of contributing to the rent, called him while he was there to say she was putting his belongings out on the curb. She
On the night of August 12, 2011, appellant and Harris were guests at a wedding reception. Several witnesses who observed them there testified at trial to appellant’s unhappiness and annoyance with Harris, who was a groomsman and in a jovial mood. While he had a good time and danced with other women, appellant followed him around “almost like a shadow” and tried in vain to get his attention. Harris avoided and laughed at her. Later in the evening, appellant yelled at Harris,
They argued while on their way. In Capitol Heights, Maryland, two police officers came upon them and found appellant sitting on the sidewalk outside Harris’s truck. One of the officers testified at trial that appellant was “loud, excitable and appeared to be agitated,” while Harris was “cool, calm and collected.” The other officer, who spoke with appellant after she and Harris were separated, reported that appellant became upset and started crying when asked what had happened. Concluding that appellant and Harris were only having a verbal argument, the officers persuaded them to get back in the truck and go home. Surveillance footage admitted at trial showed them arriving there at around 2:00 a.m. Appellant walked on ahead of Harris without waiting for him or holding the door for him. In her testimony at trial, appellant said she acted this way because she was still upset with Harris.
Appellant’s Pretrial Statements Explaining the Stabbing
The first person appellant encountered after the stabbing was her building’s security guard. The guard testified that she came into his booth and told him to
The guard called the police. One of the officers who responded testified from notes he made at the scene that appellant told him she went to bed when they got home before Harris “came in the room and started . . . hitting me in the face and neck.” According to the officer’s contemporaneous notes, appellant said Harris “grabbed me by my feet and dragged me out of the bed. I was trying to run away but he followed, hitting me again in the kitchen. I grabbed the kitchen knife and stabbed him in the lower stomach so I could get away.” The officer also testified that appellant had no injuries and complained of no injuries (she “refuse[d EMS] treatment on the scene”), and that he noticed her sleeping cap “was neatly on her head.” Another officer who took notes at the scene testified that appellant said her boyfriend “was pushing me and choked me with his hands around my neck. He’s 6, 8 [sic] and too big for me to push him off. I had to stab him.” This officer, too, testified that appellant was unhurt.
The two homicide detectives who next interviewed appellant also testified at trial, and the video recording of the interview was admitted in evidence. Both
Appellant told the detectives that Harris got on top of her in the bed and repeatedly smacked her in the face. She said he then dragged her off the bed by her legs, at which point she stood up, grabbed a shoe, struck Harris with it, dropped the shoe, and ran into the kitchen. There, appellant explained, she picked up a knife and told Harris (who had followed her) to stop hitting her before he “leaped” at her, at which point she stabbed him. Appellant went on to say that she was not fighting Harris off when she stabbed him, but was reacting to his “leap” toward her. At the end of the interview, she said she only grabbed the knife when Harris entered the kitchen and “looked like he was going to hit me again” because “he went to lean in toward[] me.” Appellant stated, “I don’t remember if he was trying to swing at me or what.”
Appellant also told the homicide detectives about her argument with Harris in Capitol Heights on the way home from the wedding reception. She said that after she grabbed Harris’s phone and jumped out of his truck, he pushed her to the ground and pulled her hair, and that her dress was “all pulled apart and stuff.” She
Appellant’s Testimony at Trial
Appellant took the witness stand in her own defense at trial. In her brief direct examination, she said she stabbed Harris because she was “scared” and did not elaborate on how it happened. On cross-examination, the prosecutor pressed her to divulge what occurred in greater detail.
In response, appellant provided the following account: Upon returning to her apartment, she went into a separate bedroom because she was upset with Harris. She remained there by herself, lying in bed, for approximately ten minutes. During this period, she testified, she was calm and not upset. Then she got up and went into the bedroom where, she said, Harris was watching television. After taking off her clothes and lying down next to him, appellant started “tapping” Harris and trying to engage him in conversation. He told her to stop. Appellant said she stopped tapping but continued talking. Harris, whose back was turned to appellant, “swung his arm over back toward” her. Appellant understood that he wanted her to leave him alone, but she persisted in talking to him. Harris then suddenly climbed on top of her (“He put his full body on top of me,” she testified),
Appellant testified that she then ran into the kitchen. She claimed that despite her fear, she did not run out of the apartment because she “thought [Harris] would stay in the [bed]room and leave [her] alone,” but he followed her to the kitchen. Although the front door to the apartment was only a few steps ahead of her, she still did not leave the apartment. Instead, she grabbed a knife. She then turned to face Harris and “asked him to stop hitting [her].”24
Appellant testified that Harris was “still coming and swinging” at her “all at once” when she stabbed him. Then, however, after the prosecutor confronted her with her contrary statements to the homicide detectives – she told them she thought
Appellant denied ambushing Harris as he entered the kitchen, but she conceded that Harris was “way stronger” than she was and “could have easily disarmed [her] if [she] held a knife at him.” Yet when the prosecutor suggested “the reason why he was unable to disarm [her] . . . was because [she] stabbed him without any notice,” appellant denied it without providing any alternative explanation for how she was able to stab him. Appellant said Harris was not afraid when she threatened him with the knife. She also testified that Harris did not realize at first that he had been stabbed, and that it was only after she stabbed him a second time that he reacted by grabbing a knife himself. Appellant agreed that she stabbed Harris the second time even though he did not swing at her after she stabbed him the first time.
The prosecutor also cross-examined appellant extensively about her grievances with Harris and about the events in the hours before the stabbing, tripping appellant up and causing her to contradict herself. For instance, appellant repeatedly denied or minimized her conflicts with Harris and her dissatisfaction with their relationship. Despite being confronted with her text messages strongly suggesting otherwise, appellant – who agreed on the witness stand that she wanted Harris all to herself – claimed she did not mind his having sex with other women. She explained her text about wanting to see a doctor to help her address her “poor behavior” resulting from jealousy and not getting her way as just a lie she told Harris to mollify him. Appellant denied being upset with Harris when he went to Miami.
Appellant similarly denied being fed up with Harris and his treatment of her on the night they attended the wedding reception. Contradicting other witnesses, appellant denied calling Harris names, smacking him, and “mushing” his face at
Physical and Other Evidence Relating to the Homicide
Surveillance footage of appellant’s flight from her apartment showed her throwing a knife into a trash can before she ran to the security booth. The knife, which had an eight-and-one-half-inch blade, was admitted as an exhibit at trial. The medical examiner testified that Harris’s death resulted from “rapid blood loss” caused by the stabbings. One of the stabbings punctured the right side of Harris’s abdomen, traveled five to seven inches through his skin, subcutaneous tissue, muscle, and large intestine, and penetrated one-and-one-half inches into his liver.
Although appellant testified that Harris forcefully and repeatedly smacked her in the face, leaving it “swollen and red,” the government presented evidence that she had no injuries. As previously mentioned, neither the security guard nor the police observed any injuries. After she was arrested, appellant complained of a bruise on her arm and lower back pain, but a crime scene technician who photographed her observed no bruising. Appellant nonetheless was taken to Howard University Hospital, where she continued to complain of back pain, but the attending physician who examined her testified that he observed no tenderness or injuries.
Other relevant physical evidence included the medical examiner’s testimony that she measured Harris’s blood alcohol content at 0.08 grams per hundred
Appellant’s Motion for Judgment of Acquittal
Appellant’s trial encompassed six days of testimony. After the government’s rebuttal case, the court took appellant’s renewed motion for judgment of acquittal under advisement. The jury deliberated for four days before finding appellant guilty of murder in the second degree while armed. The trial court then denied appellant’s motion, explaining that “the reality of this case is this was a credibility determination made by the jury in determining whether the
III. Analysis
For several reasons, we conclude that the evidence at trial was sufficient to disprove appellant’s claim that she stabbed Harris in self-defense, even though appellant provided the sole eyewitness account of the stabbing and said she acted in self-defense.
As a starting point, the evidence permitted the jury to reject appellant’s self-defense claim even if it fully credited her account. That is, even if the jury believed (1) Harris was the initial aggressor, (2) he pinned her down on the bed, smacked her six times, dragged her to the floor, and came at her swinging in the kitchen, and (3) appellant stabbed him to protect herself because she was afraid for her life, the jury nonetheless could find beyond a reasonable doubt that she did not have an objectively reasonable fear of imminent death or serious physical injury and that her use of lethal force was excessive. Those conclusions were supported by the evidence that Harris had not been physically abusive to appellant in their relationship, had never seriously injured her in the past, and did not seriously injure
(continued…) defendant claims to have been attacked in his or her home by a co-occupant. See Cooper v. United States, 512 A.2d 1002, 1006 (D.C. 1986).
Motive evidence does a lot of work in this case because “a self-defense claim raises the issue of whether the defendant was acting out of an actual and reasonable fear of imminent bodily harm, or whether, instead, the defendant had some other motive and was, in fact, the aggressor.”30 In domestic violence homicide cases, “[e]vidence concerning appellant’s prior relationship with the decedent and the state of that relationship prior to and at the time of the murder is therefore indicative of the motive appellant may have possessed for committing the
The jury also could find other discrepancies in appellant’s account to be supportive of the government’s theory. At six feet, eight inches tall, Harris towered over appellant and was, by her own admission, capable of easily disarming her. Yet, she claimed, after he threw her to the floor, she was able to
The jury reasonably could disbelieve appellant’s account of the stabbing as well and conclude that she was not defending herself from Harris. Critical to her self-defense claim was her testimony that she brandished her knife at Harris and warned him to leave her alone before she felt she had to stab him in self-defense. But as appellant conceded, Harris was “way stronger” than she was, and he “easily” could have disarmed her if she held a knife on him. The jury reasonably could have found it unbelievable that appellant managed to inflict two very deep stab wounds, one in Harris’s stomach and the other in his arm, if he was forewarned of the danger in the manner she described. Instead, the jury could have
Finally, the jury could find that appellant made numerous false and exaggerated exculpatory statements implying consciousness of guilt. For example, immediately after the stabbing, appellant told police that Harris came into her room and started hitting her in the face and neck; that he put his hands around her neck and choked her; and that he hit her again in the kitchen before she stabbed him to escape. She initially told the homicide detectives that Harris “leaped” at her in the kitchen. These statements all were contrary to appellant’s trial testimony, in which she said nothing at all about being choked and ultimately conceded that “at the
The jury could reach the same conclusion with respect to much of appellant’s trial testimony. Her attempt to minimize her grievances over Harris’s behavior in their relationship was difficult to credit. Witnesses contradicted her testimony that she was not in conflict with Harris at the wedding reception. The crime scene technician undercut her testimony that Harris was awake and watching television (rather than asleep) when she went into the bedroom to talk to him. Appellant’s claim that Harris attacked her after she got into bed with him and smacked her face until it was swollen and red was belied by the testimony of multiple witnesses that she was not injured at all. If this claim was a fabrication, so, too, must have been the scenario, improbable on its face, that she answered the attack by seizing a handy boot and hitting Harris with it as he stood over her. Lastly, appellant’s testimony that she displayed the knife and warned Harris not to hit her again before she stabbed him in self-defense was undermined by her
There is a big difference between believing the content of a witness’s testimony to be untrue and believing the witness to be lying to exonerate herself. When the latter determination is reasonable, it permits a powerful consciousness-of-guilt inference. This inference, considered along with the crime-scene evidence and the evidence of appellant’s motive arising from her unsatisfactory relationship with Harris, provided sufficient evidence for a jury to disbelieve beyond a reasonable doubt that appellant acted in self-defense.
IV. Conclusion
Viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to sustaining the jury’s verdict, we hold it sufficient to permit a rational trier of fact to find each of the elements of murder in the second degree while armed beyond a reasonable doubt.
So Ordered.