STATE v. Raymond CLEMENTS
No. 2011-203-C.A.
Supreme Court of Rhode Island
Feb. 3, 2014
V
Conclusion
For the reasons set forth in this opinion, we affirm the Superior Court‘s denial of the defendant‘s motion to seal. The record may be returned to that tribunal.
Richard K. Corley, Providence, for Defendant.
Present: SUTTELL, C.J., GOLDBERG, FLAHERTY, ROBINSON, and INDEGLIA, JJ.
Justice FLAHERTY, for the Court.
In the early morning hours of June 14, 2007, two young women were brutally murdered, and their bodies set on fire. Apparently, the women were the victims of their attackers’ decision not to succumb to the demands of one of them for money in exchange for silence about the attackers’ perpetration of insurance fraud. The defendant, Raymond Clements, was charged with two counts of murder, one count of conspiracy, and one count of arson arising out of the June 14, 2007 incident. Eventually, Clements was tried before a jury and convicted on all counts. The trial justice sentenced the defendant to three consecutive life sentences, one each for the murders of Heather Jesus and Amanda Sousa and another for the arson count, plus ten years for the conspiracy count, to be served concurrently with the final life sentence. After his conviction, the defendant timely appealed to this Court. On appeal, he argues that the trial justice erred by admitting evidence of a robbery committed on June 13, 2007, the day before the murders; by failing to instruct the jury of the use it might make of that evidence; and by denying the defendant‘s motion to pass the case. We have considered the parties’ written and oral arguments and thoroughly examined the record. For the reasons set forth in this opinion, we affirm the judgment of conviction.
I
Facts and Travel
A fire on the third floor of an apartment building on Plainfield Street in Providence led police to the discovery of two charred bodies, one on top of the other. Although the bodies were severely damaged by fire, they were later identified as the remains of cousins Heather Jesus and Amanda Sousa. After an autopsy was conducted, the medical examiner determined that Sousa‘s death was caused by multiple blunt- and sharp-force injuries.1 The medical examiner counted dozens of sharp-force wounds to the head and torso of Sousa, including one wound that severed her windpipe.
Jesus’ violent death was determined to have been caused by sharp-force injuries and asphyxia as a result of neck and chest compression, and it was determined that her windpipe was similarly cut, with that injury having been inflicted after the bruising on her neck. Both deaths were deemed to have been homicides. The defendant, Raymond Clements, and Anthony Carter were later charged with the murders.2
The defendant and Carter had been close friends since they met in approximately 1996 at the Rhode Island Training School, where they both were incarcerated for juvenile offenses.3 The juvenile system apparently was not successful with the pair, as each “graduated” to the Adult
Anthony Carter, who testified on behalf of the state, said that he met Jesus and Sousa for the first time in the overnight hours of June 5 to 6, 2007, within days of his release from prison. He encountered Jesus for the first time when he and defendant patronized her workplace, the Sportsman‘s Inn, a strip club in Providence. The pair made arrangements to see Jesus when she completed her work shift. Carter and Clements picked up Sousa at her house; the trio then traveled to Jesus’ apartment. Although Carter had just made Jesus’ acquaintance, defendant had known her for many years.
On June 8, 2007, Clements, Carter, and Sousa were involved in an accident while they were traveling in defendant‘s car. The three abandoned the car, but Carter testified that, after the accident, he listened as defendant instructed his wife to report the car stolen on two separate occasions: once over the telephone immediately after the crash, and again after they returned to Clements‘s apartment. Now deprived of their only mode of transportation, Carter and defendant secured the agreement of Carter‘s grandmother to rent a car for them.
According to Carter, on June 11 or 12, Sousa telephoned him with a threat that she would inform the police about the accident and false police report unless he and defendant paid her the sum of $500 every Friday. Because Carter and defendant were together at the time of this call, they discussed Sousa‘s demand between themselves. Carter testified that he and defendant agreed that they would not pay and that they had “to take care of the situation.” When Sousa called again, Carter informed her that neither he nor defendant would meet her demand; she then repeated her threat, but she also agreed to talk to Carter and Clements. Carter testified that, after this second call, defendant said that “[t]hey got to go.” Carter understood that to mean that Sousa and Jesus should be killed.4 Carter said that, although he agreed to the murders, he wanted to spend some time to plan the killings. The defendant, however, said that “it had to be done ASAP.” Carter testified that he was nervous about killing anyone, but he agreed to the scheme because “that [wa]s the type of relationship [he and defendant] had.”
Clements and Carter arrived at Jesus’ apartment in the final hours of June 13, 2007, retrieved gloves from the back of the station wagon that Carter‘s grandmother had rented for them, and went inside. Carter testified that Clements was unwilling to kill Jesus because he had known her for a long time. Therefore, the pair agreed that Carter would kill Jesus, and Clements would kill Sousa. After the group smoked marijuana and socialized for a while, Clements and Sousa left the room, with Clements saying that he was going to repair a door in the kitchen. However, he also began ominously twirling his finger in
A short time later, Carter grabbed Jesus and strangled her. After he had choked Jesus to death, Carter saw Sousa and defendant return from the kitchen, bloody and in the midst of a deadly struggle. Clements was, according to Carter‘s testimony, wielding a railroad spike as a weapon. The struggle subsided temporarily while Sousa, on her knees, pleaded with Clements to stop; Carter said that, although defendant assured Sousa that he would call an ambulance and the police, he instead viciously kicked her in the head, which ended the fight. The defendant then instructed Carter to “cut her throat.” After Carter retrieved a knife and severed Jesus’ throat, defendant said that he had been referring to Sousa, not Jesus. The defendant then did the same thing to Sousa, using a different knife.
Clements and Carter attempted to conceal the evidence of their actions by cleaning the apartment and placing certain items into trash bags that they later threw into a dumpster in Pawtucket and burned. According to Carter, defendant instructed him to find some flammable material so that they could burn the bodies of Sousa and Jesus in an attempt to destroy evidence. Clothes, newspapers, and pillows were piled on the bodies, which were then doused with perfume and WD-40 and set alight.5 The resulting fire led police to the apartment, where the bodies were discovered.
The duo retreated to defendant‘s apartment, where Jessica Carter opened the door for them; she testified that she saw that her brother and defendant were covered in blood. At trial, Jessica Carter and Anthony Carter each testified that defendant told his wife that he and Anthony Carter had killed two women and that the men‘s bloody clothes had to be put into a bag.6 The defendant and Anthony Carter showered, and, after stopping by Carter‘s grandmother‘s home to retrieve some clothing, they drove to Florida.7 The defendant‘s stay in Florida was short-lived: he remained there for only about two weeks. The day after he returned to Rhode Island, defendant explained in detail to Jessica Carter, Anthony‘s sister, what had occurred, a story that included Sousa‘s demand for money following the car accident, the manner in which he and Anthony Carter had killed the women, and the fact that they set the women‘s bodies on fire.
The Providence police, who were investigating the murders, reached defendant on the telephone while he was in Florida, asking him to come to the police station. During a telephone conversation on June 14, 2007, defendant informed a Providence detective that he was in Idaho on his way to California and that he had last seen Sousa and Jesus one week earlier. A different police officer received a call from defendant on June 20, 2007; during that
On appeal before this Court, defendant argues that the trial justice erred when he admitted into evidence testimony about a robbery that he and Carter had committed the day before the murders, that the instruction on the use of that evidence was deficient, and that the trial justice further erred when he refused to declare a mistrial because of prejudicial remarks by the prosecutor during his closing argument.
II
Evidence of Robbery
During defendant‘s trial, Carter, who was presented as a witness by the state, was allowed to testify that he and defendant had committed a robbery on June 13, 2007.9 Before he admitted evidence about that robbery, the trial justice conducted a sidebar conference, during which he heard argument about whether such evidence was admissible pursuant to
After admitting that he had pleaded guilty to several other robberies, Carter testified over defendant‘s objection that he also had pleaded guilty to committing a robbery on June 13, 2007, and to conspiring with Clements to commit that robbery. Carter then testified as to the more recent additions to his impressive criminal record, including his pleas to the charges arising from the murders of Sousa and Jesus, as well as other charges arising out of robberies that he had committed after fleeing
“Ladies and gentlemen, you have just heard an exposition of [Carter‘s] criminal record that he has pled guilty to various charges, that he spent time in the training school from the time he was 12-years old, and you have heard all of that under the rules of evidence. That is allowed to go before you for one reason and one reason only in a case like this. Any witness who appears in any kind of case who has a criminal record is allowed to have that record exposed to you for one purpose and one purpose only, and that is for you to use this information, if you think it is important, in assisting you among the many other things that you would look at in assessing this witness‘[s] credibility as a witness in this particular case and for no other reason, to assess his credibility, if you think it‘s important in addition to the other instructions that I will give you about the credibility of witnesses generally at the end of this case.”
The defendant lodged no objection to this instruction.
Carter‘s sordid tale continued on the afternoon of the same day of the trial, during which Carter again testified over objection that he committed a robbery with defendant on June 13, 2007. Following a few questions that focused on the murders and a request from defendant‘s counsel to approach the bench without the stenographer, the trial justice gave the jury another instruction:
“Ladies and gentlemen, you have heard another reference to the witness‘[s] testimony about an alleged robbery that was committed by h[im] and the defendant on the 13th of June. I gave you an instruction when you first heard about that in the morning session, if you recall that, about the uses to which that could be put.
“In the first instance, it can only be used against this witness if you think it‘s important in assessing his credibility with regard to the defendant, Mr. Clements, who is the defendant in this case. That information can be assimilated by you, but it cannot be used by you as to what we call propensity evidence. Therefore, what I mean by that is if you believe that this witness is truthful with regard to what he is saying about that particular event, you may not, therefore, say because the defendant has done that which appears to be an established fact, what has been introduced, he, therefore, must have killed these two women. You cannot make that leap. They‘re two unconnected activities. So the Court is cautioning you that while that is properly before you, you cannot say, well, if he robbed somebody that afternoon, he, therefore must have killed these two women. That is not appropriate.”
As with the instruction earlier in the day, this instruction also did not prompt an objection from defendant.
Finally, during his final charge to the jury, the trial justice imparted another instruction about the evidence of the robbery. The final jury charge included the following:
“Now, in this case, you have heard evidence that on other occasions this defendant may have been involved in other criminal activity or misconduct. The Court has allowed that evidence before you, but the evidence before you cannot be used by you to determine that because he may have done something else that may have either been illegal or inappropriate that, therefore, he must have committed the charges for which he is on trial for today. You may not use that information in that regard at all
so we cannot have a propensity or character evidence that says, therefore, if some person does a bad act over here, then they must have done the bad act over here. So you cannot use that information for that purpose at all.”
The defendant did not object to this part of the final jury instructions.
On appeal before this Court, defendant contends that the admission of this evidence violated
III
Admission of the Evidence
A
Standard of Review
“[I]t is well settled that we review a trial justice‘s decision admitting or excluding evidence under an abuse of discretion standard.” State v. Pona, 66 A.3d 454, 465 (R.I. 2013) (Pona II) (quoting State v. Brown, 42 A.3d 1239, 1242 (R.I. 2012)). Accordingly, “[w]e will reverse a trial justice‘s ruling on the admissibility of evidence only where ‘it constitutes a clear abuse of discretion.‘” Id. (quoting Brown, 42 A.3d at 1242).
B
Rule 404(b)
Nonetheless,
In Pona I, 948 A.2d at 949-52, we considered the case of a defendant who was charged with murdering a teenaged girl
We vacated the conviction and ordered a new trial in that case because we held that the trial justice had committed reversible error when he admitted the pager and fingerprint evidence. Pona I, 948 A.2d at 952, 954. Although the defendant‘s motive to murder the witness was relevant, “the specific facts of the [earlier] murder * * * ha[d] little, if any, probative value with respect to any conspiracy surrounding [the witness‘s] murder, except perhaps to demonstrate that [the] defendant was prone to kill.” Id. at 950. We further held that playing the entirety of the bail-hearing testimony was excessive. See id. at 953.
After that defendant was retried and again convicted, he appealed a second time, occasioning a second review of the admission of a lesser amount of
In this case, the evidence of the daytime robbery had scant relevance to the crimes for which defendant was being tried. Although the state argues that the evidence was necessary to establish the relationship between defendant and his confederate, Anthony Carter, there already had been ample testimony about that relationship, and the evidence of the robbery did not particularly sound on that relationship. See Pona II, 66 A.3d at 468 (approving the exclusion of evidence that related solely to another crime because it “had no probative force“). Carter himself testified that he and defendant practically had grown up together in the training school, and, after he was released from the ACI, he hung out with defendant and even stayed at defendant‘s home. Additionally, Jessica Carter testified that she saw her brother and defendant together nearly every day.
The state‘s argument that the evidence of the robbery was admissible to prove the conspiracy count is equally unpersuasive. The state relies on State v. Chartier, 619 A.2d 1119, 1122-23 (R.I. 1993), in which evidence about one of a series of robberies was admissible to demonstrate a defendant‘s “knowledge and acceptance of the criminal intent” of his associates in committing two other robberies in the same evening. But here, the robbery at issue was committed many hours before the murders, and nothing in the record appears to suggest that there was any connection whatsoever between that particular robbery and the two grisly murders that occurred early the following morning.
Our conclusion that there was minimal nonpropensity purpose for admitting evidence of the robbery is buttressed by the nature of the testimony about the robbery. That testimony was limited to the fact that the robbery took place, that Carter pleaded guilty to the robbery and conspiracy, and that defendant was involved in both the robbery and the conspiracy to commit it. The questions about those crimes elicited little information that might further
The evidence about the June 13, 2007 robbery is problematical under
It is our considered opinion that the mountain of evidence against this defendant leads to the singular conclusion that the evidence of the robbery the day before the murders, admitted pursuant to
Anthony Carter also informed the jury about the pair‘s arrival at defendant‘s home drenched in blood, a fact which Jessica Carter confirmed in her testimony. Both Carters also testified that defendant told his wife about the crimes that he and Anthony Carter had just committed. Additionally, Jessica Carter related to the jury that, after defendant returned from Florida, he explained to her in detail what he and her brother had done and why they had done it. Carter‘s grandmother also confirmed that she had rented a car for defendant and Carter; her description of that vehicle matched the description of the car seen by a Providence police officer outside Jesus’ apartment immediately before the fire was discovered. Carter‘s grandmother‘s testimony also disclosed that Clements and his wife each had requested that she tell her grandson to deny that he and defendant were together at the time of the murders. In our opinion, the outcome of this trial would have been the same with or without the jury‘s learning of the robbery on June 13.
C
Rule 403
Here,
D
Cautionary Instructions
This Court frequently has stated that when
In the case presently before us, defendant contends that the trial justice‘s instructions regarding the use of the robbery evidence do not pass muster. Specifically, defendant argues that the instructions failed to inform the jury of the permitted uses of the evidence and explained only that the panel was forbidden to use the evidence to find defendant guilty based on his commission of the robbery. Significant to our consideration, however, each time the trial justice imparted the instructions that defendant now claims were deficient, defendant failed to object. We hold, therefore, that defendant failed to preserve his objections to the content of the limiting instructions given to the jury.
IV
Motion to Pass
During the state‘s closing argument, the prosecutor referred to the robbery evidence and informed the jury that, in his statement to police, defendant had admitted to committing the robbery and to conspiring to commit it. Specifically, the prosecutor argued that defendant‘s statement to police was totally unworthy of belief, summarizing defendant‘s statement to the police as follows: “Yeah, I was in that car. Yes, I was driving. Yes, I was with Anthony, same guy, I was with him hours before I committed that robbery and conspired with him to rob these two people, same guy.” After the state‘s closing argument ended, defendant moved to pass the case, arguing that there had been no reference to the robbery in defendant‘s statement to police. The trial justice denied the motion, explaining that he would again tell the jury that it should not use the evidence of the robbery, for which defendant was not on trial, to find defendant guilty of the crimes with which he was charged.
A
Standard of Review
“We review a trial justice‘s decision on a motion to pass a case for abuse of discretion.” State v. Truesdale, 787 A.2d 1172, 1177 (R.I. 2001) (citing State v. Gardiner, 636 A.2d 710, 717 (R.I. 1994)).
B
Discussion
“A prosecutor is given considerable latitude in closing argument, as long as the statements pertain only to the evidence presented and represent reasonable inferences from the record.” State v. Boillard, 789 A.2d 881, 885 (R.I. 2002) (citing State v. Scott, 114 R.I. 132, 137, 330 A.2d 66, 70 (1974)). “[W]hile there is no formula in law which precisely delineates the proper bounds of a prosecutor‘s argument, * * * prejudice obviously inheres if the remarks are totally extraneous to the issues in the case and tend to inflame and arouse the passions of the jury.” Id. (quoting State v. Mancini, 108 R.I. 261, 273-74, 274 A.2d 742, 748 (1971)). “The probable effect of the prosecutorial statements on the outcome of the case must be evaluated by examining the remarks in the context in which they were made.” Id. (citing State v. Brown, 522 A.2d 208, 211 (R.I. 1987)).
In Boillard, 789 A.2d at 884-86, we affirmed a trial justice‘s denial of a motion to pass. There, a prosecutor suggested that a defense witness‘s denial that the charged conduct had taken place possibly resulted from repressed memories, and he explained that inconsistencies exposed during cross-examination of state child witnesses were caused by the witnesses’ exhaustion and desire to agree to anything to end the cross-examination. Id. at 884-85. We said that the “explanations * * *, though conjectural, were within the array of reasonable inferences that could be drawn from the facts presented at trial, and they were neither extraneous nor inflammatory.” Id. at 886. In declining to reverse based on the prosecutor‘s comments, we also relied on the trial justice‘s instruction to the jury that closing arguments are not evidence. Id.
Here, we cannot say that the trial justice abused his discretion in denying the motion to pass. The prosecutor‘s closing argument misstated that the defendant had admitted in his statement to police that he had committed the June 13, 2007 robbery. That comment was made as the prosecutor attempted to convey the inconceivability of the defendant‘s version of the facts, in which he claimed that he had been present at Jesus’ building during the killings but remained outside on the porch while Carter murdered both Jesus and Sousa. See Boillard, 789 A.2d at 886. The believability of the defendant‘s story was certainly a proper subject of closing argument, and, in the context of assailing that story, the prosecutor was simply recounting that the defendant had admitted doing many things with Anthony Carter while emphasizing that the one thing that the defendant denied doing with Carter was entering Jesus’ apartment and committing these murders. The trial justice instructed the jury that closing arguments were not evidence, and the prosecutor referred to a crime about which the jury already had heard testimony that was not so prejudicial as to violate
V
Conclusion
For the foregoing reasons, we affirm the judgment of the Superior Court. We remand the record to that tribunal.