The People of the State of New York v. Carl H. Dukes

Albany, New York defendant, Carl Duke, with murder.



On Octoer 4, 1996, a group of men robbed Gregson Joseph and Camon Wyatt in the basement apartment of 23-year-old Erik Mitchell in Albany.



On February 18, 1997, Mitchell's body was found in the entryway of the basement apartment with a single gunshot would to the head.



Mitchell's father offered a $3,000 reward for information leading to information about his son's murder.



A few days later, an Albany Detective interviewed Matt Parsons who told the detective that Abdul-Hameed and Dukes went to the apartment on shot Mitchell.



Dukes was taken into custody for questioning on September 8, 1997.



Dukes denied that he had anything to do with Mitchell's death but, after several hours of question, admitted that he shot Mitchell but almost immediately recanted.



Duke did, however, sign a statement he and Jones and Lyons confronted Mitchell about him seeking revenge for the robbery and that Mitchell was shot by Jones with a gun that belonged to Lyons that "went off."



Parsons had pled guilty to the October crime and agreed to testify for the State in return for a reduced sentence of 7.5 to 15 years in prison.



Parson then claimed that Dukes, Jones and Lyons wnet to Mitchell's apartment to bribe him and when he refused Dukes shot him.



Authorities arrested Jones and after 30 hours of questioning he confessed that Dukes shot Mitchell and that he was present.



Jone's girlfriend falsely implicated Jone after detectives told her that if she didn't, Jones would get the death penalty.



Jone however claimed that he innocent and said that he finally gave in because he decided that he had no choice.



According to the Supreme Court of the State of New York Appellate Division: Third Judicial Department:



On October 4, 1996, Carl Duke and others went to the apartment of Erik Mitchell at 195 Clinton Avenue in the City of Albany, bound the persons present at the apartment at that time and stole some personal property. Thereafter, on February 18, 1997, Duke and others returned to that apartment, at which time Mitchell was shot and killed. As a consequence, a Grand Jury indicted Duke and charged him with one count of murder in the first degree, two counts of murder in the second degree, one count of burglary in the first degree, one count of robbery in the first degree and one count of robbery in the second degree. Following a jury trial, Duke was convicted of one count of murder in the second degree, burglary in the first degree, robbery in the first degree and robbery in the second degree, for which he was sentenced to, inter alia, an indeterminate term of imprisonment of 25 years to life.



The People called one Matt Parsons to the stand and questioned him about his knowledge of and involvement in the burglary/robbery of the Mitchell apartment, acquaintanceship with Duke and conversation with Duke concerning the Mitchell homicide. Following Parson's testimony concerning the initial burglary/robbery, the prosecutor asked, "[C]an you tell the jury here whether or not you had a conversation with [defendant] * * * at some point in time after [Mitchell] was killed, but before you got indicted on the robbery?". The following colloquy took place:



Answer: I don't know.



Question: You don't know, or you don't remember, or it didn't happen?



Answer: I don't remember.



Immediately following the latter response, the prosecutor, over the objection of defense counsel, read Parson's Grand Jury testimony, wherein he related that he had indeed had a conversation with Duke, at which time, among other things, Duke told Parsons that he shot Mitchell.



It is axiomatic that a party to a criminal proceeding may impeach his or her own witness if, on direct examination, the witness tends to disprove a material issue of the case or affirmatively damages the party's case. However, it is equally clear that such testimony must consist of something more than an inability to recall the events in question, as such claimed nonrecollection neither tends to disprove the position of the prosecution nor affirmatively damages its case. Had the People made reference in their opening to a conversation between Duke and Parsons and the specific content thereof, a subsequent statement by Parsons that such conversation never took place arguably could be viewed as tending to disprove a material issue in the People's case. That, however, is not what occurred here. Parsons did not deny that the subject conversation took place; he simply stated that he did not remember. Such testimony did not damage the People's case and, accordingly, County Court erred in permitting impeachment of Parsons by use of his prior Grand Jury testimony.



Contrary to defendant's contention, however, we perceive the use of the impeachment testimony to have been harmless error. The record makes plain that Duke made any number of admissions to law enforcement officials, as well as lay persons, demonstrating that he had killed a person, and the evidence was such that it clearly was inferable that the person killed was Mitchell.



With respect to such admissions, Duke also asserted that certain statements made to the police after consultation with counsel assigned to him on an unrelated matter were improperly received by County Court.

Duke was convicted on November 17, 1998 and was sentence



Duke appealed but his conviction was affirmed.