Faltz v. United States ( 2024 )

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DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA COURT OF APPEALS
Nos. 14-CO-0978 & 23-CO-0507
ANTHONY FALTZ, APPELLANT,
v.
UNITED STATES, APPELLEE.
Appeal from the Superior Court of the
District of Columbia
(2006-CF1-004490)
(Hon. Erik P. Christian, Motions Judge)
(Argued May 14, 2024 Decided July 11, 2024)
James Millikan, with whom Leslie W. Kostyshak, Matthew J. Revis, and
Destiny T. Stokes were on the brief, for appellant.
David P. Saybolt, Assistant United States Attorney, with whom Matthew M.
Graves, United States Attorney, Chrisellen R. Kolb, and Kacie Weston, Assistant
United States Attorneys, were on the brief, for appellee.
Before BLACKBURNE-RIGSBY, Chief Judge, and EASTERLY and SHANKER,
Associate Judges.
BLACKBURNE-RIGSBY, Chief Judge: Appellant Anthony Faltz and two friends
were driving a stolen Ford Crown Victoria in February 2002. While fleeing from
police, they ran a red light and crashed into another car, killing two people.
Metropolitan Police Department (“MPD”) officers on the scene identified Dorrell
2
Ingram as the driver of the car and the government filed murder charges against him.
After a DNA sample from the center of the driver’s-side airbag was found to contain
DNA from Mr. Faltz, however, the government dropped charges against Mr. Ingram
and brought a second-degree murder charge against Mr. Faltz. At the
encouragement of his appointed trial counsel, Mr. Faltz pled guilty to two counts of
involuntary manslaughter.
Mr. Faltz seeks review of the trial court’s denial of his motion to vacate his
convictions and sentence pursuant to the Innocence Protection Act (“IPA”), D.C.
Code § 22-4135, as well as his claim of ineffective assistance of trial and
post-conviction counsel (“IAC”), pursuant to D.C. Code § 23-110. Mr. Faltz also
appeals the trial court’s denial of his motions to exclude two accident-reconstruction
experts presented by the government. We affirm the trial court’s denial of
Mr. Faltz’s IAC claims; however, we remand the case for further analysis of the
evidence Mr. Faltz presented of his innocence and, relatedly, the admissibility of the
government’s accident-reconstruction experts under Motorola Inc. v. Murray, 147
A.3d 751 (D.C. 2016) (en banc).
3
I. Factual Background & Procedural History
A. Car Chase and Accident
On February 19, 2002, Anthony Faltz and twin brothers Dorrell and Darryl
Ingram crashed a stolen Ford Crown Victoria car into the passenger side of a Nissan
Maxima while fleeing police, killing the two people inside the Nissan. Mr. Faltz
testified that the Ingram brothers stole the Crown Victoria and then picked Mr. Faltz
up from his house; each of them then took turns driving the car for several hours.
On their way back to Mr. Faltz’s house, a police cruiser approached. Moving away
from the police vehicle, the Crown Victoria hit a parked vehicle and then a marked
police car before speeding off into a full-blown chase. The Crown Victoria then ran
a red light and crashed, killing the two people in the other car.
There are conflicting accounts as to who was driving the Crown Victoria at
the time of the accident. During the 2022 hearing on his IAC and IPA claims,
Mr. Faltz testified that Dorrell Ingram was driving the Crown Victoria when they
first spotted the police cruiser and during the crash. At the 2022 hearing, he testified
to being “probably behind the driver or sitting in the middle.” He also testified that
he had been leaning slightly forward during the chase, was thrown forward during
the collision, and did not know whether he hit the driver’s-side airbag. Mr. Faltz
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stated that after the crash he attempted to get out through the right rear passenger
door but an injury to his right hip prevented him from getting far.
The MPD officers present at the scene identified the driver as Dorrell Ingram,
who fled on foot before police apprehended and arrested him. Officers Gregory
Phifer and Herman Hodges witnessed the accident from one or two blocks away and
reached the vehicle within seconds of the crash. Officer Phifer later testified that he
immediately grabbed the rear passenger emerging from the passenger side of the car
and dragged him to the driver’s side. Both officers testified that they saw the driver
emerge from the driver’s seat and run into a nearby wooded area. Officer Phifer
apprehended both passengers and then stayed with them and the vehicle. He then
described the fleeing suspect to a third officer, Officer Byron Purnell, who had
subsequently arrived. While canvassing the area, Officers Purnell and Hodges saw
someone fitting Officer Phifer’s description of the fleeing driver and arrested him,
later identifying him as Dorrell Ingram. The MPD officers also identified the rear
passenger as Mr. Faltz and the front passenger as Darryl Ingram. After arriving at
the scene, MPD Detective Kimberly Metivier instructed Officer Phifer to write out
his descriptions of the Ford’s occupants and where they exited the vehicle. In written
reports, Detective Metivier noted that Dorrell Ingram was identified as the driver
“[d]ue to the overwhelming available physical evidence and witness observations.”
5
The government charged Dorrell Ingram with second-degree murder as the
driver of the car. However, the government reversed course after DNA testing by
the FBI, conducted using technology available at the time, excluded Dorrell Ingram
as a DNA contributor to a sample recovered from the driver’s side airbag and showed
that Mr. Faltz’s DNA could not be excluded as a match. The FBI’s lab report also
stated that the specimen “contained DNA from more than one individual.” Mr. Faltz
was then charged with second-degree murder and all charges against the Ingram
brothers were dropped. 1
B. Guilty Plea (2006)
Once charged, the court appointed Ferris Bond to represent Mr. Faltz.
Mr. Faltz later testified that he told Mr. Bond he was not the driver and thus wanted
to go to trial. On the morning of jury selection for the trial, the prosecutor offered
Mr. Faltz a plea offer for two counts of involuntary manslaughter. Mr. Faltz later
testified that he agreed to the deal because Mr. Bond told him both that his DNA
1
Dorrell Ingram subsequently filed a civil suit against the District of
Columbia and various MPD officers alleging malicious prosecution and violations
of his Fourth Amendment rights, among other claims. The United States District
Court for the District of Columbia found that the defendants were entitled to
summary judgment on all of Mr. Ingram’s claims. Ingram v. District of Columbia,
No. 1:04-cv-00505-PLF, 2005 WL 3174624 (D.D.C. Oct. 5, 2005).
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was all over the airbag and that he would likely receive a maximum fifteen-year total
sentence.
Before sentencing, Mr. Faltz provided a statement to the writer of his
Presentence Report (“PSR”) maintaining that he was not the driver. When the writer
asked why he pled guilty if he was not driving, Mr. Faltz responded “I didn’t think
it was a winnable case.” On December 8, 2006, Mr. Faltz was sentenced to sixteen
years on each count of involuntary manslaughter, to run consecutively, for a total of
thirty-two years of incarceration.
C. Initial Section 23-110 Proceedings
In 2009, Mr. Faltz filed a pro se motion under D.C. Code § 23-110 alleging
ineffective assistance of counsel by Mr. Bond and seeking to vacate his convictions
and sentence. Mr. Faltz argued that Mr. Bond was ineffective because he failed to
obtain discovery from the government, conduct a proper pre-trial investigation,
discuss a defense strategy for trial, describe the elements of the charges in the
indictment and the guilty plea, or explain to Mr. Faltz the possibility of consecutive
rather than concurrent sentences for the two involuntary manslaughter charges in the
plea offer. Daniel Harn was appointed as Mr. Faltz’s counsel for his Section 23-110
claim. Mr. Harn filed a supplemental motion to withdraw Mr. Faltz’s guilty plea on
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the grounds that his plea was not knowing and voluntary due to Mr. Bond’s
ineffective assistance.
At an April 25, 2011, evidentiary hearing on the Section 23-110 motion, and
in supplemental motions, both Mr. Bond and Mr. Faltz testified. Mr. Faltz testified
that though he understood that he was being charged as the driver of the car, he
thought he was pleading to being a passenger in the car. Mr. Bond disputed
Mr. Faltz’s claims that he had not explained the elements of the charges or plea deal
and that he had promised the deal would lead to a shorter sentence. Additionally, he
stated that he had hired an investigator to speak with the Ingram family, talk with
the owner of the stolen vehicle, and speak with Mr. Faltz’s mother. Mr. Bond also
testified that after the prosecutor told him that Mr. Faltz’s DNA was “all over” the
airbag, he did not consult any experts nor follow up as to how much DNA was
actually found on the airbag. During the hearing, Mr. Harn, Mr. Faltz’s appointed
post-conviction counsel, also did not present any DNA or accident-reconstruction
experts.
On April 9, 2013, the trial court rejected Mr. Faltz’s claims that Mr. Bond had
provided him constitutionally ineffective assistance and that his guilty plea should
be withdrawn because he never admitted to being the driver of the car. Citing
Mr. Faltz’s understanding of the charges against him and the range of possible
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sentences, as well as his failure to present evidence that Mr. Bond’s investigation
was deficient, the trial court found that Mr. Faltz had not established prejudice
sufficient to substantiate an ineffectiveness claim. See Strickland v. Washington,
466 U.S. 668, 687-88 (1984). The trial court also rejected Mr. Faltz’s assertion that
he had established a sufficient basis to withdraw his guilty plea, finding that a
reasonable juror could conclude from the DNA evidence that Mr. Faltz was the
driver and that Mr. Faltz’s “admission of guilt” and failure to challenge his role as
the driver in open court indicated that he understood the charges against him.
D. Additional DNA Testing
On April 7, 2015, after seeing a March 6, 2015, Washington Post article
calling into question DNA results from the District of Columbia’s crime lab,
Mr. Faltz filed a pro se motion pursuant to the IPA, D.C. Code § 22-4135, requesting
that the DNA evidence in his case be re-tested.
In June 2016, fourteen years after the original FBI testing of the DNA on the
airbag, a private forensics laboratory—Bode Cellmark—re-tested the DNA from the
Crown Victoria’s driver’s-side airbag. Bode’s report confirmed that Mr. Faltz’s
DNA was on the airbag, and it identified a second sample on the right edge of the
airbag with DNA profiles of at least two people. Because of the quality of the
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sample, however, Bode did not interpret the results to identify the specific
contributors to the DNA sample.
Mr. Faltz, through new counsel, approached expert Dr. Norah Rudin to
interpret the second sample using a cutting-edge method called “probabilistic
genotyping,” which assigns likelihoods to DNA profiles rather than a binary
“match/no match” approach. The probabilistic genotyping approach was not
available in 2002 when the FBI first tested the DNA found on the Crown Victoria’s
airbag. Dr. Rudin found that evidence supporting the presence of Dorrell Ingram’s
DNA in the second sample from the edge of the airbag was “about 100 times
stronger” than that of Mr. Faltz.
E. IPA and Additional IAC Claims
With the discovery of the new DNA evidence interpreted by Dr. Rudin,
Mr. Faltz continued to pursue his IPA claim alongside additional claims for
ineffective assistance of counsel pursuant to D.C. Code § 23-110 against both his
trial counsel, Mr. Bond, and his post-conviction counsel, Mr. Harn. For Mr. Bond,
Mr. Faltz added an IAC claim for his failure to investigate the forensic DNA
evidence and the physics of the accident. Mr. Faltz claimed that Mr. Harn’s identical
failures prevented Mr. Faltz from being able to establish an IAC claim against
Mr. Bond.
10
At the hearing on the IPA and additional IAC claims, from November 15-17,
2022, the parties submitted a joint stipulation containing the testimony of the police
officers who responded to the crash, several of whom identified Dorrell Ingram as
the driver of the Crown Victoria. In addition to reiterating the statements he made
at his first Section 23-110 hearing in 2011, Mr. Faltz testified that Mr. Harn never
mentioned the possibility of retaining expert witnesses for the Section 23-110
proceedings. He also reiterated that he pled guilty because he had been told that his
DNA was all over the airbag and that the Ingram twins were planning to testify that
he was the driver; he testified that he would not have pled guilty if he had known
that Dorrell Ingram’s DNA was also present on the airbag.
Mr. Faltz presented the testimony of three expert witnesses. One expert,
Stephen Mercer, testified that the representation of both Mr. Bond and Mr. Harn fell
below professional standards for defense attorneys due to their failure to scrutinize
the DNA report. Dr. Rudin also testified as an expert about her interpretation of the
DNA sample using probabilistic genotyping. After her testimony, the government
presented another DNA expert, Dr. Bruce Budowle, who critiqued Dr. Rudin’s
methodology for crediting false “peaks” in the sample. Though Dr. Budowle
disputed aspects of Dr. Rudin’s approach and the comparative strength of the two
profiles, he agreed that Dorrell Ingram was a likely contributor, along with Mr. Faltz,
to the sample on the edge of the airbag.
11
On the issue of accident reconstruction, Mr. Faltz presented expert C. Gregory
Russell and the government presented two expert witnesses, Michael Miller and
Brian Chase. Mr. Miller responded to the crash in his then-role as an MPD officer
in the Major Crash Investigations Unit. Though he did not perform an accident
reconstruction on the night of the collision, he did note his observations of the crash
and vehicles and made a field sketch of the accident scene. Mr. Miller returned to
the scene of the crash in May 2006, approximately four years later, to map the
accident and create a report. He testified, as his report stated, that the Crown Victoria
rotated after the airbags had fully inflated, and not before, which would indicate that
the driver would have hit the airbag head-on and not on the side. Mr. Chase, who is
the founder and chief investigator at Comprehensive Motor Vehicle Services and
Consulting, testified that the Crown Victoria’s airbag, within 100 milliseconds of
impact, would have deployed before any rotation occurred, meaning that the driver
could not have missed hitting the airbag. In contrast, Mr. Russell testified that the
evidence of the crash suggests that the Crown Victoria moved in a forward diagonal
motion, where a rear passenger with no seatbelt, like Mr. Faltz, would have hit the
driver’s airbag and the driver would have likely hit the side of the airbag or missed
it altogether. Further, Mr. Russell testified that any saliva, sweat, or blood droplets
from the rear passenger and driver would have followed the same trajectories.
12
The trial court rejected Mr. Faltz’s IPA claims, emphasizing the pre-
sentencing letter Mr. Faltz wrote to the court expressing remorse at being “the cause”
of killing the two people in the Nissan. The trial court declined to address
Mr. Faltz’s IAC claim against Mr. Bond, stating that it had already done so in its
April 9, 2013, order. Additionally, the trial court found Mr. Faltz’s IAC claims
against Mr. Harn to be meritless because Mr. Faltz “has repeatedly acknowledged
his guilt in this matter.” As to the additional DNA evidence, the trial court found
that even if the evidence Mr. Faltz raised could be classified as new, it did not prove
that he was more likely than not actually innocent. In particular, the trial court
credited Mr. Chase’s testimony that “it would be impossible for the driver to miss
the center of the driver-side airbag.”
II. Discussion
A. IAC Claims
We review a Section 23-110 motion for abuse of discretion, evaluating the
trial court’s factual findings for clear error and its legal determinations de novo.
Gardner v. United States, 140 A.3d 1172, 1195 (D.C. 2016). A counsel’s
performance is constitutionally ineffective if their errors, falling “below an objective
standard of reasonableness,” prejudice their client. Strickland, 466 U.S. at 688. A
defendant who pled guilty can establish that their counsel was constitutionally
13
ineffective by establishing a “reasonable probability that, but for counsel’s errors, he
would not have pleaded guilty and would have insisted on going to trial.” Lee v.
United States, 582 U.S. 357, 364-65 (2017) (quoting Hill v. Lockhart, 474 U.S. 52,
59 (1985)).
Mr. Faltz argues that Mr. Bond’s failure to consult DNA and
accident-reconstruction experts left him without a viable defense to the centerpiece
of the government’s case against him, and thus drove him to accept the plea offer
despite his innocence. Mr. Faltz also contends that Mr. Harn’s identical failure to
engage DNA or accident-reconstruction experts precluded him from establishing an
IAC claim against Mr. Bond. Even if we were to agree with Mr. Faltz that both his
trial counsel 2 and post-conviction counsel 3 performed deficiently, we are not
2
At a status hearing ahead of the 2022 evidentiary hearing, the government
challenged Mr. Faltz’s IAC claims against Mr. Bond as successive and, after hearing
arguments from both parties, allowed Mr. Faltz’s claims against Mr. Bond to
proceed. In its final order, however, the trial court stated that it had already
considered Mr. Faltz’s IAC claims against Mr. Bond in its initial Section 23-110
proceeding and “w[ould] not consider claims of ineffective assistance of counsel
against Mr. Bond in this Order.” The government argues again on appeal that
Mr. Faltz’s IAC claims against Mr. Bond are procedurally barred as a successive
motion. The trial court’s final order implicitly deems Mr. Faltz’s claims against
Mr. Bond to be successive, but because it does not make an explicit finding as such,
we decline to do so here. Instead, because of the inextricable nature of Mr. Faltz’s
claims against Mr. Bond and his post-conviction counsel, all of which the parties
briefed, we review Mr. Faltz’s IAC arguments against Mr. Bond and affirm.
3
The government notes that we have not explicitly held there to be a
constitutional or statutory right to effective assistance of counsel in Section 23-110
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convinced that Mr. Faltz provided sufficient evidence of prejudice to substantiate his
IAC claims. Accordingly, we do not address the possible deficiency of either
attorney’s performance. See Dorsey v. United States, 225 A.3d 724, 728 (D.C. 2020)
(“[I]f it is easier to dispose of an ineffectiveness claim on the ground of lack of
sufficient prejudice[,] . . . that course should be followed” (quoting Strickland, 466
U.S. at 697)). We first address Mr. Faltz’s claim against his trial counsel, Mr. Bond,
and then turn to his claim against his post-conviction counsel, Mr. Harn. For both
claims, we conclude that there was not a reasonable probability that, but for the
errors of each attorney, Mr. Faltz would not have pled guilty. Lee, 582 U.S. at 364-
65.
We are not persuaded that, but for Mr. Bond’s failure to engage DNA or
accident-reconstruction experts at the pre-trial stage, Mr. Faltz would have insisted
on going to trial. It is true that the FBI’s DNA report, which Mr. Bond received,
stated that the sample “contained DNA from more than one individual,” which is a
fact that Mr. Faltz claims Mr. Bond never shared with him. But Mr. Faltz
undisputedly remained the major contributor to the DNA sample from the center of
the airbag, the only sample at issue at the time. We see no evidence to suggest that
proceedings where there is no pending appeal. We assume without deciding here
that Mr. Faltz’s claims against his collateral counsel are reviewable, though we
ultimately affirm the trial court’s denial of Mr. Faltz’s IAC claims.
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consultation with DNA or accident-reconstruction experts, within the confines of
then-available technology, would have altered the FBI lab report’s findings. Further,
though the DNA evidence was essential to the government’s case against Mr. Faltz,
its potential weaknesses were not necessarily central to Mr. Faltz’s defense. As
Mr. Bond emphasized during his testimony at the first Section 23-110 hearing,
“every police witness the government was going to call at one time or another had
indicated that Mr. Ingram had been driving and Mr. Ingram had actually committed
the offense.” The circumstances of Mr. Faltz’s guilty plea are distinct from that of
the defendant in Lee, 582 U.S. at 362, where the parties did not dispute that Mr. Lee
would have proceeded to trial if his attorney had properly advised him of the
deportation consequences of a guilty plea. There is no such clarity here. Given the
results of the FBI’s DNA lab report, in light of contemporaneous technological
limitations and the strength of eyewitness accounts for Mr. Faltz’s defense, we
conclude that Mr. Faltz has not established that there is a reasonable probability that
he would have insisted on going to trial if Mr. Bond had only consulted with DNA
or accident-reconstruction experts.
We similarly conclude that Mr. Faltz falls short of demonstrating prejudice
for his IAC claim against Mr. Harn, which hinges on the merits of his IAC claim
against Mr. Bond. Mr. Faltz contends that Mr. Harn’s failure to consult DNA or
accident-reconstruction experts during the first Section 23-110 hearing, like
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Mr. Bond before him, prejudiced his case against Mr. Bond. Indeed, in denying
Mr. Faltz’s first Section 23-110 motion against Mr. Bond, the trial court determined
that Mr. Faltz had “failed to present any witnesses or evidence which would
demonstrate that a better investigation could have been performed.” IAC claims rely
on establishing a counterfactual under which a trial’s outcome—or, as here, a
defendant’s decision to plead guilty—might differ. However, even with the benefit
of the second Section 23-110 hearing that did provide a counterfactual to Mr. Bond’s
investigation, we conclude, as described above, that Mr. Faltz did not sufficiently
establish that consulting DNA or accident-reconstruction experts would have
affected his decision to plead or the first Section 23-110 hearing. Because we are
unconvinced that there is a reasonable probability that, but for Mr. Bond’s failure to
consult DNA or accident-reconstruction experts, Mr. Faltz would have decided not
to plead guilty, we also conclude that Mr. Harn’s subsequent failure to engage such
experts did not prejudice Mr. Faltz.
B. IPA Claim
Mr. Faltz argues that the trial court improperly admitted the testimony of the
government’s accident-reconstruction experts—Mr. Miller and Mr. Chase—and,
separately, contends that the trial court violated his due process rights by wrongly
relying on his plea as evidence of his guilt. Under our reading of the record, the
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nexus between evidence of Mr. Faltz’s innocence—including his guilty plea—and
the admitted expert testimony is such that we must consider both issues together in
reviewing the trial court’s assessment of Mr. Faltz’s IPA claim. We conclude that a
remand is necessary to conduct an analysis of the admissibility of the government’s
proffered expert testimony under Motorola Inc. v. Murray, 147 A.3d 751 (D.C.
2016) (en banc), 4 and for the trial court to grapple with the full set of evidence that
Mr. Faltz presented of his innocence.
We review a claim of error in admitting expert testimony for abuse of
discretion, affording the trial court “a great degree of deference.” Lewis v. United
States, 263 A.3d 1049, 1059, 1064 (D.C. 2021). However, the trial court errs if it
acts “for an improper or legally insufficient reason, if its ruling lacked a firm factual
foundation, or if the trial court otherwise failed to exercise its judgment in a rational
4
We do not agree with the government’s contention that Dyas v. United
States, 376 A.2d 827 (D.C. 1977), rather than Motorola, governs the standard for
expert admissibility here because Mr. Faltz’s conviction was final at the time of the
relevant 2022 evidentiary hearing. For this proposition, the government cites to
Gathers v. United States, 977 A.2d 969, 972-73 (D.C. 2009), which held that a recent
Supreme Court case decided after the defendant’s conviction—one that would have
excluded key evidence—did not apply retroactively on collateral review. Unlike in
Gathers, where the retroactivity in question was of a decision central to the
defendant’s conviction, the admissibility of the government’s experts at the 2022
evidentiary hearing has no bearing whatsoever on any of Mr. Faltz’s pre-trial
proceedings or guilty plea. Accordingly, we see no reason why Motorola would not
govern the admissibility of experts at an evidentiary hearing that took place after it
was decided.
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and informed manner.” Hinton v. United States, 979 A.2d 663, 683-84 (D.C. 2009)
(internal quotations omitted). In deciding the admissibility of an expert, the trial
court considers whether:
(a) the expert’s scientific, technical, or other specialized
knowledge will help the trier of fact to understand the
evidence or to determine a fact in issue;
(b) the testimony is based on sufficient facts or data;
(c) the testimony is the product of reliable principles and
methods; and
(d) the expert has reliably applied the principles and
methods to the facts of the case.
Motorola, 147 A.3d at 756 (quoting Fed. R. Evid. 702) (abrogating Dyas, 376 A.2d
at 827, and holding that the standard articulated in Daubert v. Merrell Dow
Pharmaceuticals, Inc., 509 U.S. 579 (1993) governs the admission of expert
testimony in civil and criminal cases).
In denying Mr. Faltz’s motions to exclude the government’s
accident-reconstruction expert testimony, the full extent of the trial court’s analysis
was as follows:
I’m going to deny that one – request to exclude their
testimony. That goes more to the weight versus the
admissibility of these witnesses. If Detective Miller –
there’s testimony that he was perhaps – he was on the
scene and he’s able to provide that testimonial evidence,
and if the defense’s expert is relying upon the reports of
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other experts, including Miller and Chase, then I don’t see
why they should be excluded.
The trial court’s written order does not substantively address the admissibility
of the experts’ testimony. In dismissing Mr. Faltz’s motion to exclude the
government’s accident-reconstruction witnesses, the trial court appears to state only
that Mr. Faltz concedes the reliability of the government’s witnesses because his
own expert relied on the same reports. But we see no evidence in the record
demonstrating that Mr. Faltz’s accident-reconstruction witness relied on the Miller
report. By making a conclusory statement that the testimony of Mr. Miller and
Mr. Chase went to weight rather than admissibility, without engaging in any further
analysis, the trial court fell short of its gatekeeping role in admitting expert testimony
under Motorola. 147 A.3d at 755-56. The government contends that all the evidence
from experts on both sides was laid out in the hearing and, thus, the trial court
implicitly conducted an admissibility analysis. But Motorola states that Rule 702
“expressly requires” the trial court to determine whether an expert reliably applied
principles and methods to the case at hand, id. at 757, and we discern no application
of Rule 702 or Motorola in the trial court’s ruling.
A Motorola analysis would have allowed for an opportunity to assess the fact
that Mr. Miller’s reconstruction of the crash took place four years later, as well as
Mr. Chase’s misunderstanding that Mr. Miller’s report was conducted “immediately
following the crash . . . [with] critical scene physical evidence which dissipates over
20
time . . . forensically mapped and documented.” Here, there was no analysis of
Mr. Faltz’s request to exclude the government’s accident-reconstruction experts, and
we conclude that a remand for further analysis as required under Motorola is
necessary.
Admitting the government’s accident-reconstruction experts without
conducting a Motorola analysis is not, as the government contends, a harmless error.
An error is harmless if “we can say, ‘with fair assurance . . . that the judgment was
not substantially swayed by the error.’” Gardner v. United States, 140 A.3d 1172,
1183 (D.C. 2016) (quoting Clayborne v. United States, 751 A.2d 956, 968 n.12 (D.C.
2000)). On the accident-reconstruction issue, the accounts of both parties appear
rooted in data and calculations with divergent conclusions: the government experts
assert that the Crown Victoria’s driver would have hit the airbag head-on, while
Mr. Faltz’s expert concludes that the driver would have hit the airbag at an angle.
The accident-reconstruction evidence is significant because it frames how the DNA
evidence itself should be viewed, which, in turn, forms the foundation of the
government’s case against Mr. Faltz. Thus, we cannot say “with fair assurance” that
the trial court’s admission of the government’s experts without a Motorola analysis
did not substantially sway its ruling on Mr. Faltz’s IPA claim.
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Interwoven with the expert issue is Mr. Faltz’s claim that the trial court failed
to grapple with the full set of evidence presented at the November 2022 hearings to
demonstrate his innocence. 5 We review the trial court’s IPA ruling for abuse of
discretion. Richardson v. United States, 8 A.3d 1245, 1248-49 (D.C. 2010). As the
IPA sets out:
In determining whether to grant relief the court may
consider any relevant evidence, but shall consider the
following:
(A) The new evidence;
(B) How the new evidence demonstrates actual innocence;
(C) Why the new evidence is or is not cumulative or
impeaching;
(D) If the conviction resulted from a trial, and if the
movant asserted a theory of defense inconsistent with the
current claim of innocence, the specific reason the movant
asserted an inconsistent theory at trial; and
5
During oral argument, the government asserted that Mr. Faltz did not present
an IPA claim in his briefing—instead arguing only that the trial court violated his
due-process rights by finding that his guilty plea evinced his guilt—and that, as a
result, a “freestanding” IPA claim is not before us. Mr. Faltz’s IPA briefing did
indeed focus on his due-process claim, but we find that the interconnected nature of
the expert testimony and guilty-plea issues, undisputedly briefed by both parties,
fairly encompasses review of the trial court’s analysis as to whether or not Mr. Faltz
demonstrated his innocence by a preponderance of the evidence as required under
the IPA. D.C. Code § 22-4135(g)(2).
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(E) If the conviction resulted from a guilty plea, the
specific reason the movant pleaded guilty despite being
actually innocent of the crime.
D.C. Code § 22-4135(g)(1). A court must grant a new trial if it “concludes that it is
more likely than not that the movant is actually innocent of the crime.” D.C. Code
§ 22-4135(g)(2).
Citing Mr. Faltz’s “repeated[]” statements that he was “responsible for the
murder in this case” and the accident-reconstruction conclusions of Mr. Chase, the
trial court determined Mr. Faltz and his accident-reconstruction witness to be non-
credible and found that the evidence of his innocence fell short of a preponderance.
We discern no clear error in the trial court’s determination of Mr. Faltz’s credibility.
See Stringer v. United States, 301 A.3d 1218, 1228 (D.C. 2023) (noting that we
review the trial court’s credibility determinations in the IPA context for clear error). 6
However, Mr. Faltz presented other evidence of his innocence beyond his own
testimony. He put forward evidence of new DNA findings using probabilistic
genotyping and an accident-reconstruction expert in addition to his own prior
6
We decline to hold as a matter of first impression, as Mr. Faltz advocates,
that the trial court violated his due process rights in making various comments asking
why an innocent person would plead guilty. We are not persuaded that the court’s
ruling was driven by a belief that guilty pleas categorically preclude innocence—
rather, the order appears driven by an interpretation of Mr. Faltz’s 2006 statements
as admissions of guilt.
23
repeated statements of his innocence. The trial court’s order does not fully grapple
with this evidence. Nor did the trial court’s order contend with the fact that all of
the eyewitness MPD officers identified Dorrell Ingram, and not Mr. Faltz, as the
driver of the Crown Victoria at the time of the collision. The trial court interpreted
some of Mr. Faltz’s statements of guilt without discussing the context in which the
statements were made. In its order, the trial court stated and reiterated that Mr. Faltz
had admitted to Mr. Bond that he was the driver of the car at the time of the collision.
When asked whether Mr. Faltz had at any time “acknowledged that he was driving
at the time of the collision,” Mr. Bond answered affirmatively, but his subsequent
testimony is somewhat unclear. Mr. Bond described Mr. Faltz indicating to him that
he was the driver after just being presented with the government’s DNA evidence
and told by Mr. Bond that “if you did this, this is about as good as it’s going to get.”
He also states that Mr. Faltz “had indicated to me that he had been driving. And
then he would indicate that he hadn’t been driving. So when the trial was called, he
had told me both things.” The trial court’s order emphasizes Mr. Faltz’s letter to the
court at sentencing stating that he had “been the cause of someone losing their life”
as evidence of his guilt. But the trial court’s order does not mention Mr. Faltz’s
statement to the PSR writer that he was not driving the car when it crashed. The
PSR reads, “Mr. Faltz reported that his codefendants reported that he was driving,
24
but he was not. This writer asked if he was not driving why did he plead guilty and
he responded, ‘I didn’t think it was a winnable case.’”
The government acknowledges that the trial court’s IPA analysis was done
“in a fairly cursory fashion,” but argues that the court “was not obligated to do it in
a more fulsome way.” Further, the government argues that the trial court’s
credibility determination of Mr. Faltz “goes a long way to making it very tough” to
establish an IPA claim. However, the IPA requires that courts “shall” consider
various factors, including “the specific reason the movant pleaded guilty despite
being actually innocent of the crime.” D.C. Code § 22-4135(g)(1)(E). While we
defer to the court’s credibility determinations themselves, Richardson, 8 A.3d at
1249, the trial court is obligated to consider all of the factors outlined in the IPA.
Bouknight v. United States, 867 A.2d 245, 258 (D.C. 2005) (concluding that review
of an IPA claim requires consideration of all statutory factors and that it is
“unnecessary and inappropriate” to “recogniz[e] credibility as a separate basis for a
ruling independent of the considerations set forth by the statute”). Therefore, we
remand to the trial court for further analysis of the totality of the evidence Mr. Faltz
presented in his IPA claim.
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III. Conclusion
For the foregoing reasons, we affirm the trial court’s denial of Mr. Faltz’s IAC
claims but remand his IPA claim to the trial court for further analysis of the experts’
admissibility and evidence of Mr. Faltz’s innocence consistent with this opinion.
So ordered.