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DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA COURT OF APPEALS
No. 24-CO-0163
BARRY D. STRINGER, APPELLANT,
V.
UNITED STATES, APPELLEE.
Appeal from the Superior Court of the District of Columbia (2005-FEL-004970)
(Hon. Julie H. Becker, Motions Judge)
(Argued December 11, 2025 Decided April 30, 2026)
Gregory M. Lipper for appellant.
David P. Saybolt, Assistant United States Attorney, with whom Edward R. Martin, Jr., United States Attorney at the time the brief was filed, and Chrisellen R. Kolb, Nihar R. Mohanty, and Caroline R. Burrell, Assistant United States Attorneys, were on the brief, for appellee.
Before DEAHL, HOWARD, and SHANKER, Associate Judges.
SHANKER, Associate Judge: This post-conviction matter relates back to the
murder of Tilford Johnson in 2003. Appellant Barry D. Stringer and his nephew
Roderick Charles were charged with the murder and related offenses and tried
separately. Both men were convicted in 2006 of armed robbery, first-degree felony 2
murder while armed, and several related offenses. We affirmed Mr. Stringer’s and
Mr. Charles’s convictions on direct appeal but remanded in both cases for
resentencing on merged offenses. Mr. Charles was resentenced in October 2014 to
372 months of imprisonment; Mr. Stringer was resentenced in January 2021 to 432
months of imprisonment.
In 2014, based on new evidence, Mr. Stringer moved under the Innocence
Protection Act (IPA), D.C. Code § 22-4131 et seq., for vacatur of his convictions
and dismissal of the charges or a new trial. The new evidence consisted of an
affidavit by Mr. Charles in which he claimed that he had acted alone in killing Mr.
Johnson and that Mr. Stringer was not involved. Following an evidentiary hearing
in 2018 that included testimony from Mr. Charles, the trial court denied Mr.
Stringer’s motion on the ground that Mr. Charles was not credible. Mr. Stringer
appealed, arguing that the trial court clearly erred in discrediting Mr. Charles.
Because we were “uncertain about the bases for some of the court’s findings and
conclusions,” we remanded the case for reconsideration. Stringer v. United States,
301 A.3d 1218, 1220 (D.C. 2023) (Stringer I).
On remand, the trial court again declined to credit Mr. Charles’s testimony,
relying on “two critical facts”: first, that Mr. Charles’s testimony could not be
reconciled with the physical evidence at trial, and second, that a letter Mr. Stringer 3
wrote to Mr. Charles when they were in jail supported the conclusion that the two
men committed the crime together, undermining Mr. Charles’s claim that he acted
alone and that Mr. Stringer was innocent.
Mr. Stringer now appeals a second time, asking us to reverse because the trial
court’s credibility determination was premised on clear error and a failure to
adequately scrutinize the evidence at trial. We agree that the trial court erred, but
we conclude that another remand, rather than reversal, is appropriate. We cast no
doubt on the principle that the ultimate responsibility to determine a witness’s
credibility and whether an IPA movant is more likely than not actually innocent lies
with the trial court. But we are compelled to again say that a trial court’s factual
findings, including its credibility determinations, cannot rest on unsupported
speculation or a manifest misunderstanding of the record evidence.
I. Background
The factual background prior to remand following Mr. Stringer’s first appeal
is set forth in our opinion in Stringer I. We set forth here only the facts relevant to
Mr. Stringer’s challenges to the court’s order following remand. 4
A. The Murder of Tilford Johnson
Tilford Johnson was murdered during the early morning hours of June 3, 2003.
Stringer I, 301 A.3d at 1220. His body was discovered later that morning in a car
parked in an alley behind 28th Street in Southeast Washington, D.C. Id. When
officers with the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) arrived at the scene, they
found “Mr. Johnson’s body slumped in the driver’s seat, with a single gunshot
wound to the head.” Id. The doors to the car were locked, with the keys in the
ignition and the parking brake engaged. Id. The rear driver’s side window was
shattered. Id. Mr. Johnson’s empty wallet was in the car. Id. Officers found a
“vast” amount of blood pooled on the rear seat and floor behind the driver’s seat. Id.
at 1220-21. Blood was also on the outside of the car, with a trail of blood leading
away from the car toward a property bordering the alley on Buena Vista Terrace,
Southeast. Id.
Mr. Stringer and his nephew, Mr. Charles, were charged with Mr. Johnson’s
murder and related offenses. Id. at 1221. They were tried separately in 2006. Id.
The evidence against Mr. Stringer consisted of evidence implicating Mr. Charles
(who had already been convicted but not sentenced); phone records showing calls
between Mr. Charles and a number associated with Mr. Stringer close in time to the
murder; testimony by Mr. Stringer’s half-brother (and Mr. Charles’s uncle) 5
inculpating both men; and a letter Mr. Stringer sent Mr. Charles while both were
incarcerated. Id. (citing Barry Stringer v. United States, No. 06-CF-1515, Mem. Op.
& J. (D.C. July 20, 2009)).
The jury found Mr. Stringer guilty of first-degree murder while armed,
second-degree murder while armed (as a lesser-included offense of first-degree
premeditated murder while armed), armed robbery, and three counts of unlawful
possession of a firearm during a crime of violence or dangerous offense. Id. at 1223.
The trial court sentenced him to 432 months of imprisonment. Id. This court
affirmed Mr. Stringer’s convictions in 2009, rejecting his challenges to the
admission of certain testimony, the sufficiency of the evidence, and the trial court’s
aiding-and-abetting jury instruction. Id. We remanded for resentencing on merged
offenses, and in January 2021, the trial court resentenced Mr. Stringer to the same
aggregate term of 432 months of imprisonment. Id.
B. The Initial IPA Motion
In June 2014, prior to resentencing and while he was incarcerated at the same
facility as Mr. Stringer, Mr. Charles executed an affidavit in which he confessed to
killing Mr. Johnson and asserted that he acted alone in doing so. Stringer I, 301
A.3d at 1223. This affidavit was provided to Mr. Stringer’s counsel around July
2014, and, in December 2014, Mr. Stringer filed a motion under the IPA, D.C. Code 6
§ 22-4131 et seq., for vacatur of his convictions and dismissal of the charges or a
new trial based primarily on Mr. Charles’s affidavit. Id. Mr. Stringer argued that
the affidavit established by clear and convincing evidence that he was innocent of
the robbery and murder of Mr. Johnson. Id.
The trial court held an evidentiary hearing at which the sole witness was Mr.
Charles. Id. Mr. Charles testified to the details surrounding the murder of Mr.
Johnson and maintained that Mr. Stringer was not involved with the murder. Id. at
1223-24. Acknowledging that he was coming forward fifteen years later, Mr.
Charles explained that he was young and selfish at the time of the murder and the
trials, and he had since realized that “[y]ou’ve got an innocent man standing over
there and he didn’t have anything to do with this. Absolutely nothing.” Id. at 1224.
On cross-examination, Mr. Charles admitted that his affidavit and testimony were
inconsistent with statements he made to law enforcement after the murder, his
defense at his trial, and his testimony at Mr. Stringer’s trial. Id.
As the trial court noted, the outcome of Mr. Stringer’s IPA motion “hinge[d]
entirely on the credibility of Mr. Charles,” and after personally observing him testify,
the court “did not find Mr. Charles to be a credible witness.” Id. at 1227. Mr.
Charles’s testimony at the hearing was inconsistent, the court determined, with
(1) the physical evidence, (2) the telephone records, and (3) his prior testimony at 7
Mr. Stringer’s trial as well as his written affidavit. Id. at 1225. The trial court also
found that in addition to these inconsistencies, there were “other reasons to doubt”
Mr. Charles’s testimony—Mr. Charles’s relationship with Mr. Stringer, the timing
of Mr. Charles’s affidavit, and the fact that Mr. Charles had “nothing to lose by
lying.” Id. at 1226. Ultimately the trial court concluded that, “even viewed in
connection with Mr. Stringer’s arguments about the weaknesses of the government’s
case” against him at trial, Mr. Charles’s testimony “failed to establish Mr. Stringer’s
innocence either by clear and convincing evidence or by a preponderance of the
evidence.” Id. (citation modified).
C. Stringer I
Mr. Stringer appealed, arguing that the trial court abused its discretion in three
ways. First, the trial court relied on clearly erroneous findings that (a) Mr. Charles
had “nothing to lose” when he confessed to killing Mr. Johnson alone, because when
he executed his affidavit he had not yet been resentenced, and (b) Mr. Charles and
Mr. Stringer saw each other in jail before Mr. Charles executed the affidavit, because
no evidence supported that finding. Second, Mr. Stringer contended that the trial
court relied on faulty assumptions in finding inconsistencies between Mr. Charles’s
testimony and the evidence at trial or his written affidavit. Third, Mr. Stringer 8
claimed that the court abused its discretion by failing to meaningfully consider the
weaknesses in the government’s case against him at trial. Id. at 1227.
We vacated the trial court’s order and remanded for further proceedings. We
explained that because “[t]his is a case where, if Mr. Charles is believed, Mr. Stringer
is innocent[,]” “why the trial court did not believe Mr. Charles” was critical. Id. at
1229. The trial court, rather than referring to aspects of Mr. Charles’s demeanor or
behavior on the stand as “call[ing] into question his trustworthiness,” based its
credibility assessment solely on the comparisons it drew between Mr. Charles’s
hearing testimony and certain objective circumstances, including the physical
evidence, his written affidavit and prior trial testimony, and Mr. Charles’s potential
motivations for coming forward. Id. Expressing “significant reservations” about
the trial court’s bases for finding Mr. Charles not credible, id. at 1227, we held that
remand was required because we could not be confident that, had the court’s decision
not been influenced by certain dubious considerations, the court would have reached
the same conclusion about the likelihood that Mr. Stringer is “actually innocent of
the crime.” Id. at 1229-32 (quoting Caston v. United States, 146 A.3d 1082, 1084
(D.C. 2016)).
The Physical Evidence and Phone Records. In its original order, the trial court
noted that Mr. Charles’s testimony was not consistent with the testimony of law 9
enforcement witnesses regarding the crime scene. Id. at 1229. These inconsistencies
included whether the bullet that killed Mr. Johnson only left “a hole in the car
window” or “shattered” it; whether the car doors were left locked or unlocked; and
whether Mr. Charles had handled and taken money from Mr. Johnson’s wallet or left
it untouched. Id. at 1225. We held, however, that the significance of these
inconsistencies vis-à-vis Mr. Stringer’s involvement was unclear. Id. at 1229. We
reasoned that if Mr. Charles’s account of the scene was wrong, that either suggested
that he was not present for the murder at all (a theory that was never advanced) or
indicated that his memory of a fifteen-year-old event was flawed. Id. (citing Caston,
146 A.3d at 1096-98 & 1097 n.38). We observed that, had Mr. Charles committed
or been present for the murder, we could not see how his mistakes regarding minute
details bore on whether Mr. Stringer was with him or not. Id.
We also disagreed with the trial court that Mr. Charles’s version of events was
“significantly inconsistent” with the phone records. Id. at 1230. At a minimum, Mr.
Charles’s account—that the phone he called after the murder belonged to an
individual named Carlos Sly, not Mr. Stringer—was plausible, and we credited the
fact that Mr. Charles’s hearing testimony as to whom he spoke with on the night of
the murder was consistent with his testimony at Mr. Stringer’s trial that he had talked
with Mr. Sly. Id. We recognized that it was reasonable for the trial court to assume
that if Mr. Charles had a “partner in committing the murder,” he would have spoken 10
to him in the days after the murder, but we held that it was circular for the trial court
to assume that there was a partner and that it was Mr. Stringer simply because Mr.
Charles spoke to someone numerous times after the murder. Id.
Inconsistencies Between Mr. Charles’s Affidavit and Prior Testimony. The
trial court also had “trouble crediting” Mr. Charles’s testimony at Mr. Stringer’s IPA
hearing because it was inconsistent with both his 2014 affidavit and his testimony in
2006 at Mr. Stringer’s trial. Disagreeing with the trial court, we found some of these
discrepancies to be minor and others to be “overstate[d],” reasoning that the
“tension” in Mr. Charles’s accounts was “more sensibly attributed to sloppiness or
memory lapses than to a lack of credibility as to Mr. Stringer’s involvement.” Id. at
1231.
The Timing of Mr. Charles’s Affidavit. The trial court pointed to the timing
of Mr. Charles’s affidavit, accepting that Mr. Charles signed it in June 2014 and
finding it notable that this was when Mr. Charles and Mr. Stringer were “being held
together in the D.C. Jail awaiting resentencing.” Id. at 1231-32. The court stated
that “Mr. Charles testified that this was the first time he and Mr. Stringer had seen
each other since their respective convictions in 2006” and observed that it was
“likely” that the two “crafted the plan for the affidavit together when they met in jail
in 2014.” Id. at 1232. We disagreed, explaining that the record “does not reflect 11
Mr. Charles testifying that he saw or met Mr. Stringer in jail in 2014” and, indeed,
that there was no evidence that Mr. Charles and Mr. Stringer were even in the same
unit or area of the jail during that time. Id. Although we acknowledged that it was
“certainly possible” that the two saw each other in the D.C. jail in 2014, we held that
“to question Mr. Charles’s credibility on that basis require[d] . . . some affirmative
basis to find or infer that they did.” Id.
Mr. Charles Having “Nothing to Lose.” The trial court concluded that Mr.
Charles had “nothing to lose by lying in this case” because, at the time of the hearing,
his conviction was final and he had been resentenced. Id. According to the court,
that did not mean that Mr. Charles was lying, but it “also [did] not offer any reason
to conclude he [was] telling the truth.” Id. We agreed with the trial court that, at the
time of the hearing, Mr. Charles faced no further risk by confessing to having
committed the crime alone. Id. We noted, however, that whether Mr. Charles faced
a risk at the time of the hearing did not entirely resolve the “nothing to lose” question
if, as the trial court appeared to accept, Mr. Charles signed the affidavit in June 2014.
Id. Whether Mr. Charles had anything to lose depended on what exposure, if any,
he had—or believed he had—when he executed the affidavit in June 2014 ahead of
his resentencing that October. Id. 12
Potential Weaknesses in the Government’s Case. In Stringer I, we concluded
by impressing upon the trial court that it was “‘incumbent on the court’ to ‘consider
the potential weaknesses in the government’s case’ to a greater extent than it did.”
Id. at 1233 (quoting Caston, 146 A.3d at 1099) (citation modified). In its initial
order, the trial court alluded to these weaknesses only briefly, concluding that Mr.
Charles’s testimony “even viewed in connection with Mr. Stringer’s arguments
about the weaknesses of the government’s case . . . fail[ed] to establish Mr.
Stringer’s innocence either by clear and convincing evidence or by a preponderance
of the evidence.” See id. at 1226. Recognizing that the IPA motion judge did not
preside over Mr. Stringer’s (or Mr. Charles’s) trial and was thus at a disadvantage
when it came to assessing the weight of the trial evidence, we nonetheless held that
the court’s credibility determination could not “occur in a vacuum” and required a
closer examination of the strength of the trial evidence against Mr. Stringer. Id. at
1233.
D. Remand
On remand, the trial court again denied Mr. Stringer’s IPA motion without
holding another hearing or requesting supplemental briefing. In accordance with our
instruction, the trial court “reconsidered Mr. Charles’s testimony” and set aside
several of the bases on which it originally found him not credible, including “the 13
placement of [Mr. Johnson’s] wallet; the telephone records; inconsistencies between
his affidavit and his hearing testimony; the timing of his affidavit; and the idea that
Mr. Charles had nothing to lose by testifying as he did.” The trial court nonetheless
reached the same conclusion: that it could not “find Mr. Stringer innocent, either by
a preponderance or by clear and convincing evidence.” In doing so, the court based
its credibility finding on two “critical facts”: first, that Mr. Charles’s testimony that
he was alone when he shot Mr. Johnson could not be reconciled with the blood
evidence presented at trial, and second, that Mr. Charles’s testimony that Mr.
Stringer was not involved was undermined by a letter Mr. Stringer sent to Mr.
Charles when the two were incarcerated together, in which Mr. Stringer
acknowledged that the two of them had “fucked up” and advised Mr. Charles to “live
by the code.”
With respect to the physical evidence, the trial court concluded that “the only
way to square Mr. Charles’s testimony with the physical evidence is for someone
else to have been in the car at the time of the shooting.” Summarizing the testimony
of law enforcement officers at trial, the court noted that Mr. Johnson’s car contained
a “combination of wet and dried blood.” On the front passenger side near the
floorboard, “there was only a little bit of blood that had dried”; on the rear seat and
floorboard, however, “there was a vast amount of blood that was still wet.” Officers
also found blood on the exterior of the car and a “blood trail” that led to Buena Vista 14
Terrace Southeast. To reconcile (a) the lack of blood on the front passenger seat
with (b) Mr. Charles’s hearing testimony that he was sitting in the front passenger
seat when he shot Mr. Johnson and the blood trail leading to Buena Vista Terrace,
the court determined that the “logical conclusion” was that “there were two people
in the car with Mr. Johnson; one on his right who did the shooting, and one in back
who trailed the blood away from the car.” As a result, the court found that Mr.
Charles’s account that he was alone in the car with Mr. Johnson “[did] not withstand
scrutiny.”
The second “critical” fact that the trial court relied on was the 2005 letter from
Mr. Stringer to Mr. Charles. Noting that its original analysis had gone
“unquestioned” by this court in Stringer I, the court relied solely on that analysis,
which centered on a view that the letter, written “[a]fter they were both arrested for
the murder,” “not only reflect[ed] the close relationship” between the two but also
“strongly suggest[ed] that they had ‘fucked up’ together and were [ ] facing the same
consequences” as a result, cutting against the notion that Mr. Charles acted alone.
Following our instruction, the trial court also reviewed the strength of the
evidence at Mr. Stringer’s trial and its observations of Mr. Charles’s demeanor. The
court concluded that while there were weaknesses in the government’s case, and that
those weaknesses, along with Mr. Charles’s new testimony, may have been enough 15
“to preclude a finding of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt,” they were not enough to
satisfy Mr. Stringer’s burden to show that he was actually innocent of the crime even
under a preponderance-of-the-evidence standard.
Finally, acknowledging that its prior assessment of Mr. Charles’s credibility
did not rest on any observations about his demeanor during the IPA hearing, the
court explained that it had chosen to focus instead “on the objective evidence” due
to the “inherently subjective nature” of demeanor considerations. The court
nonetheless recalled that its “subjective impression” of Mr. Charles’s testimony at
the IPA hearing was that he was “unconvincing.” Citing his “flat” affect and
“expressionless demeanor,” the court reasoned that while “nothing in Mr. Charles’s
demeanor clearly suggested he was lying, there also was nothing that persuaded the
[c]ourt he was telling the truth rather than relating a story that would help clear his
uncle’s name.” At the same time, the court reiterated that “judgments about
demeanor are highly subjective,” and it observed only that “[t]o the extent that this
factor does play into the [c]ourt’s determination,” “it contributes to the decision not
to credit Mr. Charles.”
This appeal followed. 16
II. Legal Background and Standard of Review
“In relevant part, the IPA provides that at any time, a person convicted of a
criminal offense in the Superior Court may move to vacate the conviction or to grant
a new trial on the grounds of actual innocence based on new evidence.” Caston v.
United States, 146 A.3d 1082, 1089 (D.C. 2016) (citation modified); see D.C. Code
§ 22-4135(a), (b). “The motion must ‘set forth specific, non-conclusory facts’ and
must identify the specific new evidence, establish how it demonstrates the movant’s
actual innocence, and establish why the evidence is ‘not cumulative or
impeaching.’” Caston, 146 A.3d at 1089 (quoting D.C. Code § 22-4135(c)(1)-(3)).
As relevant here, “new evidence” is evidence that “[w]as not personally known and
could not, in the exercise of reasonable diligence, have been personally known to
the movant at the time of the trial or the plea proceeding.” D.C. Code
§ 22-4131(7)(A). “‘Actual innocence’ or ‘actually innocent’ means that the person
did not commit the crime of which he or she was convicted.” Id. § 22-4131(1).
“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; [and] (C) Why the new evidence is or is
not cumulative or impeaching.” Id. § 22-4135(g)(1). The movant must include an
affidavit with the motion stating, under penalty of perjury, that they are “actually 17
innocent of the crime that is the subject of the motion, and that the new evidence
was not deliberately withheld by the movant for purposes of strategic advantage.”
Id. at § 22-4135(d)(1). If, after considering these factors, “the court concludes that
it is more likely than not that the movant is actually innocent of the crime, the court
shall grant a new trial.” Id. § 22-4135(g)(2). And if the court “concludes by clear
and convincing evidence that the movant is actually innocent of the crime, the court
shall vacate the conviction and dismiss the relevant count with prejudice.” Id.
§ 22-4135(g)(3); see also Caston, 146 A.3d at 1089-90.
“We review the denial of a motion to vacate under the IPA for abuse of
discretion, giving great deference to the trial court’s role as the trier of fact on the
ultimate issue of ‘actual innocence’ under the IPA.” Williams v. United States, 187
A.3d 559, 562 (D.C. 2018) (citation modified). “Thus, we apply the clearly
erroneous standard of review to the trial judge’s rejection of allegedly newly
discovered evidence offered to prove ‘actual innocence.’” Id. at 562-63 (citation
modified). “As such, the scope of our review is narrow on the question of whether
that new evidence establishes appellant’s ‘actual innocence.’” Id. at 563. (citation
modified).
The “ultimate responsibility to determine [a witness’s] credibility and whether
[the] appellant is more likely than not actually innocent lies with the Superior Court 18
judge.” Caston, 146 A.3d at 1099. As such, “the Superior Court judge’s factual
findings anchored in credibility assessments derived from personal observations of
the witnesses are beyond appellate reversal unless those factual findings are clearly
erroneous.” Id. (citation modified) (quoting Hill v. United States, 664 A.2d 347, 353
n.10 (D.C. 1995)). While the trial court is “certainly entitled to take into account
internal inconsistencies,” in assessing a witness’s credibility, the ultimate
significance of those inconsistencies “is a determination of law, subject to appellate
scrutiny.” Id. at 1095-96. “Minor inconsistencies and omissions will not support an
adverse credibility determination.” Id. at 1096-97 (citation modified) (quoting
Zhang v. Holder, 737 F.3d 501, 504 (8th Cir. 2013)).
Factual findings are “clearly erroneous when although there is evidence to
support [them], the reviewing court on the entire evidence is left with the definite
and firm conviction that a mistake has been committed,” Johnson v. United States,
232 A.3d 156, 167 (D.C. 2020) (quoting United States v. United States Gypsum Co.,
333 U.S. 364, 394-95 (1948)), or they reflect “a manifest misunderstanding of the
record evidence,” Ashrafi v. Fernandez, 193 A.3d 129, 133 (D.C. 2018). Given this,
we “may well find clear error even in a finding purportedly based on a credibility
determination.” Dorsey v. United States, 60 A.3d 1171, 1205 n.120 (D.C. 2013)
(quoting Anderson v. City of Bessemer City, 470 U.S. 564, 575 (1985)). 19
III. Analysis
Mr. Stringer again appeals the denial of his motion under the Innocence
Protection Act, arguing that the trial court clearly erred in discrediting Mr. Charles
and in evaluating the evidence against Mr. Stringer at trial. With respect to the
court’s credibility determination, he contends that it is undermined by a pair of clear
errors: first, the trial court’s conclusions about the blood evidence rested on
unsupported assumptions and a clear error of logic, and second, the court’s analysis
of Mr. Stringer’s 2005 letter depended on a mistaken chronology, leading the court
to infer a motive for the letter that is not supported by the facts. Mr. Stringer also
asserts that the trial court again failed to thoroughly consider the weaknesses in the
government’s case against him.
The government disagrees, arguing that the trial court did not clearly err in
discrediting Mr. Charles or in evaluating the evidence against Mr. Stringer. The trial
court’s credibility findings, the government emphasizes, were also firmly grounded
in its observations of Mr. Charles’s demeanor at the hearing, to which we owe
significant deference.
Because we again have significant reservations about the trial court’s bases
for discrediting Mr. Charles, we again remand for reconsideration consistent with
this opinion. 20
A. Inconsistencies Between Mr. Charles’s Testimony and the Evidence Presented at Trial
As a general matter, trial courts make witness credibility determinations on
two bases: observations of the witness’s demeanor during testimony and any
perceived inconsistencies in that testimony when compared with objective facts. See
Anderson, 470 U.S. at 575 (explaining that “factors other than demeanor and
inflection go into the decision whether or not to believe a witness,” including
“[d]ocuments or objective evidence [that] may contradict the witness’[s] story” or
an account that is “so internally inconsistent or implausible on its face that a
reasonable factfinder would not credit it”). While we review all credibility
determinations for clear error, our assessment of findings based on demeanor differs
somewhat from how we view findings based on factual inconsistencies. See Stringer
I, 301 A.3d at 1227-28.
As we explained in Stringer I, “we are particularly unlikely to find clear error
with respect to credibility determinations based on the witness’s demeanor—if for
no other reason than that we have no appraisal of the witness’s comportment to
compare against the trial court’s.” Id. at 1228; see Turner v. United States, 116 A.3d
894, 927 (D.C. 2015) (“A credibility determination, made after the judge had the
opportunity to hear the recanting witnesses’ live testimony and observe their
demeanor, may be overturned only if it is wholly unsupported by the evidence.”) 21
(citation modified); In re Temple, 629 A.2d 1203, 1208-09 (D.C. 1993) (“The
factfinder who hears the evidence and sees the witnesses is in a better position to
make such determinations, having the benefit of those critical first-hand
observations of the witness’[s] demeanor or manner of testifying which are so
important to assessing credibility.”); see also Anderson, 470 U.S. at 575 (“[W]hen a
trial judge’s finding is based on his decision to credit the testimony of one of two or
more witnesses, each of whom has told a coherent and facially plausible story that
is not contradicted by extrinsic evidence, that finding, if not internally inconsistent,
can virtually never be clear error.”).
Conversely, when “documents or objective evidence [ ] contradict the
witness’s story; or the story itself [is] so internally inconsistent or implausible on its
face that a reasonable factfinder would not credit it,” we “may well find clear error
even in a finding purportedly based on a credibility determination.” Stringer I, 301
A.3d at 1228 (citation modified) (quoting Anderson, 470 U.S. at 575). Thus, where
the trial court found a witness not credible on the ground that their story was
inconsistent with objective facts, we would still subject that finding to clear-error
review, but “we might be more likely to find clear error based on our own
comparison between the witness’s version of events and the objective facts and our
assessment of the significance of any inconsistencies.” Id. (citing Caston, 146 A.3d 22
at 1096 (“[T]he significance of inconsistencies between a witness’s pre-hearing and
hearing statements is a determination of law, subject to appellate scrutiny.”)).
When assessing a credibility determination based on a witness’s inconsistent
statements, courts must consider both the circumstances in which the inconsistent
statements were made and the witness’s explanations for the apparent discrepancies.
Caston, 146 A.3d at 1096. Importantly, minor or trivial inconsistencies will not
provide an “adequate basis for concluding that [a witness’s] testimony was not
credible.” Id. at 1096-98.
On remand, the trial court based its credibility determination primarily on
what it understood to be two “critical” factual inconsistencies between Mr. Charles’s
hearing testimony and his prior affidavit and his testimony at Mr. Stringer’s trial.
The court touched briefly on its impressions of Mr. Charles’s demeanor, but it noted
that, due to the “highly subjective” nature of these judgments, it “did not place great
weight” on demeanor “in concluding that his testimony was not credible,” and stated
only that “[t]o the extent” it was considering demeanor, it “contributed” to its
determination. More on that below.
Because the court again relied on the inconsistencies it found between Mr.
Charles’s testimony and the trial evidence, we review the court’s findings for clear
error, but, as in Stringer I, “we do not find ourselves constrained on review by an 23
inability to assess ‘factors that could only be ascertained after observing the witness
testify.’” 301 A.3d at 1229 (quoting Caston, 146 A.3d at 1099).
1. The Blood Evidence
The first inconsistency the trial court relied on in its credibility determination
was the discrepancy between Mr. Charles’s testimony and the testimony of law
enforcement witnesses regarding the crime scene.
In its first order denying Mr. Stringer’s IPA motion, the trial court identified
the following inconsistencies as relevant. Mr. Charles testified at the hearing that
he shot Mr. Johnson while sitting in the passenger seat of the car, with one foot in
the car and the other hanging out. According to Mr. Charles, he then got out of the
car without locking the door, left the engine running, and walked directly back to his
own car on 28th Street. At trial, MPD officers who had reported to the scene
contradicted Mr. Charles, testifying that the car doors were locked and that there was
a trail of blood leading away from the car toward Buena Vista Terrace, in the
opposite direction from where Mr. Charles testified his car was waiting.
In Stringer I, we questioned the significance of these inconsistencies “vis-à-
vis Mr. Stringer’s involvement,” observing that “[i]f Mr. Charles’s account of the
scene was wrong,” it would suggest either that he was not present for the murder or 24
that “his memory of a [fifteen]-year-old event was faulty,” and questioning “how his
mistakes regarding details bear on whether Mr. Stringer was with him or not.” 301
A.3d at 1229. On remand, the trial court homed in on the blood evidence, explaining
that the reason the above inconsistencies mattered was because “the only way to
square Mr. Charles’s testimony with the physical evidence is for someone else to
have been in the car at the time of the shooting.” To explain this conclusion, the trial
court pointed to the blood evidence. At trial, the responding officers testified that
when they reported to the scene, the car contained a combination of wet and dried
blood. On the front passenger side near the floorboard, “there was only a little bit
of blood that had dried”; “on the rear seat and on the rear floorboard, there was a
vast amount of blood that was still wet.”
It was “theoretically possible,” the trial court reasoned, that Mr. Charles could
have misremembered what he did after the shooting, and that instead of leaving the
passenger seat immediately and heading to his car on 28th Street, he instead went
into the building on Buena Vista Terrace. But the court then rejected this theory
altogether, concluding that it was completely incompatible with the blood evidence.
According to the trial court, Mr. Charles could not have made the blood trail leading
to Buena Vista Terrace if he had been sitting in the passenger seat as he claimed.
The absence of blood on his seat, taken together with the “vast amount” of blood on
the rear seats and floorboard, led to only one “logical conclusion”: that “there were 25
two people in the car with Mr. Johnson; one on his right who did the shooting, and
one in back who trailed the blood away from the car.” The court thus concluded that
Mr. Charles’s story—that he was alone with Mr. Johnson and that Mr. Stringer had
nothing to do with the shooting—did not withstand scrutiny. According to the court,
this was the “most important[ ]” reason for its finding that Mr. Charles was not
credible.
The court’s analysis raises several concerns. First, the conclusion that the
court drew from the blood evidence appears to be based on speculation. This theory
was never argued at trial and was not raised in the court’s first order denying Mr.
Stringer’s IPA motion. 1 We see nothing in the record that provides a foundation for
the court’s conclusions, and, despite relying on this blood evidence as a new basis
to question Mr. Charles’s credibility, the trial court did not seek any additional
evidence, including expert testimony, on the significance of the blood patterns in the
car.
Second, the trial court’s logic suffers from significant flaws. In its attempt to
square the evidence of the blood trail with the blood evidence found in the car, the
1 The trial court raised this theory for the first time on remand and Mr. Stringer could not have been expected in his prior IPA appeal to challenge the trial court’s reasoning before it existed. We therefore reject the government’s argument that Mr. Stringer waived his challenge to this prong of the trial court’s reasoning. 26
court treated blood on the seat as a proxy for blood on the seat’s occupant: no blood
on the seat meant that there could be no blood on the occupant and thus no blood
trail, and vice versa. It strikes us that the opposite conclusion is at least as, if not
more, likely true: the reason for the absence of blood on the front passenger seat was
that the blood from Mr. Johnson landed on the shooter, who was sitting there. See,
e.g., State v. Fischer, 360 P.3d 105, 115 (Az. Ct. App. 2015), as amended (Oct. 8,
2015) (noting an uncontested expert determination that a “void, or absence of blood,
on the chair located directly next to” the victim meant that the defendant was sitting
in that chair “when the fatal shot was fired”), opinion vacated in part, 392 P.3d 488
(Az. 2017). And, if he were covered in blood, the person sitting in the front
passenger seat would almost certainly have left a blood trail behind. This also
provides a compelling explanation for the “vast amount” of blood in the rear seat
that would be consistent with Mr. Charles’s claims: the blood covered the seat
because no one was sitting there. It is of course possible that there was a second
person in the car sitting in the back seat and that there was so much blood that both
he and the seat got covered, accounting for the pool of blood left behind and the
blood trail leading away from the car. This possibility, however, is far from the only
logical conclusion.
Third, the trial court’s logic is in tension with the government’s theory at trial.
During closing argument, the prosecutor floated the following theory about the blood 27
evidence to the jury: “Why do you think there’s not any blood on the passenger
seat? . . . The blood that must have popped right out of his head should have been on
[the front passenger] seat. But somebody was there and it covered them instead.
You will see the blood is all in the back seat.” The government insinuated that this
was obvious: “You don’t need a blood spatter expert to tell you that.” Although the
government did not explicitly tell the jury that the front seat passenger was the
shooter, this exchange shows that the government understood that the absence of
blood in the front passenger seat evidenced the presence of blood on the front
passenger—and the government’s reference to the blood “all in the back seat”
suggests that it thought that, conversely, no one was sitting there for the blood to
cover.2 The trial court appears to have overlooked this trial theory in assessing the
blood evidence, despite our instruction to “consider the potential weaknesses in the
government’s case to a greater extent than it [previously] did.” Stringer I, 301 A.3d
at 1233 (quoting Caston, 146 A.3d at 1099) (citation modified).
When we compare Mr. Charles’s version of events and the physical evidence,
we agree that there are inconsistencies that could bear on Mr. Charles’s credibility.
Id. at 1228. We are unpersuaded, however, that they are so significant as to entirely
2 As we noted in Stringer I, the bullet exited the car through the rear driver’s side window, which makes it unlikely that someone shot Mr. Johnson from a back seat toward the front driver’s seat. 301 A.3d at 1234. 28
discredit Mr. Charles’s testimony because we disagree with the court’s conclusion
that, based on the blood evidence, the only possible explanation for these
inconsistencies is that Mr. Charles could not have acted alone and thus that he lied
about Mr. Stringer’s lack of involvement in the murder. Id. Further, we are not
confident that, “in light of the record viewed in its entirety,” the trial court’s
conclusion is plausible. Anderson, 470 U.S. at 574. Not only is the court’s reasoning
at odds with the government’s own theory at trial, but it is also unclear what, if
anything, the analysis is based on beyond the court’s own speculation.
At the very least, the fact that the court reached the opposite conclusion about
the blood evidence than the government did at trial suggests that any conclusion
about it is not obvious and likely requires expert testimony. See Motorola Inc. v.
Murray, 147 A.3d 751, 756-57 & n.8 (D.C. 2016) (explaining that expert testimony
is appropriate where “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” (quoting Fed. R. Evid. 702)); see also Diamond v. Davis, 680 A.2d
364, 379 (D.C. 1996) (explaining that if the area of knowledge “is one beyond the
ken of the average juror (or judge), then the parties must produce expert evidence to
assist them in understanding”). In our view, the trial court’s conclusion about the
blood evidence lacks a foundation in the record that cannot be bridged without expert
testimony and is thus insufficient to support its finding that Mr. Charles was not 29
credible on this basis. See Stringer I, 301 A.3d at 1228-29; see also Anderson, 470
U.S. at 574.3
2. The Letter
The second critical fact that the trial court relied on was the letter from Mr.
Stringer to Mr. Charles in June 2005. In that letter, Mr. Stringer told Mr. Charles
that “we fucked up,” but “it won’t be long before we get home, all you have to do is
ride this shit out.” Mr. Stringer urged Mr. Charles “to live by the code[:] see nothing,
know nothing, hear nothing[.]” At trial, Mr. Stringer admitted to writing the letter,
but testified that when he wrote “we fucked up” and that “all you have to do is ride
this shit out,” he meant that he and his cellmate (who happened to be Mr. Charles’s
cousin) “didn’t have no commissary money” and were “asking [Mr. Charles]” to
“assist” them by sending items sold in the commissary like food, sodas, and chips.
3 In a head-spinning departure from its position at trial that expert testimony was not needed to analyze the blood spatter evidence, the government now asserts that this court should reject Mr. Stringer’s challenge to the trial court’s blood- evidence conclusion because his argument “requires expert testimony which Stringer has not provided.” Mr. Stringer could not have presented expert testimony on this issue on remand because the trial court did not hold another hearing on the IPA motion (or request supplemental briefing), let alone indicate before ruling that it was considering this theory. 30
He also testified that the portion of the letter directing Mr. Charles to “live by the
code” was a warning “not to say anything about his legal work.”
The court relied on the analysis from its original order, which stated that the
letter “not only reflects the close relationship between Mr. Charles and Mr. Stringer,
but strongly suggests that they had ‘fucked up’ together and were now facing the
same consequences” for the murder of Mr. Johnson. Opining that Mr. Stringer’s
letter would not “make sense if, as Mr. Charles claims, Mr. Charles committed the
murder alone and Mr. Stringer had nothing to do with it,” the court also rejected as
incredible Mr. Stringer’s explanation at trial that the letter was “referring merely to
commissary money and legal papers.”
Setting aside the content of the letter, the court appears to have believed that
Mr. Stringer tried to send the letter to Mr. Charles “[a]fter they were both arrested
for the murder.” That is incorrect. When Mr. Stringer wrote the letter in June 2005,
he was in custody awaiting trial for a murder in a different case; he had not yet been
charged with the murder of Mr. Johnson. The government did not charge Mr.
Stringer until August 30, 2005. While this error was present in the trial court’s
original analysis, we did not address it directly in Stringer I. We did, however,
observe in the background section of the opinion that Mr. Stringer wrote the letter
when he “was incarcerated on another charge, before he was charged with Mr. 31
Johnson’s murder.” Stringer I, 301 A.3d at 1222. Our instructions on remand,
moreover, were broadly constructed and to the extent that the trial court relied on
the letter as an inconsistency supporting its finding that Mr. Charles was not credible,
it was incumbent upon the court to reexamine the letter “in light of asserted
weaknesses in the government’s case at trial and the evidence as a whole.” Id. at
1234.
Given this factual error, we turn to whether the trial court’s mistake as to the
timing of the letter had an impact on its analysis of the letter’s content such that it
was clear error. Mr. Stringer argues that the trial court’s entire analysis turns on this
mistake because it permitted the trial court to perceive a motive that did not exist—
namely, that Mr. Stringer was attempting to cover up his involvement in Mr.
Johnson’s murder. The government does not contest the mistake in timing but
suggests that it does not negate or contradict the court’s conclusions about the
content of the letter.
As an initial matter, we agree with the trial court that it is difficult to square
the language in the letter with Mr. Stringer’s explanation at trial “that he was
referring merely to commissary money and legal papers.” We also agree,
considering that Mr. Charles is Mr. Stringer’s nephew and that “he has known Mr.
Stringer his entire life,” that the letter reflects the close relationship between the two 32
men. We depart from the court’s reasoning, however, where the court concluded
that the only possible “fuck[ ] up” that the letter could be referring to was a murder,
let alone specifically Mr. Johnson’s murder.
According to Mr. Stringer, the fact that the letter was written roughly two
years after the shooting, around nine months after Mr. Charles had been charged,
and before Mr. Stringer was charged indicates that when he wrote it, he thought that
he was unlikely to be charged. In support, Mr. Stringer points out that Mr. Charles’s
trial counsel stated, in a hearing on a severance motion about a year after Mr. Stringer
wrote his letter and nine months after he had been charged with Mr. Johnson’s
murder, that he had “not anticipate[d]” that Mr. Stringer would be charged in the
murder of Mr. Johnson. Although he would have received discovery about the
government’s investigation of the shooting—including Brady disclosures about
other suspects or participants—Mr. Charles’s trial counsel was nonetheless “very
surprised that Mr. Stringer ended up [as a] co-defendant.” As Mr. Stringer points
out, if Mr. Charles’s trial counsel did not think Mr. Stringer would be charged after
reviewing the evidence, there is an argument that it would have been even less likely
that Mr. Stringer would have feared otherwise.
Another fact at the time of the trial gives us pause as to the court’s conclusion.
At the time Mr. Stringer wrote the letter, he was in custody awaiting trial for murder 33
in a different case, of which he would ultimately be acquitted in October 2005 and
in which Mr. Charles’s father was a co-defendant. During the severance hearing,
Mr. Stringer’s attorney clarified that the letter did not refer to the murder of Mr.
Johnson but was instead written “in the context of him preparing for trial in the
[other] murder case.” He argued that if the letter were introduced and the
government told the jury that it was about Mr. Johnson’s murder, Mr. Stringer would
be “put in a position where [he would] have to put forward evidence” of his other
pending murder charge to “rebut” the government’s claim, which, Mr. Stringer’s
attorney argued, would be “highly prejudicial.” Although the judge ultimately let
the letter in, this argument strikes us as at least a possible explanation for both the
letter itself and Mr. Stringer’s implausible explanation for it during his trial
testimony. Based on the trial court’s conclusions, however, it is unclear whether the
court was aware of, or considered, this other case in its analysis of the letter.
More generally, while we do not endeavor to interpret Mr. Stringer’s letter
ourselves, we think it is difficult enough to interpret that it is far from the case that,
as the trial court said, Mr. Stringer’s words do not “make sense” if “Mr. Charles
committed the murder alone and Mr. Stringer had nothing to do with it.” Like the
trial court, we are skeptical that Mr. Stringer’s explanation of the letter at trial as
referring “merely to commissary money and legal papers” is plausible. But the letter
covers a number of topics and contains language and references that could mean 34
multiple things. While one possible reading of the letter is that Mr. Stringer was
referencing the murder of Mr. Johnson and thus implicating himself in the shooting,
to question Mr. Charles’s credibility on that basis requires, in our view, both a correct
understanding of when the letter was written and a full accounting of the other
plausible explanations, including the fact of Mr. Stringer’s other pending murder
charge.
B. The Court’s Observations of Mr. Charles’s Demeanor
The government suggests that, even if we conclude that the trial court erred in
basing its credibility determination on the inconsistencies between Mr. Charles’s
testimony and the evidence at trial, we can still affirm the denial of Mr. Stringer’s
IPA motion by relying on the trial court’s conclusions about Mr. Charles’s
demeanor. We disagree. It is true that credibility findings based on first-hand
observation warrant substantial deference, not only because the trial court had the
opportunity to assess the witness’s demeanor but also because “[t]he trial judge’s
major role is the determination of fact, and with experience in fulfilling that role
comes expertise.” Anderson, 470 U.S. at 574; see Henderson v. United States, 276
A.3d 484, 489 (D.C. 2022) (“We also defer to trial judges because they are
experienced fact finders and de novo review by an appellate court is unlikely to
produce significantly more accurate factual determinations.”). Here, however, the 35
extent to which the trial court’s assessment of Mr. Charles’s demeanor during the
hearing influenced its overall credibility determination is unclear.
As an initial matter, it bears noting that the trial court omitted a demeanor
assessment entirely in its initial order. See Stringer I, 301 A.3d at 1229 (noting the
absence of any reference to Mr. Charles’s demeanor or behavior on the stand as
impacting our analysis of why the trial court “did not believe Mr. Charles”). If
demeanor had played an appreciable role in the trial court’s evaluation of Mr.
Charles’s credibility, presumably the court would have mentioned it the first time
around.
On remand, the court explained that it opted not to address Mr. Charles’s
demeanor because, “mindful of the inherently subjective nature of observations
based on demeanor, facial expressions, body language, and the like,” it instead
decided to “focus on the objective evidence” related to his credibility. Then,
evaluating Mr. Charles’s demeanor for the first time, the court found that while
“nothing . . . clearly suggested he was lying, there also was nothing that persuaded
the [c]ourt he was telling the truth rather than relating a story that would help clear
his uncle’s name.”
The court described Mr. Charles’s affect as “flat” and noted that he “did not
appear remorseful.” In concluding its analysis of his demeanor, the court again 36
hedged, emphasizing that because “individuals react and show emotions in different
ways,” his “matter-of-fact and expressionless demeanor” did not mean he was lying,
and noting that these types of judgments are “highly subjective,” which is why the
court “did not place great weight on Mr. Charles’s demeanor in concluding that his
testimony was not credible.” As to whether these considerations impacted its
analysis at all, the court said only that “[t]o the extent [demeanor] does play into the
[c]ourt’s determination . . . it contributes to the decision not to credit Mr. Charles.”
In the final paragraph summarizing the bases for its credibility determination,
the court reiterated the two “critical facts” discussed above but, notably, did not
include any reference to its observations of Mr. Charles’s demeanor. The court
further noted that the physical evidence issue was the “most important[ ]” factor and
that the two critical facts were “sufficiently weighty . . . to defeat Mr. Stringer’s
efforts to prove his innocence even by a preponderance of the evidence.” While we
do not find clear error in the court’s observations about Mr. Charles’s comportment,
we cannot conclude that the court found Mr. Charles’s demeanor sufficient by itself
to deem him not credible, and so we decline to affirm on that basis.
In summary, we hold that the two factual bases for the trial court’s credibility
determination—the blood evidence and the letter—require careful reconsideration.
With respect to the blood evidence, the court should first consider the alternative 37
theory for the blood patterns, which is the very theory put forth by the government
at trial. If the court still sees the blood evidence as weighing against Mr. Charles’s
credibility, it must either explain why the government’s theory at trial supports that
conclusion or request expert testimony to explore and support its own theory. With
respect to the letter, the court must recognize that when Mr. Stringer wrote it he was
not incarcerated for Mr. Johnson’s murder, and it must consider the fact and
implications of Mr. Stringer’s other pending murder charge at the time the letter was
written in determining whether the letter can be relied on as a basis to find Mr.
Charles not credible. Finally, if the trial court wishes to say more about Mr.
Charles’s demeanor, it may do so, recognizing that it has already observed that
“nothing in Mr. Charles’s demeanor clearly suggested he was lying.”
IV. Conclusion
For the foregoing reasons, we conclude that a remand is necessary for the trial
court to reconsider, in the full context of the record at trial, its analysis of the factual
inconsistencies on which it relied in finding Mr. Charles not credible. Accordingly,
the trial court’s order is vacated and the matter remanded for further proceedings
consistent with this opinion.
So ordered.