Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca9-13-15234/USCOURTS-ca9-13-15234-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 550
Nature of Suit: Prisoner - Civil Rights (U.S. defendant)
Cause of Action: 

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FOR PUBLICATION

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

TROAS V. BARNETT,

Plaintiff-Appellant,

v.

DAVID NORMAN; A. CASTRO; TRACY

JACKSON; A. FOUCH; J.

PRUDHOMME; D. FULKS; JASON

BARBA; K. CURTISS; MICHAEL

PALLARES; K. LENNON; MARTIN

GAMBOA; ANGEL DURAN; DIMAS

MANUEL TORRES BARRAZA;

MANUEL TORRES,

Defendants-Appellees.

No. 13-15234

D.C. No.

1:05-cv-01022-

BAM

OPINION

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Eastern District of California

Barbara McAuliffe, Magistrate Judge, Presiding

Argued and Submitted

March 9, 2015—San Francisco, California

Filed March 31, 2015

Before: Marsha S. Berzon, Jay S. Bybee,

and John B. Owens, Circuit Judges.

Opinion by Judge Owens

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2 BARNETT V. NORMAN

SUMMARY*

Civil Rights

The panel reversed the district court’s judgment and

remanded for a new trial in an action brought by state

prisoner Troas Barnett pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging

excessive force by prison guards.

Barnett asserted that the district court abused its

discretion by permitting three prisoner-witnesses to refuse to

answer his questions because, according to the prisonerwitnesses, they had “nothing to add to this matter,” chose

“not to be a party to” the trial, or were simply unwilling to

testify. The panel held that the district court abused its

discretion by disclaiming any authority to compel the

prisoner-witnesses to answer Barnett’s questions. The panel

held that where a “necessary and material” witness refuses to

testify and no constitutional, statutory, or common-law rule

bars the testimony, a judge must try to encourage the

testimony or at least explain on the record why, in her

discretion, she did nothing because, for instance, such efforts

would have been futile. In this case, the magistrate judge

abused her discretion as a matter of law when she permitted

the prisoners to opt out of testifying. The panel further held

that given these facts, it could not say that it was “more

probable than not” that the jury was unaffected by the error,

and therefore the error was not harmless. 

* This summary constitutes no part of the opinion of the court. It has

been prepared by court staff for the convenience of the reader.

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BARNETT V. NORMAN 3

COUNSEL

Ian Samuel (argued) Jones Day, New York, New York, for

Plaintiff-Appellant.

Janine K. Jeffery (argued) Reily & Jeffery, Inc. Northridge,

California, for Defendants-Appellees.

OPINION

OWENS, Circuit Judge:

Prisoner Troas Barnett appeals a jury verdict that rejected

his pro se § 1983 claims of excessive force by prison guards. 

On appeal and now with assistance of counsel, Barnett

contends that the trial court abused its discretion by

permitting three prisoner-witnesses to refuse to answer his

questions because, according to the prisoner-witnesses, they

had “nothing to add to this matter,” chose “not to be a party

to” the trial, or were simply unwilling to testify.

While there are exceptions to the maxim “the public has

a right to every man’s evidence,” witness abstention is not

one of them. The district court abused its discretion by

disclaiming any authority to compel the prisoner-witnesses to

answer Barnett’s questions. We reverse the judgment and

remand for a new trial.

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4 BARNETT V. NORMAN

I. FACTS

A. The Fight and Pretrial Litigation

On November 4, 2003, Barnett and two prison guards

fought violently in his cell. Barnett says that the guards

attacked him with a flashlight and a baton without

provocation and followed up with pepper spray and more

baton strikes after his submission. The guards say that

Barnett initiated the attack on one guard and the other came

to his colleague’s aid, and that both guards were injured. The

parties agree that Barnett suffered physical injuries.

Barnett sued the two guards under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for

malicious and sadistic use of force in violation of the Eighth

Amendment, and a third guard for failing to protect Barnett

by timely intervening. The parties consented to trying the

case before a magistrate judge.

A key issue was whether Barnett could secure the

attendance of witnesses for trial. Barnett filed motions for the

production of prisoners Phillip Conti, Darrell King, and Sven

Johnson to testify on his behalf. He stated that while the

three would not testify voluntarily, they would provide

evidence supporting his version of events if compelled. The

guards opposed these efforts and suggested the witnesses

testify by video or telephone, as transporting the dangerous

prisoners, all serving lengthy sentences for violent crimes,

required significant law enforcement supervision and

resources. The magistrate judge granted Barnett’s motions.1

 

1

 The magistrate judge initially denied Barnett’s motion as to Johnson,

concluding that his testimony would be cumulative. Barnett objected to

the denial, arguing that Johnson could offer non-cumulative testimony,

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BARNETT V. NORMAN 5

In writs of habeas corpus ad testificandum, the judge

identified each inmate as a “necessary and material witness”

and ordered their production for trial. Shortly after the

judge’s order, King filed a request to quash the writ and a

supporting declaration stating that he did not see the officers

“apply any force to Barnett,” he could not “provide any

relevant information,” and he did not “wish to attend trial.”

B. The Trial

In his opening statement, Barnett promised the jury that

it would hear from the three prisoners who witnessed the

incident. Barnett first called his former cellmate Johnson to

the stand. As his opening question and in front of the jury,

Barnett asked Johnson if he recalled beingBarnett’s cellmate. 

The following exchange ensued:

Johnson: Your Honor, I asked not to be

brought here. I have nothing to

add to this matter.

Court: All right. If you don’t recall, then

you can just say that.

Barnett: On November 4, 2003, were you

incarcerated at the California

Substance Abuse Treatment

Facility?

Johnson: I have nothing to add to this

matter.

and the magistrate judge, upon reconsideration, ordered Johnson’s

presence.

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6 BARNETT V. NORMAN

Barnett: Your honor, I can scarcely see

how I’m going to ask him with

regard to relevant testimony, Your

Honor, to what transpired, Your

Honor, if he refuses to answer any

questions.

Court: I can’t compel him to answer if

he’s not going to answer.

Barnett: Are you not going to answer any

questions that I ask you? Was that

–

Johnson: None.

Barnett: – your statement for the record?

Johnson: None.

Court: All right.

Barnett: I’d like to thank and excuse the

witness then, Your Honor,

because, I mean, I can’t force him

to answer questions here.

Openly speculating that someone had threatened Johnson,

Barnett asked his former cellmate if that were the case. 

Rather than answer that question, Johnson continued to state

that he had “nothing to add to this matter.” The trial judge

then asked the witness directly, “Do you want to answer that

question?” When the witness said “No,” the court stated, “I

don’t know what to say,” and Johnson was excused.

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BARNETT V. NORMAN 7

Barnett next called King. Outside the presence of the jury

(and not under oath), King refused to answer any of Barnett’s

questions. King explained that although he had not been

threatened, he chose “not to be a party to this proceeding.” 

After Barnett said that he did not “know what to do,” the

court responded that it could not “compel [King] to state

anything.” Barnett then asked the court, “if all these

witnesses are going to come in here and say the same thing,

Your Honor, what was the purpose of bringing them here to

the Court in the first place?” The trial judge stated that King:

didn’t feel like he was being threatened, he

just didn’t want to have anything to do with

this. So there’s not much I can do. I can’t

compel him to testify as to facts that he won’t

testify to.

After King confirmed that he would not “answer a single

question with regard to the incident,” he was excused.

Barnett’s final witness was Conti. When Barnett asked if

Conti was “willing to offer testimony” about the altercation,

Conti replied “No.” Barnett then told the trial court, “Well,

I can’t do nothing but thank and excuse the witness, Your

Honor, because they’re all coming in here and saying the

same thing.” The court did not disagree, and excused Conti. 

Without hearing any testimony about the fight from the three

promised witnesses, the jury returned a verdict in favor of the

guards.

II. STANDARD OF REVIEW

A district court abuses its discretion when it does not

apply the correct law, Jeff D. v. Otter, 643 F.3d 278, 283 (9th

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8 BARNETT V. NORMAN

Cir. 2011), or erroneously interprets the law, United States v.

Beltran-Gutierrez, 19 F.3d 1287, 1289 (9th Cir. 1994).2

Evidentiary error will not result in reversal absent prejudice. 

See Freeman v. Allstate Life Ins. Co., 253 F.3d 533, 536 (9th

Cir. 2001).

III. DISCUSSION

Both sides in a trial have the right to call witnesses, and

the power to compel witness testimony is essential to our

system of justice. See Blair v. United States, 250 U.S. 273,

281–82 (1919) (“[T]he giving of testimony and the

attendance upon court or grand jury in order to testify are

public duties . . . necessary to the administration of justice

. . . .”). No one, not even the President of the United States,

can automatically avoid testifying in a deposition, before a

grand jury, or in a courtroom. See Clinton v. Jones, 520 U.S.

681, 704–05 (1997); United States v. Fromme, 405 F. Supp.

578, 582–83 (E.D. Cal. 1975). And while there are important

exceptions to this fundamental rule—including the Fifth

 

2

 Defendants contend that we should review for plain error; they argue

that Barnett failed to preserve the issue for appeal because he did not file

a motion or expressly request that the district court compel each witness’s

testimony. In light of the leniency due to pro se litigants, Christensen v.

Comm’r, 786 F.2d 1382, 1384–85 (9th Cir. 1986), Barnett’s multiple

attempts to get the court’s help during his examinations, and the

magistrate judge’s responses to his complaints—showing she heard his

protests and had an opportunity to rule on the issue—we conclude Barnett

put the judge and defendants on notice. See Walsh v. Nev. Dep’t of

Human Res., 471 F.3d 1033, 1037 (9th Cir. 2006) (“No ‘bright line’ exists

to determine whether an issue has been properly raised below, but ‘a

workable standard is that the issue must be raised sufficiently for the trial

court to rule on it.’” (quoting Whittaker Corp. v. Execuair Corp., 953 F.2d

510, 515 (9th Cir. 1992))). Because Barnett sufficiently preserved his

claim, we review for abuse of discretion.

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BARNETT V. NORMAN 9

Amendment, spousal privilege, and attorney-client

privilege—“these exceptions to the demand for every man’s

evidence are not lightly created nor expansively construed,

for they are in derogation of the search for truth.” United

States v. Nixon, 418 U.S. 683, 710 (1974); see also Trammel

v. United States, 445 U.S. 40, 50–51 (1980).

This is not to say that there is an absolute right to call any

witness—within constitutional and statutory limits, trial

judges have discretion on the presentation of witness

testimony, including decisions regarding the competency of

a person to testify, the number of witnesses a party may call,

and the allowable purposes of the testimony. See Geders v.

United States, 425 U.S. 80, 86–87 (1976) (trial judges have

broad power to determine “the order in which parties will

adduce proof; . . . [they] may control the scope of rebuttal

testimony, may refuse to allow cumulative, repetitive, or

irrelevant testimony, and may control the scope of

examination of witnesses” (citations omitted)); see also Fed.

R. Evid. 403 (power to exclude testimony for prejudice,

confusion, or waste of time); Fed. R. Evid. 602 (power to

exclude testimony for witness’s lack of personal knowledge);

Fed. R. Evid. 611 (power to exercise reasonable control over

mode and order of examining witnesses and to protect

witnesses from harassment or undue embarrassment); Fed. R.

Evid. 614 (power to call and examine witnesses).

But what a judge cannot do is to allow a witness to refuse

to testify because he would prefer not to answer a question. 

The public’s interest in full disclosure and the fair

administration of justice overrides concerns that testimony

might be inconvenient, burdensome, or harmful to a witness’s

social or economic status. United States v. Calandra,

414 U.S. 338, 345 (1974). Moreover, a “subpoena has never

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10 BARNETT V. NORMAN

been treated as an invitation to a game of hare and hounds, in

which the witness must testify only if cornered at the end of

the chase.” United States v. Bryan, 339 U.S. 323, 331 (1950). 

Witnesses cannot refuse to answer questions merely because

they choose not to—there is no opt-out box on a subpoena. 

To hold otherwise would make “the great power of

testimonial compulsion, so necessary to the effective

functioning of courts and legislatures,” a nullity. Id. Thus,

a trial judge faced with uncooperative witnesses cannot

endorse recalcitrance by saying, “there’s not much I can do,”

“I can’t compel him to answer if he’s not going to answer,”

and “I don’t know what to say.”

There is plenty that a judge can do to encourage a

witness’s testimony. She can direct the witness to answer the

question and tell him about the consequences of not doing so. 

See, e.g., United States v. Doe, 125 F.3d 1249, 1252 (9th Cir.

1997); United States v. Powers, 629 F.2d 619, 621–22 (9th

Cir. 1980). She can ask the questions herself. Fed. R. Evid.

614(b); see also, e.g., United States v. Flores, 628 F.2d 521,

524 & n.3 (9th Cir. 1980). She can take a recess and inquire

outside the presence of the jury whether something is

impeding truthful testimony. See, e.g., Kronick v. United

States, 343 F.2d 436, 439 (9th Cir. 1965); Flores, 628 F.2d at

524–25; see also Harris v. United States, 382 U.S. 162, 166

(1965) (“What appears to be a brazen refusal to cooperate

with the grand jury may indeed be a case of frightened

silence. Refusal to answer may be due to fear—fear of

reprisals on the witness or his family. Other extenuating

circumstances may be present.”).

These are not rarely used tools—they come into play

daily in depositions, grand juries, and courts around the

country. If a judge is unable to scale a witness’s wall of

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BARNETT V. NORMAN 11

silence with these tried-and-true methods, she has a

sledgehammer at her disposal—the contempt statutes—to

break through to answers. See 18 U.S.C. §§ 401, 402;

28 U.S.C. §§ 636(e), 1826; Fed. R. Crim. P. 42; United States

v. Wilson, 421 U.S. 309, 316, 319 (1975) (“In an ongoing

trial, with the judge, jurors, counsel, and witnesses all

waiting,” a witness’s “contumacious silence, after . . . an

explicit, unambiguous order to testify, impede[s] the due

course of . . . trial” and can warrant summary contempt

sanctions); Powers, 629 F.2d at 624 (“The inherent power of

the courts to punish contempt of their authority and to coerce

compliance with orders is not disputed.”); In re Grand Jury

Proceedings, Ortloff, 708 F.2d 1455, 1457 (9th Cir. 1983)

(affirming criminal contempt conviction, where prisonerwitness “claimed to have no knowledge of the matters in

question” and the judge described the consequences of failing

to testify, informed him he had no choice but testify, told him

if he could not answer a question because of lack of

knowledge he should say so in his testimony, and, ultimately,

held him in contempt when he still refused to testify); Dupuy

v. United States, 518 F.2d 1295, 1295 (9th Cir. 1975) (per

curiam) (affirming civil contempt sanction imposed on a

prisoner who refused to answer questions during grand jury

proceedings because of fear for his life, holding that “fear of

physical harm does not excuse a witness from testifying”).

Understandably, defendants do not challenge the court’s

clear power to encourage truthful answers to fair questions. 

Rather, they insist that such judicial efforts would have been

futile, as harsh questioning from the judge or threats of

contempt would never have compelled these hardened

criminals to answer Barnett’s questions. We agree that

efforts to compel testimony will sometimes prove fruitless.

See In re Garmon, 572 F.2d 1373, 1374 (9th Cir. 1978)

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12 BARNETT V. NORMAN

(where incarcerated witnesses continued to refuse to testify,

court suspended their sentences and held them in civil

contempt); United States v. Weinberg, 439 F.2d 743, 745 (9th

Cir. 1971) (witnesses still refused to testify after court

granted them immunity and ordered them to answer

questions). But perhaps such efforts could have worked with

at least one of the witnesses.

Whether to employ a particular incentive or sanction to

encourage testimony rests within the district court’s sound

discretion. See SEC v. Elmas Trading Corp., 824 F.2d 732,

733 (9th Cir. 1987). We do not presume to prescribe specific

procedures a district court must follow when faced with a

recalcitrant witness. “There are no inflexible rules to guide

the court’s discretion.” United States v. Panza, 612 F.2d 432,

439 (9th Cir. 1979). “The propriety of a given sanction will

vary with the circumstances,” and we leave it to the trial

judge to exercise that discretion in light of the specific facts

of a case. Id. Under certain circumstances—perhaps the

witness’s testimony is cumulative or on an ancillary issue,

and sanctions are unlikely to overcome his or her reluctance

to speak—the appropriate course of action may well be to do

nothing.

But before we can validate that discretionary

determination, the trial court must actually exercise its

discretion. See Brown v. Roe, 279 F.3d 742, 744 (9th Cir.

2002). Where a “necessary and material” witness refuses to

testify and no constitutional, statutory, or common-law rule

bars the testimony, a judge must try to encourage the

testimony or at least explain on the record why, in her

discretion, she did nothing because, for instance, such efforts

would have been futile. Here, the magistrate judge abused

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BARNETT V. NORMAN 13

her discretion as a matter of law when she permitted the

prisoners to opt out of testifying.

This error was not harmless. As Barnett contends,

“[e]verything in this case turned on which version of events

was believed.” Barnett’s anticipated case-in-chief comprised

only three eyewitness accounts and his own testimony. 

Allowing the witnesses to opt out denied Barnett the chance

to corroborate his story. This was especially damaging, as

Barnett had promised the jurors that the prisoners’ testimony

would support his version of events—the jury would need not

rely solely on his word. See United States v. Morales,

108 F.3d 1031, 1040 (9th Cir. 1997) (erroneous exclusion of

evidence more probably than not affected the verdict when it

“deprived Morales of the only corroborating evidence she

had”). The fact-intensive nature of Barnett’s claim made

eyewitness testimony all the more critical. See United States

v. Hobbs, 31 F.3d 918, 923 (9th Cir. 1994) (the right to have

a witness is even more substantial where parties present

“conflicting, mutually-exclusive stories”). And while it is

possible that the prisoners would have steadfastly refused to

say anything even after the judge nudged, cajoled, and/or

threatened them, it is more likely that at least one of the three,

facing a federal judge and additional sanctions, would have

agreed to answer at least some of the questions.

Finally, we recognize that the witnesses might indeed

have seen or heard nothing relevant, although were that the

case it seems they would have simply said so. It is also

possible that whatever testimony they might have offered

would have corroborated the defendants’ version of events. 

We cannot know, because the magistrate judge did not try to

encourage their testimony.

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14 BARNETT V. NORMAN

Given these facts, we cannot say it was “more probable

than not” that the jury was unaffected by the error. See Obrey

v. Johnson, 400 F.3d 691, 701–02 (9th Cir. 2005) (prejudice

occurs when erroneously excluded evidence was “not merely

tangential or cumulative” but “directly probative of the

central issues in dispute”).

IV. CONCLUSION

Few witnesses want to testify, and if given the choice,

almost none would. Answering embarrassing questions or

reliving a traumatic event is a miserable experience, and

people surely have better things to do with their time. But

much like jury service, witness testimony is not optional in

our justice system—it is essential.

When confronted with witnesses who refuse to testify

simply because they choose not to, a judge has a wide array

of tools—from the pillow of additional questions to the

sledgehammer of contempt—to ensure thatwitnesses provide

truthful testimony. Although use of these tools is within the

judge’s discretion, the magistrate judge here failed to exercise

her discretion in any way, and instead stated that she was

powerless. Because this error was not harmless, we reverse

the judgment of the district court and remand this case for a

new trial.3

REVERSED and REMANDED.

3

In light of the issues in this case, the district court should carefully

consider appointing counsel for Barnett in future proceedings.

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