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Parties Involved:
Maurice W. Hayes
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

Notice: This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in the

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United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued March 12, 2004 Decided June 4, 2004

No. 03-3058

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

APPELLEE

v.

MAURICE W. HAYES, A/K/A MO,

APPELLANT

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Columbia

(01cr00180–11)

Elisha A. King, appointed by the court, argued pro hac

vice for appellant. With her on the briefs was Charles B.

Wayne.

Nicole A. Saharsky, Attorney, U.S. Department of Justice,

argued the cause for appellee. With her on the brief were

Roscoe C. Howard, Jr., U.S. Attorney, John R. Fisher, Roy

 Bills of costs must be filed within 14 days after entry of judgment.

The court looks with disfavor upon motions to file bills of costs out

of time.

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W. McLeese III, and Gregory G. Marshall, Assistant U.S.

Attorneys.

Before: GINSBURG, Chief Judge; RANDOLPH and ROBERTS,

Circuit Judges.

Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge RANDOLPH.

RANDOLPH, Circuit Judge: Maurice ‘‘Mo’’ Hayes challenges

four evidentiary rulings made during his trial for submitting

false overtime claims to the Department of Education.

The government sought to prove that Hayes, a Bell Atlantic technician assigned to the Department, conspired with

fellow technicians Robert Sweeney and William Cousin to

submit false time sheets claiming overtime pay. Elizabeth

Mellen, the Department employee who supervised the Bell

Atlantic contract, permitted this practice in order to secure

the technicians’ cooperation with her larger conspiracy to

steal hundreds of thousands of dollars in electronic equipment. See United States v. Mellen, 89 Fed. App. 268, 2004

WL 438571 (D.C. Cir. Mar. 5, 2004). Some of the bogus

hours represented time the technicians spent performing

personal favors for Mellen. Others were pure padding.

Sweeney and Cousin cooperated with the government and

testified against Hayes. The government also introduced

mobile phone records and building security logs that, it

argued, were inconsistent with the time sheets Hayes had

completed. The jury convicted Hayes and the district court

sentenced him to 27 months’ imprisonment.

One issue arises from the cross-examination of Sweeney.

Sweeney claimed he never received payment for favors he

performed for Mellen and her family, and that his only

reward was Mellen’s acquiescence in the overtime scheme.

Defense counsel showed Sweeney a copy of a $100 check from

Mellen’s relatives payable to Sweeney and dated the day the

technicians performed one of these favors. Although Sweeney acknowledged that his date of birth and driver’s license

number appeared on the front of the check, and that this was

the sort of information a bank would put on a check when

cashing it, he said he did not recall receiving the check. The

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copy of the check, marked for identification but not introduced into evidence, showed only the front.

The trial resumed four days later. After testimony ended

for the day, Hayes’ attorney told the court that he had

obtained the original check, that the back bore what purported to be Sweeney’s signature, and that he was ‘‘going to have

to call [Sweeney] to show him the endorsement on the back’’

of the check. A brief discussion took place between the court

and counsel for the defense and prosecution, ending with the

court’s statement that it would ‘‘deal with this tomorrow.’’

Late on the next day, after three defense witnesses testified

and the government presented a rebuttal witness, defense

counsel announced that he had no further witnesses and the

jury left. At that point, defense counsel told the court that

he had forgotten about introducing the check and recalling

Sweeney to the stand. Treating these statements as motions,

the court denied both.

Hayes argues that the court’s refusal to allow him to recall

Sweeney violated his Sixth Amendment right to confront the

witnesses against him. The Confrontation Clause ensures

effective cross-examination, but it does not deprive trial

courts of all authority to restrict a defense attorney’s questioning of government witnesses. Delaware v. Van Arsdall,

475 U.S. 673, 679 (1986). Some questions on crossexamination go beyond the scope of direct, deal with matters

at the fringe of the case, are repetitive, confuse the issues,

harass the witness, or invite the jury to consider extraneous

matters. Courts may impose reasonable limits on such crossexamination, even when the questioning is intended to undermine the witness’s credibility. The Confrontation Clause is

violated only when the court bars a legitimate line of inquiry

that ‘‘might’’ have given the jury a ‘‘significantly different

impression of [the witness’s] credibility.’’ Id. at 680; United

States v. Davis, 127 F.3d 68, 70–71 (D.C. Cir. 1997). In this

case, the district court thought that more cross-examination

of Sweeney about the check would have little probative value

and would confuse the jury in light of the fact that Sweeney’s

fraud—which he admitted—did not turn on whether he received money for doing favors for Mellen’s relatives. See

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FED. R. EVID. 403. Hayes’ attorney had already crossexamined Sweeney extensively about the check, eliciting responses that confirmed the accuracy of the personal information on the front and Sweeney’s admission that this information indicated the check had been cashed. Recalling Sweeney

to the stand to ask about the endorsement on the back could

hardly have affected the jury’s impression of his credibility.

The district court therefore did not abuse its discretion in

refusing to allow it.

The court also refused to admit the check into evidence at

the close of the case. Whether Sweeney received the check

was a collateral matter—relevant to his credibility but not to

the underlying case. While the court allowed Hayes to crossexamine Sweeney about the subject, the court properly precluded the introduction of extrinsic evidence (the check) to

contradict Sweeney’s answers. See United States v. Tarantino, 846 F.2d 1384, 1409 (D.C. Cir. 1988).

The next issue also arose during Sweeney’s testimony. On

the morning of December 9, 1999, investigators conducted a

series of raids directed at the larger conspiracy, including

visits to the homes of Sweeney and Hayes. The investigators

persuaded Sweeney to phone his co-conspirators and allow

the government to record the conversations. Sweeney’s first

call was to Mellen. It ended with the following exchange:

Mellen: Are you going to be able to handle

this? Is Mo in this?

Sweeney: I don’t know.

Mellen: Well you get Mo whatever you do.

Sweeney: Alright.

About an hour later, Hayes called Sweeney to tell him that

investigators had visited his home. The conversation included the following exchanges:

Sweeney: Um, so, uh, what are you, what do

you think we’re going to do?

Hayes: Tell the truth.

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Sweeney: Um-hum. Well, that’s what, that’s

what I did.

Hayes: That’s all you’ve gotta do.

Sweeney: Yeah, I was wondering about that,

uh, t.v. Liz [Mellen] got.

Hayes: Tell the truth.

Sweeney: Yeah, well, it’s kind of, kind of fuzzy

there, because like Martin got it and then it,

you know it was TTT

Hayes: That’s all you know.

Sweeney: No.

Hayes: Tell them what you know. Let it go.

Tell them what you know and let it go. Out of

your hands now. Tell the truth.

* * *

Sweeney: Well, um, I guess we’ll just have to

see how it goes.

Hayes: Well, tell the truth. The truth works.

All right.

The government moved for the admission of the first tape

during Sweeney’s testimony. The defense objected on the

basis of relevancy. The government replied: ‘‘In the tape,

Elizabeth Mellen tells Bob Sweeney to make sure that he

gets ahold of Mo and gets Mo in on covering this up.’’ The

court acknowledged that the tape ‘‘may not add anything’’ but

admitted it.

Concerned that the first tape suggested Hayes’ participation in a cover-up, the defense sought to cross-examine

Sweeney about the second tape, in which Hayes told Sweeney

to ‘‘tell the truth.’’ The government objected, arguing that ‘‘it

is the defendant’s own self-serving hearsay’’ and beyond the

scope of the direct examination. The court sustained the

objection, agreeing with the government’s second ground

because Sweeney never testified that he ‘‘got Mo’’ as Mellen

had suggested. Later in the trial, Hayes sought to introduce

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the second tape as substantive evidence, arguing that his

injunction to ‘‘tell the truth’’ demonstrated that he did not

have a guilty state of mind. The court denied this request as

well on the ground that the conversations were hearsay.

Hayes does not argue that the court erred in admitting the

first tape. His argument—with which we agree—is that the

court abused its discretion in refusing to allow him to crossexamine Sweeney about the second tape and to introduce it as

substantive evidence. The government makes no effort to

defend the court’s ‘‘beyond the scope’’ ruling. The sole

purpose of admitting the first tape was to show that Mellen

asked Sweeney to get Hayes involved in a cover-up. It must

have left the jury with the impression that Sweeney followed

up and got Hayes to agree. Hayes was ‘‘not required to let

this potentially damaging inference hang in the air.’’ Macaulay v. Anas, 321 F.3d 45, 53–54 (1st Cir. 2003). ‘‘It is always

open in a criminal case for the defendant to explain away the

force of specific items of the government’s proof by showing

the existence of other hypotheses.’’ United States v. Foster,

986 F.2d 541, 545 (D.C. Cir. 1993).

The government does argue that the second tape was

hearsay, and that the district court therefore properly refused to admit it into evidence. Hearsay is ‘‘a statement,

other than one made by the declarant while testifying at the

trial or hearing, offered in evidence to prove the truth of the

matter asserted.’’ FED. R. EVID. 801(c). Hayes argues he did

not offer his statements on the tape for their truth. Rather,

he claims the fact he told Sweeney to ‘‘tell the truth’’ indicates

he did not think he did anything wrong, making it less likely

that he had the specific intent required to sustain the conspiracy and theft charges. See Morissette v. United States, 342

U.S. 246 (1952) (theft); United States v. Wynn, 61 F.3d 921,

929 (D.C. Cir. 1995) (conspiracy). Most of Hayes’ statements

on the tape are not assertive and therefore do not express a

‘‘truth’’ for which they could be offered. See United States v.

Long, 905 F.2d 1572, 1579–80 (D.C. Cir. 1990). The imperative

‘‘tell the truth’’ does not expressly assert anything.

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The government argues that ‘‘tell the truth’’ was an implied

assertion. Investigators had visited Hayes earlier that morning and so, according to the government, he must have

suspected that Sweeney was cooperating. By saying ‘‘tell the

truth,’’ therefore, he was actually asserting ‘‘I am innocent.’’

But that is beside the point. Statements inadmissible for one

purpose may be admissible for another. Even if Hayes did

intend implicitly to assert his innocence, his statements were

still admissible to show his state of mind. See United States

v. Brown, 490 F.2d 758, 762–63 (D.C. Cir. 1973). The district

court abused its discretion in excluding the tape.

When explaining its decision to exclude the tape, the district court noted that the government would not have the

opportunity to cross-examine Hayes about it because Hayes

would not take the stand. Hayes claims this statement

violated his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination

by making him choose between taking the stand and forfeiting the chance to present otherwise admissible evidence.

(Hayes does not argue that the district court’s rulings on the

tape violated his Sixth Amendment right to confront the

witnesses against him.) We think Hayes misinterprets the

district court’s statement. The court never told Hayes he

would have to testify to have the tape admitted. Far from

saying, or even implying, that it would admit the tape if

Hayes testified, the court merely explained the rationale for

the hearsay rule. See Anderson v. United States, 417 U.S.

211, 220 (1974).

The district court’s errors in excluding the Hayes–Sweeney

tape and in refusing to permit cross-examination of Sweeney

about it, although not constitutional, would nevertheless lead

us to reverse Hayes’ conviction unless the errors had no

‘‘substantial and injurious effect or influence in determining

the jury’s verdict.’’ Kotteakos v. United States, 328 U.S. 750,

776 (1946). Given the strength of the government’s case, we

believe the court’s mistakes were harmless. Sweeney and

Cousin both testified about Hayes’ participation in the conspiracy. Documentary evidence corroborated their testimony. The sheer number of hours Hayes claimed, often in

excess of 90 hours a week, were implausible in light of the

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progressive decline in the technicians’ workload, as recounted

by a defense witness. The government introduced building

security logs showing Hayes arriving and departing at times

inconsistent with his overtime claims, although other testimony indicated that these records were not necessarily reliable.

The government also introduced mobile phone records showing Hayes making calls from Maryland on 183 occasions when

he claimed to be working in Washington, D.C. Hayes’ counsel argued that someone else could have been using the

phone, but the vast majority of the calls were to Hayes’ home

or business, and Sweeney and Cousin testified that Hayes

always answered his mobile phone when they called it.

Moreover, the excluded tape would not have added much to

Hayes’ defense, and introducing it might have been counterproductive. Although the jury could have inferred from the

conversation that Hayes lacked criminal intent, that is hardly

the only inference. The jury could well have thought Hayes

was telling Sweeney not to make their situation worse by

obstructing justice. More troubling is the fact that Hayes

could not cross-examine Sweeney about the tape, leaving the

jury with the impression Hayes may have participated in a

cover-up. But in light of the other evidence against Hayes,

we cannot say this restriction had any significant impact on

the verdict.

Affirmed.

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