United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE EIGHTH CIRCUIT

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No. 99-1444

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United States of America, *

*

Plaintiff/Appellee, *

* Appeal from the United States

v. * District Court for the Eastern

* District of Missouri.

Jerome Williams, a/k/a Bobo Williams, *

*

Defendant/Appellant. *

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Submitted: September 14, 1999

Filed: October 15, 1999

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Before RICHARD S. ARNOLD, BRIGHT and LOKEN, Circuit Judges.

___________

BRIGHT, Circuit Judge.

Jerome Williams appeals his convictions on two counts of felon in possession

of a firearm, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1), and one count of possession of an

unregistered firearm, in violation of 26 U.S.C. § 5841. For these three counts, Williams

received a sentence of 288 months (twenty-four years) imprisonment. Williams claims

hidden bias in the testimony of Kevin Murray, the government's sole corroborating

witness. The bias rested on circumstances indicating that Murray may have testified

favorably to the government to avoid revocation of his probation. On appeal Williams

raises two issues: (1) the government violated Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83 (1963),

when it failed to disclose Murray's full criminal history, including information about his
1At trial, the defense suggested that Tanya Hanks and not Jerome Williams had

possessed and used the sawed-off shotgun. 

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probationary status and the possible revocation of his parole, and (2) the district court

erred by refusing to allow cross-examination of Murray about pending charges that

could support a claim of bias. We affirm the district court because the stipulation, to

which both sides ultimately agreed, corrected the government's failure to disclose the

information and rendered any erroneous omissions harmless.

I. BACKGROUND

James Lawson and Tanya Hanks are common law spouses. Around the time of

the incident, they had separated temporarily. Kevin Murray lived in the apartment

below Hanks prior to and at the time of the incident. On Sunday, April 5, 1998, Hanks

invited Lawson to the apartment, where they met outside and walked into the apartment

together. Before going inside, they greeted Kevin Murray, who was outside the

building working on his car.

Lawson testified that Jerome Williams, who was waiting inside the apartment,

threatened him with a sawed-off shotgun when he entered the kitchen with Hanks.1

Williams hit Lawson with the gun twice, and then discharged the gun; the blast left

Lawson with a head wound. Lawson ran from the apartment to his car as Williams

chased him with the gun. Williams then shot out two of Lawson's tires, but Lawson

managed to drive to a gas station before he lost consciousness. Murray was still

outside working on his car when these events occurred. Williams – according to the

government – then ran off and threw the shotgun in a dumpster. Mark Wilderman, a

local resident, was walking his dog when he heard a gun blast. He then saw a black

male run by him and throw a shotgun in a dumpster. Wilderman was unable to identify

Williams as the man who ran by him that day.
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The police did not make an arrest on the day of the attack, but on April 8, 1998,

law enforcement officers stopped a vehicle with a crooked license plate. Williams was

a passenger in that car, and when the police tried to stop the vehicle, Williams jumped

from the vehicle and ran. The officers chased him on foot and saw him throw a dark

object from his pocket into the bushes. Police recovered a black .38 caliber revolver

from the site. Later, Lawson identified Williams as the man who had attacked him.

At trial, Kevin Murray was the single witness able to corroborate Lawson's

identification of Williams as his assailant. When subpoenaed, Murray tried to evade

testifying at trial because, unbeknownst to the government or defense counsel, he had

warrants pending against him for misdemeanor stealing charges in other jurisdictions.

The briefs are unclear about the exact charges pending against Murray in other

jurisdictions. According to the government, Murray had both a “misdemeanor

conviction” against him as well as “pending misdemeanor warrants.” According to the

defense, Murray was on “probation” and was “wanted in several jurisdictions.” It

appears from the record that Mr. Murray not only had a list of prior felony convictions

that included rape and failure to appear, but was on probation at the time for a

misdemeanor stealing conviction and had warrants pending for his arrest on other

misdemeanor stealing charges. 

The government brought Murray into court to testify on a material witness

warrant. At the time the federal prosecutor was preparing Murray as a witness, he

discovered from Murray's lawyer, Eric Butts, that Murray had these warrants pending

in other jurisdictions. During that conversation, Mr. Butts asked the federal prosecutor

to call local prosecutors to inform them that Murray was a government witness in this

trial. The federal prosecutor agreed to do so, but informed Mr. Butts that he would not

request leniency for Murray. On direct examination, the government questioned

Murray about his prior felony convictions, but not the misdemeanor conviction for

which he was on probation, nor the pending warrants for stealing. The government also
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asked Murray whether he was receiving any benefit for his testimony on direct

examination, and Murray responded that he was not.

After Murray had testified and been released as a witness in this case, the federal

prosecutor informed defense counsel and the district court about Murray's pending

charges, his probationary status, and the promised conversation between the federal and

local prosecutors. Once notified, the defense counsel requested that she be allowed to

recall the witness and cross-examine him about his prior misdemeanor conviction,

probationary status, and pending warrants in order to demonstrate that the witness,

facing the possible revocation of his probation, could be biased in favor of the

government in the hope that the government would suggest to local prosecutors that

they be more lenient with him. When the district court disallowed the crossexamination, the prosecution and defense agreed to a stipulation that would inform the

jury of Murray's situation. Without waiving any of defendant's objections, the trial

court directed defense counsel to read the stipulation to the jury before closing

arguments. The stipulation stated:

The United States versus Jerome Williams. Stipulation: The parties

hereby agree that prior to his testimony, the Government informed Kevin

Murray that a Government prosecutor would inform prosecuting attorneys

in another jurisdiction where Mr. Murray had misdemeanor warrants

pending that he had testified in this case. The Government did not agree

to make any request for leniency on Mr. Murray's behalf. So stipulated

and agreed by Gabriel Gore . . . . 

Trial Tr. (II) at 174.
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II. DISCUSSION

A. Brady Violation

Williams contends that the government violated Brady when it failed to inform

defense counsel that Murray was a probationer whose status could be revoked because

of pending misdemeanor charges. "To succeed on a Brady claim, [a] 'defendant must

show that the prosecution suppressed the evidence, the evidence was favorable to the

accused, and the evidence was material to the issue of guilt or punishment.'" United

States v. Whitehead, 176 F.3d 1030, 1036 (8th Cir. 1999) (quoting United States v.

Flores-Mireles, 112 F.3d 337, 339-40 (8th Cir. 1997)). "[T]he Brady rule applies to

impeachment evidence, as well as to exculpatory evidence." United States v. Wayne,

903 F.2d 1188, 1192 (8th Cir. 1990). 

Here, reversal based on a violation of the Brady rule cannot prevail because the

error was not prejudicial and amounted to harmless error. Williams emphasizes that

the pending charges against Murray, in the context of Murray's awareness that the

government would speak with local prosecutors about his assistance in this trial, raised

an inference of bias. We agree that the government should have disclosed the

information regarding the pending warrants, misdemeanor conviction, and probationary

status to defense counsel prior to Murray's cross-examination. Although normally the

prosecution need not disclose the mere existence of pending warrants, here the pending

warrants underlay the basis for the federal prosecutor’s promised communications with

local prosecutors. The evidence of Murray’s probationary status and pending

warrants, in combination with the promise of a conversation between prosecutors about

Murray's role as a government witness, could raise an inference that the defendant was

testifying in order to benefit himself. It is a Brady violation to fail to disclose evidence

that a witness is testifying solely to curry the government’s favor in his own

prosecution. See Reutter v. Solem, 888 F.2d 578, 581-82 (8th Cir. 1989). However,

the stipulation sufficiently corrected any otherwise material omissions because
2Evidence of witness bias generally should be made available to the jury. See

4 JACK B. WEINSTEIN ET AL., WEINSTEIN'S FEDERAL EVIDENCE § 607.04[1] (2d ed.

1999) ("Since bias of a witness is always significant in assessing credibility, the trier

of fact must be sufficiently informed of the underlying relationships, circumstances, and

influences operating on the witness to determine whether a modification of testimony

reasonably could be expected as a probable human reaction.") (footnote omitted); see

also Davis v. Alaska, 415 U.S. 308, 317 (1974) ("[T]he jurors were entitled to have the

benefit of the defense theory [of witness bias] . . . so that they could make an informed

judgment as to the weight to place on [the witness's] testimony . . . .").

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ultimately the jury learned of Murray's entire criminal history except one misdemeanor

conviction for which he was on probation. Moreover, defense counsel read the

stipulation to the jury before closing arguments; therefore, she had the opportunity to

draw the jury's attention to the witness's bias through argument that she otherwise

would have had through cross-examination.

B. Limitations of Cross-Examination

The limitation on cross-examining Murray also constitutes harmless error. Here,

the district court refused to allow cross-examination on the misdemeanor charges

because they were “wanteds” or pending charges which he found inadmissible for

purposes of impeaching the witness's credibility. This holding does not violate the

Sixth Amendment, see Wise v. Bowersox, 136 F.3d 1197, 1205 (8th Cir. 1998), but

introduction of such evidence is permissible under Rule 608. The presence of

outstanding warrants together with defendant's status as a probationer may serve as a

basis to contend that these circumstances influenced the witness to testify favorably for

the prosecution.2 While the district court may have erred by rejecting a limited crossexamination on this topic, that decision did not sufficiently prejudice the defendant to

warrant reversal.
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III. CONCLUSION

For the reasons stated above, we affirm the convictions. 

A true copy.

Attest:

CLERK, U.S. COURT OF APPEALS, EIGHTH CIRCUIT.