Opinion ID: 667507
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Refusal to Give Missing Witness Instruction re. Gerry McCoy

Text: 118 During the course of its investigation, the government monitored two phone calls between an informant, Gerry McCoy, and Holloway. According to the government, the purpose of the calls was to find out whom Holloway would contact as his supplier of cocaine. Phone records indicated that after both of the calls, Holloway paged Sims at his Los Angeles beeper. Tr. 940-41. No narcotics transaction was ever consummated as a result of these calls. The government did not call McCoy as a witness, although the recordings of the phone calls and the records of the (purported) followup calls that Holloway made to Sims' beeper were introduced at trial. Tr. 938-40, 952-54; Gov.Ex. 304, 304A, 304B, 525A. Holloway contends that the district court erred in refusing his request for a missing witness instruction regarding McCoy. 119 A missing witness instruction requires a showing that the witness is peculiarly within the power of the government and has testimony relevant to the issues in the case. United States v. Cochran, 955 F.2d 1116, 1123 (7th Cir.), cert. denied, 113 S.Ct. 460 (1992); United States v. Romo, 914 F.2d 889, 893-94 (7th Cir.1990), cert. denied, 498 U.S. 1122, 111 S.Ct. 1078 (1991). As the government points out, Holloway has made no showing that McCoy was unavailable to him, e.g., that he could not have subpoenaed McCoy or that the government refused to cooperate in producing him. Holloway's failure to make such a showing disposes of this issue. Id. Moreover, even if we were to indulge Holloway with the assumption that the failure to give the instruction was erroneous, he has not offered us any compelling reason to believe that the error was not harmless. 120