Opinion ID: 441741
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Reading of Highsmith's Grand Jury Testimony

Text: 45 During the presentation of its case in chief, the government sought to offer defendant Highsmith's grand jury testimony into evidence against him in order to establish that he had engaged in double cataract sales and other allegedly illegal practices when he worked for Opti-Center. His co-defendants Warren and Dr. Gold raised objections based on the sixth amendment's confrontation clause, because Highsmith had asserted in his testimony that his sales practices were based on the instructions he had received from his superiors in the company. The trial judge decided to delete certain questions and answers from the transcript in order to avoid possible prejudice to Highsmith's co-defendants. Highsmith objected, contending that the excision of these passages distorted his testimony and would leave the jury with the false impression that he had committed these allegedly improper acts on his own initiative. While recognizing that Fed.R.Evid. 106 permits the trial judge to decide whether fairness requires that a recorded statement must be offered in its entirety, Highsmith contends that the trial judge erred in this instance. He argues that the deleted testimony was essential to his defense that he was merely acting in accordance with company policy, whereas the potential prejudice to his co-defendants was slight because the challenged testimony was merely cumulative of that already offered by Gilbert and Sue Conway. 46 We find no merit in Highsmith's argument. This court has refused in several cases to find that a trial judge erred by deleting portions of a confession that implicated a co-defendant before it was read to the jury, see, e.g., United States v. Kershner, 432 F.2d 1066, 1071 (5th Cir.1970); Posey v. United States, 416 F.2d 545, 551 (5th Cir.1969), and we see no reason that we should be more inclined to trespass upon the trial judge's discretion in this context. In any event, Highsmith's claim that he was prejudiced by these deletions ultimately rests upon a novel and untenable argument: the assertion that he should escape liability for his criminal acts because he was simply following the instructions of his company superiors. We will consider this argument in more detail in the section F., infra.