Opinion ID: 609734
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: grand jury testimony of william thompson

Text: 46 On June 22, 1988, Thompson testified at length before the grand jury about the drug distribution conspiracy in this case. Thompson's testimony consisted almost entirely of the government's recitation of a prior statement made by Thompson to a DEA agent, interspersed at intervals with Thompson's confirmation of the truth of the prior statement, sometimes with qualifications. Some of this testimony incriminated Thompson himself, but a great deal of the testimony incriminated certain of his co-defendants, particularly Innamorati. Thompson was subsequently indicted by the grand jury along with the other defendants in this case. 47 At trial, Thompson elected not to testify. The court, over defendants' objections, permitted the government to read into evidence the entire transcript of Thompson's grand jury testimony. Innamorati, Grady, Boisoneau and, surprisingly, Thompson himself claim that this testimony was inadmissible hearsay and that its introduction was reversible error. The defendants also argue that the introduction of this evidence violated their Sixth Amendment right to confront the witnesses against them, but this amounts to the same argument dressed in different garb. 4
48 The basis for the district court's admission of Thompson's grand jury testimony is not entirely clear from the record. At one point, the court stated: 49 I'm going to allow ... [the grand jury testimony] in evidence and instruct the jury the conversations pertaining to Thompson are admitted at this point only against Thompson. Unless and until there is other evidence that connects the other named defendants in this conspiracy, it's excluded against them. 50 Shortly thereafter, in response to a renewed objection by defense counsel, the court ruled that the grand jury testimony of William Thompson is allowed. It's allowed against Thompson. It's a declaration against interest, and I'll explain that to the jury. No explanation or limiting instruction was given to the jury. 51 The only argument urged by the United States in this appeal to overcome the hearsay objection is that the grand jury testimony was a declaration against interest. Fed.R.Evid. 804(b)(3) excepts from the hearsay rule, when the declarant is unavailable as a witness, 52 [a] statement which ... so far tended to subject the declarant to civil or criminal liability ... that a reasonable person in the declarant's position would not have made the statement unless believing it to be true. 53 Thompson's invocation of the Fifth Amendment at trial rendered him unavailable for purposes of Rule 804(b)(3). See California v. Green, 399 U.S. 149, 168 n. 17, 90 S.Ct. 1930, 1940 n. 17, 26 L.Ed.2d 489 (1970). Under the exception, a declaration against interest is admissible against anyone to whom the statement pertains. See United States v. Myers, 892 F.2d 642, 644 (7th Cir.1990). 54 Whether Thompson's grand jury testimony represents a statement against penal interest poses the question how broadly to define the concept of a statement. One could describe the entire grand jury testimony as a single statement or, at the other extreme, could subdivide a single sentence (John and I robbed the bank) into two different statements to be tested separately. Both the rationale of the exception--the trustworthiness of the unit to be admitted--and our own precedents yield no mechanical rule as to where, in between these extremes, the line is to be drawn. 55 A further concern is that, even if a broad view is taken as to the scope of the statement, a co-defendant who confesses to the authorities and inculpates another may be seeking to curry favor and cast the main blame upon another. Thus the statement as a whole may be very much in the interests of the confessing party who is minimizing his or her role. Some have urged a blanket exclusion of such confessions as inherently untrustworthy; early drafts of Rule 804(b)(3) excluded a statement or confession offered against the accused in a criminal case, made by a codefendant or other person implicating both himself and the accused. See generally 4 Weinstein & Berger, Weinstein's Evidence, p 804(b)(3) at 804-152 & n. 42 (1992). 56 We need not pursue these issues in depth. Thompson's lengthy grand jury testimony contains only a few statements that are directly against Thompson's penal interest--for example, his descriptions of procuring the cellular phones and checking license plate numbers--and even these could be innocent acts, were context ignored. If these inculpatory statements of Thompson were isolated from the rest, it would be hard to say that the balance of the grand jury testimony, especially the numerous accusations against Innamorati, were against Callahan's interest. Thus if the directly inculpatory statements are severed, little of the grand jury testimony would be against Thompson's interest and admissible against third parties. 57 If the inculpatory statements are not severed, the same result prevails. Taken as a whole the testimony greatly minimizes Thompson's own role in any wrongdoing. He admitted a few acts of logistical assistance, doubtless hoping to maintain (as he does here) that they were innocently motivated. But the thrust of the testimony is that others were guilty of wrongdoing from which Thompson himself had been excluded but happened to have some knowledge. Although later the extent of this knowledge could be turned into an inference harmful to his interests, it is difficult to view the testimony as a whole as consciously contrary to Thompson's self-interest at the time it was made. [F]or the declaration to be trustworthy the declarant must have known it was against his interest at the time he made the statement. Filesi v. United States, 352 F.2d 339, 343 (4th Cir.1965). 58 In sum, the bulk of the testimony did not qualify as a declaration against penal interest. As to Thompson, anything he said constituted an admission so there was no error in receiving the grand jury testimony as to him. Fed.R.Evid. 801(d)(2)(A). But as to the other defendants, most of the testimony was both hearsay and outside the scope of Rule 804(b)(3)'s exception. We need not consider whether a limiting instruction would have been a sufficient safeguard to allow the testimony against Thompson but not the others, compare Bruton v. United States, 391 U.S. 123, 88 S.Ct. 1620, 20 L.Ed.2d 476 (1968), since no such instruction was given.
59 Since error was committed in allowing the grand jury testimony except as to Thompson, the only remaining question is whether it was prejudicial as to the other defendants who complain of its admission: Innamorati, Grady, and Boisoneau. On direct appeal, in the case of a constitutional error (as this one may be viewed in light of the Confrontation Clause), the test for harmless error is a demanding one. The appellate court must be persuaded beyond a reasonable doubt that the jury's verdict was not attributable to the challenged evidence. See Harrington v. California, 395 U.S. 250, 254, 89 S.Ct. 1726, 1728-29, 23 L.Ed.2d 284 (1969); Milton v. Wainwright, 407 U.S. 371, 377-78, 92 S.Ct. 2174, 2177-78, 33 L.Ed.2d 1 (1972); United States v. Figueroa, 976 F.2d 1446, 1455 (1st Cir.1992), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 113 S.Ct. 1346, 122 L.Ed.2d 728 (1993). 60 This test is, and ought to be, stringently applied, resolving all reasonable doubts against the government, since it comes close to a trespass upon the jury's function. But the case law is clear that, if the legitimate evidence unquestionably assured the jury's verdict of conviction, the error in admitting other evidence is not normally grounds for reversal. Harrington, 395 U.S. at 256, 89 S.Ct. at 1729-30; Figueroa, 976 F.2d at 1455. 5 Nor is this harmless error test confined to inadmissible evidence so slight or duplicative that one can assume that the jury scarcely noticed it. The wrongfully admitted evidence must be quantitatively assessed in the context of other evidence presented.... Sullivan, --- U.S. at ----, 113 S.Ct. at 2083 (quoting Arizona v. Fulminante, --- U.S. ----, ----, 111 S.Ct. 1246, 1264, 113 L.Ed.2d 302 (1991)). Even where the wrongfully admitted evidence is singular and weighty, it can still be harmless where the legitimate evidence is overwhelming. E.g., Clark v. Moran, 942 F.2d 24, 27 (1st Cir.1991). 61 Against this background, we conclude that the wrongful admission of the grand jury testimony did not alter the inevitable outcome of the case against Innamorati. We reach this conclusion only after a careful scrutiny of the record, for the grand jury testimony inculpates Innamorati in a number of respects that are neither trivial nor literally duplicative of other evidence. Among other things Thompson testified that: 62 Mr. Innamorati sold marijuana while in high school.... Around 1970 ... [he] developed a large distribution network which comprised of [sic] many residents of Clinton and Lancaster, Massachusetts. 63 [I]n 1985 Mr. Innamorati was arrested by the Massachusetts State Police [while in possession of cocaine and he later boasted that he] had paid his attorney ... several thousand dollars to fix the charges against Mr. Innamorati. 64 [I]n the fall of 1987, [I] became aware that both Innamorati and Tulowiecki purchased automatic pistols and possessed these pistols when making drug transactions. On several occasions, [I] saw Innamorati and Tulowiecki before and after drug deals and they were always carrying the pistols. 65 Tulowiecki also told [me] that Innamorati sent Paula [sic] Bufton [Innamorati's companion] to the corrections facility to visit Tulowiecki, and during the meeting, Bufton told Tulowiecki that Innamorati put aside one hundred thousand dollars for any legal aid that Tulowiecki would incur.... [Bufton told] Tulowiecki to be patient and don't fold. That Tulowiecki would be taken care of if he did the right thing. 66 Nevertheless, the case against Innamorati was overwhelming and it is no accident that his insufficiency of the evidence argument on this appeal is confined to conclusory assertions. No less than seven persons testified from personal knowledge that Innamorati was engaged in cocaine and marijuana dealing, including among others his partners (Callahan and Fitzgerald), his companion (Pamela Bufton), and his lieutenant and recordkeeper (Tulowiecki). Drugs and money were confided by Innamorati to his friend James Casasanto for safe-keeping when the authorities closed in on the ring; and drugs, weapons, paraphernalia, and records were found in the Edgewater apartment that Tulowiecki maintained at Innamorati's behest. 67 In fact, the case against Innamorati--who stood at the center of the ring's spider web--was a composite of individual cases against other ring members, reinforced by additional evidence against Innamorati. All of the other ring members on this appeal played smaller parts but were convicted on the conspiracy charge by the jury. Most of these persons were not directly implicated by Thompson's grand jury testimony or the testimony was at most duplicative as to them. It defies belief that the jury, faced with the aggregate of evidence against Innamorati, would have acquitted him of conspiracy if the grand jury testimony had been deleted from the record. 68 The remaining convictions against Innamorati stand on the same footing. To establish a continuing criminal enterprise under 21 U.S.C. § 848, the government needed to show only that Innamorati committed a continuing series of violations of the federal narcotics laws and that he managed or organized five or more individuals. See United States v. David, 940 F.2d at 732. Without considering Thompson's testimony, the evidence showed continuing violations and that more than five persons acted at Innamorati's direction. The individual possession counts against Innamorati were not significantly bolstered by the Thompson testimony and the weapons count--which Thompson corroborates--was supported by ample and untainted evidence from other witnesses. We conclude that the grand jury testimony was, as to Innamorati, harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. 69 Turning to Boisoneau, Thompson's grand jury testimony contains only two references to him. Near the conclusion of his testimony, Thompson identified Boisoneau as one of several customers of Innamorati, and stated that he was present at times when Innamorati supplied cocaine to these customers. A short time later, Thompson testified that Boisoneau and the other customers that he had identified were just weekend users, as opposed to distributors. These two statements were harmless beyond a reasonable doubt in light of the abundant independent evidence of Boisoneau's cocaine use and of his relationship with Innamorati. 70 Tulowiecki testified that Boisoneau was one of Innamorati's customers; that Tulowiecki had personally delivered cocaine to Boisoneau; that Boisoneau was assigned beeper number 004 in Innamorati's communications network; and that Boisoneau visited Tulowiecki in prison and relayed a message from Innamorati regarding the importance of keeping [Tulowiecki's] mouth shut. Records kept by Tulowiecki of Innamorati's drug sales showed that Boisoneau purchased a total of 19 grams of cocaine between September 1987 and January 1988. Other witnesses, such as Pamela Bufton and James Casasanto, also provided incriminating evidence. Bufton, for example, testified that Boisoneau had aided in a delivery of cocaine to Innamorati. 71 It is fair to say that, as to Boisoneau, Thompson's testimony (just [a] weekend user[ ]) was almost favorable. That Boisoneau was a customer no one could fairly doubt. The additional detail that made a conspiracy charge plausible came almost entirely from others whom the jury chose to believe. 72 Finally, as to Grady, we have scoured the thirty pages of Thompson's grand jury testimony and are unable to find a single reference to Grady. Grady in his brief does not suggest any way in which he was directly prejudiced by the admission of this evidence. We have no trouble, therefore, concluding that the admission of the grand jury testimony was harmless as to Grady.