Opinion ID: 164730
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Cross-Examination of Jennifer Natale

Text: 9 Mr. Vaughn also argues that the District Court erred in limiting his ability to impeach thoroughly the testimony of Ms. Natale — one of the conspiracy's principle drug couriers turned government witness. At trial, Mr. Vaughn's attorney sought to impeach Ms. Natale's credibility by showing that she did not mention Mr. Vaughn in her earliest statements to investigators and that only her final statements matched her trial testimony concerning Mr. Vaughn's involvement in the conspiracy. To this end, his attorney attempted to use reports drafted by FBI agents (the FBI Reports) following their interviews with Ms. Natale to show what he terms as her ever-expanding recollection. 10 The District Court denied Mr. Vaughn's attempts to use these reports because he found that (1) any alleged omissions in the FBI Reports were not inconsistencies and (2) Ms. Natale had not adopted the reports as accurately reflecting her statements to FBI officers. In response to this ruling, Mr. Vaughn requested that the District Court allow him to subpoena various law enforcement officers, including FBI Officer Melvin Cervantes, to investigate further the alleged inconsistencies. After allowing Mr. Vaughn and the government to question Officer Cervantes telephonically to determine the content of his testimony, the District Court denied the subpoena request, finding again that Officer Cervantes would not testify to inconsistencies but only to understandable omissions on the part of Ms. Natale. 11 On appeal, Mr. Vaughn attacks on three grounds the District Court's decision to prohibit him from using the text of the FBI Reports to impeach Ms. Natale. First, he argues that, even if he could not use the report as substantive evidence, it was properly useable for impeachment. Second, he notes that an omission may be an inconsistent statement if the witness would have naturally mentioned the omitted information. Third, as to the denied subpoena, Mr. Vaughn argues that the District Court erred in finding that Officer Cervantes's testimony did not establish an inconsistency between Ms. Natale's statements at her interview and her testimony at trial. 12 Here, we need not decide whether the District Court erred in limiting the examination of Ms. Natale or in refusing to issue the Cervantes subpoena 2 because, after fully reviewing the record, we conclude that, even if the District Court committed error, these rulings did not substantially influence the outcome of the trial. See United States v. Magleby, 241 F.3d 1306, 1318 (10th Cir.2001) (Notwithstanding our doubts regarding the relevance of this testimony, we need not decide whether the district court abused its discretion in admitting it because we find that it was harmless error.). 13 We reach this conclusion for two reasons. First, the District Court allowed Mr. Vaughn's counsel to question Ms. Natale at length regarding her statements at various law-enforcement interviews. See, e.g., R. at Vol. XX, p. 1074 (Now, in this two days of interviews in Arizona in which you said you would tell them everything that you know, you did talk about going to Detroit, didn't you?); id. at 1082 (Isn't it true, ma'am, that in neither your interview with the agents on October 31st or November 1st, did you ever tell them that you traveled to Detroit with Timothy Vaughn?); id. at 1083 (Now in your interviews of October 31st, November 1st and November 28th, isn't it true that at no time did you ever tell any of the agents or attorneys that you delivered any cocaine to Timothy Vaughn in Wichita); id. at 1086 (And did you tell [federal agents and the United States Attorney] that one of those persons was Timothy Vaughn?). He merely prevented Mr. Vaughn's counsel from quoting directly from the FBI Records. Id. at 1075 (You can ask her what she said, but don't refer to the report.). After reviewing the record, we conclude that Mr. Vaughn would have received no distinct benefit from using the exact text of the report to impeach Ms. Natale. 14 Second, even if Mr. Vaughn would have benefitted substantially from using the exact text of the reports, we find that the ruling did not substantially affect the outcome of the trial because several other witnesses testified to Mr. Vaughn's involvement in the conspiracy. For example, Nicole Farnum testified that Mr. Vaughn was present while large quantities of marijuana were being packed at Mr. Bellamy's house. Alicia Hardwick testified that Mr. Vaughn accompanied her on multiple flights to smuggle cocaine to Detroit and often helped her transport money on their return trips. Richard Taylor testified that Mr. Bellamy told him that Mr. Vaughn made drug runs for him to Detroit, and Robert Robertson testified that Mr. Vaughn had made multiple drug runs to Detroit. In light of this evidence, we cannot find that any possible error in limiting the cross-examination of Ms. Natale substantially affected the outcome of Mr. Vaughn's trial.