Opinion ID: 2994678
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Freitag’s Challenges to Her

Text: Convictions
Freitag contends that the district court committed reversible error by refusing to excuse a sleeping juror. At trial, one of the jurors apparently fell asleep, though the parties dispute the extent of the juror’s slumber. Late in the trial, when a question regarding another juror was raised, defense counsel asked the court to remove the juror that had been sleeping. The district judge declined, noting that she had only twice noticed his inattentiveness and she did not think it was necessary to excuse the juror. The judge then instructed counsel for both sides to alert her if they noticed the juror sleeping again. If sleep by a juror makes it impossible for that juror to perform his or her duties or would otherwise deny the defendant a fair trial, the sleeping juror should be removed from the jury. See United States v. Kimberlin, 805 F.2d 210, 244 (7th Cir. 1986); United States v. Bradley, 173 F.3d 225, 230 (3d Cir. 1999); United States v. Springfield, 829 F.2d 860, 864 (9th Cir. 1987). However, a court is not invariably required to remove sleeping jurors, Springfield, 829 F.2d at 864, and a court has considerable discretion in deciding how to handle a sleeping juror, United States v. Wilcox, 50 F.3d 600, 603 (8th Cir. 1995). Reversal is appropriate only if the defendant was deprived of his Fifth Amendment due process rights or his Sixth Amendment right to an impartial jury. Springfield, 829 F.2d at 864. We review the district court’s handling of this matter for an abuse of discretion. Bradley, 173 F.3d at 230. Here, there is no evidence that the sleeping juror missed large portions of the trial or that the portions missed were particularly critical. As noted earlier, the parties dispute the extent of the juror’s slumber, and defense counsel failed to raise the matter when he first noticed the sleeping juror. Indeed, he waited nearly a week before alerting the district judge. Once he raised the issue, the Assistant United States Attorney (AUSA) stated that she had only noticed the juror closing his eyes on one occasion. Given that counsel for both sides had noticed the juror’s inattentiveness, the wiser practice would have been to raise the issue as soon as practicable. Then, the district judge could have taken the necessary steps to address the issue as she did when defense counsel finally alerted her. Unfortunately, defense counsel opted to wait, and by the time he raised the issue, the district judge found it unnecessary to dismiss the juror because she had not noticed an extensive sleeping problem. Given the state of the record, we find no basis for concluding that Freitag was deprived of due process, an impartial jury, or for that matter, a fair trial. Freitag contends that the district judge should have inquired further into this matter to determine how much and which evidence the sleeping juror might have missed. The district judge declined to address memory lapses because [t]hat can go on even when a juror appears attentive. We find no abuse of discretion by the district judge, especially since she had not noticed an extensive sleeping problem and she admonished counsel on both sides to alert her to any further sleeping episodes.
Witnesses During Freitag’s cross-examination, counsel for the prosecution asked Freitag several questions regarding whether she was lying and whether other witnesses were lying or telling the truth. Freitag contends that these questions were impermissible and that the resulting prejudice requires that the court grant her a new trial./5 Because credibility questions are for the jury, it is improper to ask one witness to comment on the veracity of the testimony of another witness. See United States v. Cole, 41 F.3d 303, 308 (7th Cir. 1994); United States v. Sullivan, 85 F.3d 743, 749-50 (1st Cir. 1996). While conceding that under this rule it was improper for the AUSA conducting Freitag’s cross-examination to ask her if other witnesses were lying, the government contends that it was not improper to ask Freitag whether she, herself, was lying because it is appropriate to ask a witness whether she is adhering to her oath. The government further asserts that it was not improper to ask Freitag whether other witnesses’ testimony was true. In support of this assertion, the government characterizes questions about whether another witness’s testimony is true as questions about whether the witness’s testimony is accurate. From our review of the record, the government’s cross-examination of Freitag was far from model. In some instances, the government asked questions that called on Freitag to comment essentially on the truthfulness, not the accuracy, of other witnesses’ testimony. The district judge properly sustained a number of objections because that sort of questioning invades the province of the jury; indeed asking if testimony is true implies that if it is not, it is a lie, which is a credibility question for the jury to decide. However, we are not troubled by the prosecutor asking a witness to remark on the truthfulness of her own testimony because the witness’s reaction and response are proper fodder for the jury’s credibility determinations. Assuming arguendo that all the questions Freitag objects to are improper, we find the resulting error to be harmless. The challenged questions constituted only a small portion of the entire cross- examination and there was no significant impact on Freitag’s defense. More importantly, the evidence against Freitag was overwhelming. Freitag’s office employees (Watson and McLaughlin) testified about FAC’s improper billing practices and Freitag even admitted to falsifying records in response to a fraud investigation by Blue Cross, which processed Medicare claims in Illinois. The record also contained testimony from former FAC emergency medical technicians who testified that certain Medicare beneficiaries did not require ambulance transportation. Moreover, Lalumendre testified that Freitag pressured her to write doctor’s letters stating that it was medically necessary to transport certain Medicare beneficiaries by ambulance. Therefore, the improper questions do not warrant a reversal because the government introduced substantial evidence of Freitag’s guilt.