Opinion ID: 196936
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: The Redactions.

Text: 29 After ruling that portions of Sargent's out-of-court statements were admissible against Houlihan and Nardone, the court limited the May 30, 1992 statements to those that would have been competent and admissible evidence had the declarant been able to testify in person, and also excluded those portions that directly or through innuendo might offend the rule of Bruton v. United States, 391 U.S. 123, 126, 88 S.Ct. 1620, 1622, 20 L.Ed.2d 476 (1968) (holding that the introduction at a joint trial of a nontestifying defendant's statements that implicate a codefendant constitutes prejudicial error). Houlihan, 887 F.Supp. at 365. Houlihan and Nardone objected, contending that the editing process heightened the force of Sargent's statements, and that if the interviews were to be introduced at all, then the entire text should be fair game. The district court overruled the objections. 30 On appeal, Houlihan and Nardone argue less that Sargent's statements should have been redacted somewhat differently and more that they should not have been redacted at all. 8 They assert that when a defendant waives his rights to make Confrontation Clause and hearsay objections through misconduct, the absent declarant's full out-of-court statement should be admissible at the behest of either the proponent or opponent of the statement. This assertion rests on a misguided notion. 31 The cardinal purpose of the waiver-by-misconduct doctrine is to ensure that a wrongdoer does not profit in a court of law by reason of his miscreancy. By murdering Sargent, Houlihan and Nardone denied the prosecution the benefit of his live testimony. To compensate for that denial the court allowed the government to introduce portions of the interviews that Sargent gave to the police. The defense, however, was not entitled to any compensation, and permitting it to introduce additional hearsay statements (apart from statements necessary to place the portions used by the government into context and to render them not misleading) would be to reward bloodthirstiness. We decline to stamp a judicial imprimatur on a calculated murder. Thus, we hold that a homicidal defendant may by his misconduct waive his hearsay objections, but that waiver does not strip the government of its right to lodge hearsay objections. It is only the party who wrongfully procures a witness's absence who waives the right to object to the adverse party's introduction of the witness's prior out-of-court statements. See White, 838 F.Supp. at 625; see also Steele, 684 F.2d at 1202. 32 To sum up, since courts should not reward parties for their own misdeeds, a prior out-of-court statement made by a witness whose unavailability stems from the wrongful conduct of a party, aimed at least in part at achieving that result, is admissible against that party as long as the statement would have been admissible had the witness testified. But the party who causes the witness's unavailability is not entitled to the same prophylaxis. Consequently, under settled jurisprudence governing totem-pole hearsay, see Fed.R.Evid. 805, the tape of Sargent's interview itself constituted first-level hearsay not within any recognized exception, and the district court did not err in admitting some portions at the government's urging and refusing to admit the rest of the recording at the appellants' behest. 33 Houlihan and Nardone offer a second reason why the trial court erred in excluding the balance of Sargent's statements. This construct pivots on Evidence Rule 106, a rule that codifies principles of fairness and completeness. 9 Under it, a party against whom a fragmentary statement is introduced may demand that the rest of the statement (or so much thereof as is appropriate) be admitted into evidence in order to place the excerpt in context. 34 It is readily evident that, as the appellants maintain, Rule 106 can serve its proper function only if the trial court from time to time is prepared to permit the introduction of some otherwise inadmissible evidence. See United States v. Sutton, 801 F.2d 1346, 1368 (D.C.Cir.1986). Be that as it may, completeness, like beauty, is frequently in the eye of the beholder. The trial court is in the best position to assess the competing centrifugal and centripetal forces that bear on this calculus. Thus, when the trial court, acting in its discretion, finds that proffered excerpts, standing on their own, are not misleading, its judgment is entitled to great respect. See United States v. Boylan, 898 F.2d 230, 256-57 (1st Cir.), cert. denied, 498 U.S. 849, 111 S.Ct. 139, 112 L.Ed.2d 106 (1990). So it is here. 35 Houlihan and Nardone dwell on incompleteness primarily because Judge Young declared two sets of comments inadmissible. (1) Sargent told the police, inter alia, that James Boyden IV was selling drugs in Lynch's territory; that Fitzgerald warned him and had him beaten, but to no avail; and that he then told Sargent that he would just have to kill the interloper. Claiming that Fitzgerald's remarks to Sargent provided Fitzgerald with a different motive to murder Sargent, Houlihan sought to have this part of Sargent's statement admitted into evidence. Houlihan claims that omitting references to Fitzgerald's involvement in the murder made it appear that he, rather than Fitzgerald, was the mastermind responsible for that crime. (2) In a similar vein, Nardone claims that the court's refusal to permit him to introduce references in the interviews to Herd's putative involvement in the Boydens' killings made it appear that Nardone carried out those murders single-handed. 36 The court found that these incremental excerpts were segregable from the portions of the interviews that the government had proffered and denied the appellants' requests to admit them. Houlihan, 887 F.Supp. at 366. In assessing the court's rulings, three facts are worthy of note: (1) the interview segments admitted into evidence contained no explicit reference whatever to the Boydens' murders; (2) neither Houlihan nor Nardone were charged with the slaying of James Boyden IV; and (3) Sargent never mentioned Nardone by name anywhere in the course of either debriefing. Bearing these facts in mind, we conclude that the lower court acted within the realm of its discretion in refusing to invoke Rule 106. 37 Houlihan and Nardone also claim that the court should have admitted other portions of Sargent's interviews to impeach his credibility. See Fed.R.Evid. 806 (providing that the credibility of a hearsay declarant may be attacked ... by any evidence which would be admissible for those purposes if [the] declarant had testified as a witness). The district court rejected this claim because it found the additional excerpts too convoluted, collateral, or cumulative to be admitted. Houlihan, 887 F.Supp. at 368. Having reviewed the items, we discern no error in their exclusion. 38 Trial courts have considerable leeway in imposing outside limits on cross-examination. See Van Arsdall, 475 U.S. at 679, 106 S.Ct. at 1435; Laboy-Delgado, 84 F.3d at 28. Here, the record demonstrates that the appellants had a full and fair opportunity during their cross-examination of the officers who interviewed Sargent to cast doubts upon his veracity. They made the most of this opportunity. 10 By contrast, the extra material that the appellants wished to introduce lacked genuine impeachment value and promised to add virtually nothing of consequence to the grueling cross-examination. Thus, we cannot fault the district court for excluding this exiguous material. See Van Arsdall, 475 U.S. at 679, 106 S.Ct. at 1435 (stating that cross-examination appropriately may be limited if redundant or marginally relevant); Boylan, 898 F.2d at 255-56 (similar). 39 To say more would be supererogatory. Because our painstaking review of the record reveals no solid grounding for the claim that the district court flouted Rule 106 in any respect, we refuse to meddle. 40