Opinion ID: 767766
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Co-defendant's Plea

Text: 11 Montani contends that the district court improperly allowed evidence of Israel's plea agreement to be admitted at trial. This Court reviews for abuse of discretion a trial judge's decision to admit or exclude evidence. See United States v. Gibson, 170 F.3d 673, 680 (7th Cir. 1999); United States v. Mealy, 851 F.2d 890, 898 (7th Cir. 1988). 12 The well-settled rule in this Circuit allows the government to take the sting out of a defendant's cross-examination by introducing evidence of a co-defendant's plea agreement as part of its case in chief. See Mealy, 851 F.2d at 898; United States v. LeFevour, 798 F.2d 977, 983-84 (7th Cir. 1986). A party may not bolster the credibility of a witness on direct examination, but we have held repeatedly that introducing evidence of a witness's guilty plea or immunity deal serves the truth-seeking function of the trial by presenting all relevant aspects of a witness's testimony at one time. See LeFevour, 798 F.2d at 983; see also United States v. Hedman, 630 F.2d 1184, 1198 (7th Cir. 1980); United States v. Craig, 573 F.2d 513, 519 (7th Cir. 1978). 13 Montani does not dispute this settled point of law. Rather, he argues that because he offered to stipulate before trial that he would not use evidence of Israel's guilty plea to impeach Israel's testimony, the reasoning of LeFevour does not apply. Since he agreed not to impeach Israel with the guilty plea, Montani believes the government's only purpose in introducing Israel's guilty plea was to convince the jury that the scheme to resell the furniture was not an innocent business transaction. Montani's argument is not without force. In most criminal trials, no one disputes whether a crime was committed; rather, the focus is on who committed it or under what circumstances. Here, the key issue was whether the transactions were innocent business deals or criminal frauds. Israel's guilty plea would understandably persuade the jury that the deals were crooked. 14 However, Montani relies too heavily on only one aspect of the reasoning in LeFevour, in which we articulated one reason for allowing the government to introduce a co-defendant's guilty plea. LeFevour, 798 F.2d at 984. In LeFevour, we also explained that immunity agreements were relevant to putting the essential circumstances of these witnesses' testimony before the jury even if there was no expectation of cross-examination. Id. (emphasis added); see also United States v. McNeal, 77 F.3d 938, 945 (7th Cir. 1996). The point is to present all relevant evidence at once, rather than in piecemeal fashion. As in LeFevour, when the jury would naturally and unavoidably wonder why the witnesses were testifying about crimes in which they were participants, impeachment is presumed, and the government is not required to leave these doubts floating in the jurors' minds. In such a case where the witness's guilt in the acts about which he has testified unavoidably would be raised in the jurors' minds, the government's introduction of the guilty plea does not bolster the witness's credibility at all. Instead, it merely allows the government to provide the impeaching fact on its own terms, as permitted by LeFevour and its progeny. 15 In this case, the district court held that [a]llowing the government to elicit this testimony from Israel during his direct examination does not amount to bolstering . . . Moreover the court can give limiting instructions that will cure any potential prejudice to Montani. We think this is correct. The evidence adduced at trial implicated Israel in a scheme to bribe a Sears employee to procure a favorable deal in violation of sec. 1341. The jury could not help but wonder why Israel was testifying for the government and whether he had been charged in the crime. His credibility was impeached by his own testimony. No case in this Circuit holds that the government must wait for the defense to impeach a witness with evidence of a guilty plea before the government may answer with its own evidence of that plea. 16 Montani points to a Third Circuit case for the proposition that a court may not allow evidence of a witness's guilty plea on direct examination if the defense agrees not to elicit any information regarding the pleas during cross- examination. United States v. Thomas, 998 F.2d 1202, 1205-07 (3d Cir. 1993). We do not read Thomas this broadly and note that it does not address the heart of LeFevour's reasoning. Thomas correctly held that the district court may not allow evidence of a witness's guilty plea without some proper purpose that outweighs the prejudicial effect of the testimony. Id. at 1205 ([T]he reasons of the district court for admitting the evidence of [the] guilty pleas are inadequate to support the risk of jury prejudice under the facts of this case.). The court in Thomas examined the reasons given by the district judge and found that on the particular facts of that case, the reasons were insufficient. Id. at 1203-07. The district court in Thomas allowed testimony about the co-defendants' guilty pleas so that the government could blunt the defense's impeachment of its witnesses and prevent the inference that the defendant had been singled out among the conspirators. Because the defense had promised not to raise either of those inferences, the circuit court found that the district court had not relied on any proper purpose for allowing the evidence. 17 We agree with the logic of Thomas, but disagree with the defendant's assertion that this Third Circuit case, rather than LeFevour, controls this case. The district court here expressly relied on a proper purpose in admitting the evidence: Israel's credibility was impeached by his own testimony, and the government has a right to bring out evidence explaining to the jury the reasons for and extent of Israel's bias. The Third Circuit did not address the purpose we endorsed in LeFevour, which is to allow the government to present all relevant aspects of its case at one time, including the circumstances surrounding the testimony of an obvious co- conspirator. As we said in LeFevour, 798 F.2d at 983, and the district court noted in its order allowing Israel's testimony, this does not amount to bolstering. By virtue of Israel's testimony, the jury could not help but wonder why a criminal such as Israel was a friendly witness to the government. His integrity and character for truthfulness would be questioned, and the government had a right to explain the circumstances regardless of whether Montani intended to impeach Israel. We cannot say that this was an abuse of discretion. In fact, it was probably harmless in that it showed Israel to be less trustworthy as a witness for the government. There certainly would be some prejudice in showing that Israel was engaged in a criminal act purportedly with the defendant, but this could be cured, as it was in this case, through the usual method of instructing the jury to consider the evidence only for credibility.