Opinion ID: 579428
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Pre-existing Motive

Text: 11 Appellant makes a more serious argument against the admissibility of the statement by asserting that the prior statement was not admissible under Rule 801(d)(1)(B) because at the time he made [294 U.S.App.D.C. 239] that statement, he had the same motive for fabrication as he did at trial. 12 It is true that there is some authority for the proposition that in order to be admissible under Rule 801(d)(1)(B), the prior statement must have been made before there was a motive to fabricate. The Second Circuit, in United States v. Quinto, 582 F.2d 224 (2d Cir.1978), opined that prior consistent statements to satisfy the conditions set forth in the Rule must meet the standards  'in which rehabilitation through consistency would ... have been allowed,'  before the adoption of the Rule. Id. at 233, quoting 4 WEINSTEIN'S EVIDENCE, p 801(d)(1)(B), at 801-100. According to the Second Circuit's analysis, this required that the statements were made prior to the time the supposed motive to falsify arose. 582 F.2d at 232. However, this proposition is far from universally accepted. As the Third Circuit stated in United States v. DePeri, 778 F.2d 963, 977 (3d Cir.1985), [t]he timing of consistent prior statements divides the courts of appeals. The Seventh Circuit reached a conclusion consistent with Quinto, reasoning that Rule 801(d)(1)(B) establishes four requirements for the admissibility of testimony: (1) that the declarant testifies at trial; (2) the declarant be subject to cross examination; (3) the prior statement is consistent with the trial testimony; and (4) the testimony is offered to rebut a charge of improper motive. Where the prior statement was made after the initiation of the improper motive, the Seventh Circuit reasoned that it does not meet the fourth requirement. United States v. Guevara, 598 F.2d 1094, 1100 (7th Cir.1979). 13 Other circuits have expressed an uneasiness with the Quinto approach. The Sixth Circuit, in United States v. Hamilton, 689 F.2d 1262, 1273 (6th Cir.1982), treated the relationship of timing of the prior statement and the inception of the motive to falsify as a question of materiality, not a hard and fast rule for admissibility. The Fourth Circuit, in United States v. Henderson, 717 F.2d 135, 139 (4th Cir.1983), ruled that a statement made by a witness after his arrest could still be used in rebuttal of a charge of improper motive, noting that the Quinto view effectively swallows the rule with respect to prior consistent statements made to government officers ..., as such statements naturally follow arrest. In another 1983 decision, the Fourth Circuit suggested a distinction from Quinto where the testimony is offered for the purpose of rehabilitating or supporting the at-trial testimony of a witness whose testimony has been subjected to possible impeachment. United States v. Parodi, 703 F.2d 768, 785 (4th Cir.1983) (citations omitted). In so doing, the Fourth Circuit noted that in a Second Circuit decision a few years after Quinto, a concurring judge stressed that 14 Quinto itself was concerned only with the application of Rule 801(d)(1)(B) to the use of the prior statements as affirmative evidence and it did not present ... the [question] of admissibility when such statements are offered for the more limited purpose of rehabilitation. 15 Id., citing United States v. Rubin, 609 F.2d 51, 68-69 (2d Cir.1979) (Friendly, J., concurring) (emphasis omitted). Neither in Parodi nor Henderson does the Fourth Circuit appear to foreclose the possibility of disavowing the Quinto rationale altogether, and even in the circuit that gave it birth, Judge Friendly's concurrence in Rubin goes on to note that the statement in Quinto was dictum in the first place. United States v. Rubin, 609 F.2d at 69 (Friendly, J., concurring). 16 The Fifth and Eleventh Circuits have long held that the consistent statement need not have been made prior to the time that the alleged motive to fabricate arose. United States v. Pendas-Martinez, 845 F.2d 938, 942 n. 6 (11th Cir.1988). To the same effect, e.g., United States v. Anderson, 782 F.2d 908, 915-16 (11th Cir.1986); United States v. Parry, 649 F.2d 292, 295-96 (5th Cir. Unit B, June 1981); United States v. Gandy, 469 F.2d 1134 (5th Cir.1972). 17 [294 U.S.App.D.C. 240] We join the Fifth and Eleventh Circuits in holding that the prior consistent statement need not have preceded the appearance of the motive in order to render the statement non-hearsay under Rule 801(d)(1)(B). To hold to the contrary, as the Fourth Circuit noted, would bar almost totally the most common variety of such statements in the criminal context--that is, the admission of a cooperating defendant following arrest. United States v. Henderson, 717 F.2d at 139. More importantly, however, we rely on the reasoning of Judge Friendly in his Rubin concurrence adopted by the Fourth Circuit in Parodi. That is, there is nothing expressly stated in the Rule itself which supports the view expressed in Quinto .... United States v. Parodi, 703 F.2d at 785, citing United States v. Rubin, 609 F.2d at 68-69 (Friendly, J., concurring). The Rule in fact does set forth the four requirements noted by the Seventh Circuit in Guevara and listed by us above: (1) the declarant must testify at trial; (2) the declarant must be subject to cross examination; (3) the prior statement must be consistent with the trial testimony; and (4) the testimony must be offered to rebut a charge of recent fabrication or improper influence or motive. United States v. Guevara, 598 F.2d at 1100. 18 That all being said, however, it is not a foregone conclusion that every statement made after the initial possibility of improper motive is per se not admissible to rebut a charge that the trial testimony is motivated by that motive. Whether an arrestee giving a Mirandized statement shortly after his arrest corroborates the same person giving courtroom testimony after an implicit or explicit promise of leniency is a factual matter. While this case may not involve an identifiable promise of leniency, the Quinto rule would bar even the prior statement of a witness who had received such a promise--or even actual immunity. 19 We are sensitive to the opposite reduction to absurdity. That is, were we to rule that the temporal relationship between the making of the out-of-court declaration and the appearance of the improper motive has no relevance, then we might be breathing life into the specter that the United States Attorney or an FBI agent might question a witness a few minutes before he takes the stand in order to elicit a prior consistent statement for just the purpose of bolstering the trial testimony. Thus, instead of hearing the witness's statement once, through the mouth of a perhaps disreputable individual, the jury could hear it first directly and then again in the perhaps more credible voice of the FBI agent. 20 We do not see this as a real problem. We are not announcing a rule that the prior statement will always be admissible. The crossing of the four elemental stiles of Rule 801(d)(1)(B) involves much discretion on the part of the district judge. The trial court must determine in the first instance whether there has been a charge of recent fabrication, improper influence or motive, whether the statement rebuts it, and, for that matter, whether there is sufficient evidence that the witness made the prior statement in order to cross the initial thresholds of relevancy and materiality. See United States v. Herring, 582 F.2d 535, 541 (10th Cir.1978) (trial court has discretion to determine whether the statement is being offered in rebuttal of the contention that ... testimony is of recent fabrication or is brought about as a result of improper influence or motive.). 21 We further note that under Rule 403 of the Federal Rules of Evidence: 22 relevant[ ] evidence may be excluded if its probative value is substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice, confusion of the issues, or misleading the jury, or by considerations of undue delay, waste of time, or needless presentation of cumulative evidence. 23 As we noted on the last prior occasion that we visited this question, because the pre-existence of the motive and its influence on the prior statement are generally matters for a factfinder to determine,  'the court should not exclude'  such statements as a matter of law. United States v. Sampol, 636 F.2d 621, 674 (D.C.Cir.1980) (quoting [294 U.S.App.D.C. 241] United States v. Grunewald, 233 F.2d 556, 566 (2d Cir.1956), rev'd on other grounds, 353 U.S. 391, 77 S.Ct. 963, 1 L.Ed.2d 931 (1957)). 24 What we observed as dicta in Sampol, we now hold to be the law. The fact that a prior consistent statement was made after the appearance of a motive to fabricate does not render it per se outside the terms of Rule 801(d)(1)(B). There was no error in the admission of the prior statement in the present case.