Opinion ID: 379997
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Reverse Immunity Claim.

Text: 24 Weisman also argues that his convictions on the securities fraud and obstruction of justice counts should be reversed because of the government's improper refusal to grant use immunity to two defense witnesses who allegedly would have exculpated him. In so arguing, Weisman seeks to take advantage of a favorable ruling by Judge Sweet on a similar claim raised by Weisman's co-defendant, Leonard Horwitz. Following his conviction, Horwitz moved for a new trial, arguing that he had been denied due process by the government's refusal to grant use immunity to two of his witnesses, who themselves were under a continuing government investigation for their role in the Theatre's affairs and who were therefore unwilling to testify unless immunized. Judge Sweet granted the motion for a new trial at which, he indicated, the testimony of the government's immunized witnesses would be suppressed if Horwitz's witnesses were not similarly immunized. 7 25 Weisman now argues that Judge Sweet's ruling on Horwitz's motion for a new trial should be extended to him since the same transactions and testimony are supposedly involved. However, we find it unnecessary to determine whether Weisman falls within the ambit of Judge Sweet's ruling, or to assess the validity of the ruling itself, since we conclude that Weisman waived any such claim by failing to raise it properly in the district court. Although the issue of reverse immunity was raised by Horwitz in both trials and in his post-conviction motion for a new trial, Weisman never moved during either trial to immunize any potential defense witnesses and never sought post-conviction relief from the district court on this ground. However, after he had filed a notice of appeal from his conviction and after the district court had ruled favorably on Horwitz's motion for a new trial, Weisman by motion requested the district court to clarify the record to indicate that he too had raised the reverse immunity claim. The court denied the motion, and Weisman subsequently sought and obtained an order from this court remanding the case to the district court for the limited purpose of determining whether Weisman had raised the reverse immunity issue on the record. 26 In an opinion dated November 26, 1979, Judge Sweet concluded that Weisman failed to properly raise the issue of reverse immunity prior to the time of appeal. The court acknowledged that during both trials a motion made by one defendant was deemed to be adopted by all defendants. Judge Sweet, however, went on to note that this practice was employed primarily on evidentiary objections and did not extend to post-trial proceedings. Hence, Horwitz's request for immunity for his witnesses during trial and his post-conviction motion for a new trial on this ground did not raise a similar claim on behalf of Weisman. In addition, the district court noted that because Weisman was in a somewhat different evidentiary position with respect to the securities fraud and obstruction of justice counts, it would have been incumbent upon (him) . . . to address the proof as it applied to him in order to advance the same claim of deprivation of constitutional right. 27 We see no reason to disturb this ruling. The district court's practice of treating motions made by one defendant during trial as covering all defendants cannot logically be extended to particularized requests after trial by a single defendant that do not relate to the group of defendants as a whole. Horwitz's demand for use immunity for his witnesses constituted such a particularized request, since it derived from the nature of the government's evidence against him and the potential availability of evidence exculpating him. As the district court noted, Weisman was inevitably in a somewhat different evidentiary posture than Horwitz, and hence the burden was properly upon him to show why he would be denied due process if his witnesses were not immunized. Indeed, a contrary rule would force the district judge to determine on his own initiative and without assistance which particularized requests of one defendant should be extended to other co-defendants. Alternatively, Weisman asks us to overlook his failure to press the point below and to invoke the plain error doctrine. The government, however, strongly asserts that there was no error in the district court's failure to immunize Weisman's witnesses and that even if the failure to order use immunity was erroneous, this is a particularly inappropriate case to notice an error not objected to below. See United States v. Calfon, 607 F.2d 29, 31 (2d Cir. 1979). The government asserts that if the argument had been made to Judge Sweet and if he had held that his reverse immunity ruling should apply to Weisman, the government might have decided to try Weisman separately, without the evidence furnished by its immunized witnesses. It is true that the government's evidence against Weisman on the other aspects of the stock fraud not involving Horwitz's transactions was very strong; consequently, it is not an implausible claim that the government might have altered its trial strategy in the face of a timely reverse immunity request by Weisman. Under all the circumstances, we reject the invitation to find plain error. Thus, because Weisman never asserted or argued in a timely fashion that Horwitz's reverse immunity claim applied to him, we affirm Judge Sweet's holding that Weisman waived the claim. See U. S. v. Indiviglio, 352 F.2d 276, 280 (2d Cir. 1965), cert. denied, 383 U.S. 907, 86 S.Ct. 887, 15 L.Ed.2d 663 (1966). 28