Opinion ID: 976
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Paul Tyler and Omar Washington

Text: Third, Mahdi claims the court erred in excluding the testimony of Paul Tyler and Omar Washington, which Mahdi sought to use to attack the credibility of Joseph Hooker, who testified at length about Mahdi's drug activities and violent acts. In particular, Mahdi wished to use their testimony to contradict Hooker's assertion that, before he started hanging out with the Mahdis in 1998, he did not sell drugs or ... ever shoot anyone, 5/27am Tr. 84, and thereby to impeach Hooker's credibility. According to Mahdi's counsel, both Tyler and Washington could testify that they witnessed Hooker selling drugs and carrying a gun between 1995 and 1997 when the three were in high school together. [12] Tyler invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination and the court appropriately excluded his testimony based thereon, noting his exposure on more than one front, 7/14am Tr. 95  namely, that he faced two pending criminal prosecutions and a grand jury investigation for his participation in a drug conspiracy and he appeared in government videotapes, admitted into evidence, showing him purchasing crack and marijuana from Hamilton. The court further declined to require Tyler to testify but limit the government's right of cross-examination in some fashion  to accommodate both Mahdi's Sixth Amendment right and Tyler's Fifth Amendment right  because the testimony sought from Tyler was not exculpatory. 7/14am Tr. 95-96. The court's decision was not an abuse of discretion. In United States v. Edmond, 52 F.3d 1080 (D.C.Cir.1995), we held in similar circumstances that in order to warrant requiring a witness to testify notwithstanding invocation of his Fifth Amendment right, the testimony sought must have the potential to be ` exculpatory testimony exonerating some of the alleged participants'  and not be testimony such as the defendant sought that simply provided limited contradiction of testimony by a government witness. 52 F.3d at 1110 (emphasis in original). Here, as in Edmond, the testimony sought is merely contradictory, undercutting Hooker's claim he was law-abiding before meeting Mahdi; it did not have the potential to exonerate Mahdi as is required under Edmond. As for Washington, at the time of the trial he was an inmate at the Federal Correctional Institution in Estill, S.C. On July 10, 2003, Mahdi's counsel, suspecting Tyler might not be available to testify, sought a writ to transport Washington to testify at the trial. The court was advised by the U.S. Marshals Service that it would take 30 days to procure his presence and the court denied Mahdi's motion to continue the trial until then. The court did not abuse its discretion in declining to continue the trial for a full month so near to the lengthy trial's close  on the chance Washington would provide non-exonerating testimony of so little probative value. See supra note 12; United States v. Gantt, 140 F.3d 249, 256 (D.C.Cir.1998) (continuance ruling reviewed only to determine whether judge clearly abused his discretion in weighing various factors, including length of requested delay and whether denying continuance will result in identifiable prejudice to defendant's case, and if so, whether this prejudice is of a material or substantial nature) (internal quotation omitted).