Opinion ID: 793137
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Probative Value of the Evidence

Text: 30 The Government's principal argument for abuse of discretion is that the district court necessarily struck the wrong balance between relevance and prejudice by dramatically understating, or underappreciating, the probative value of the grand juror testimony. According to the Government, Judge Scheindlin ignored that this powerful evidence of Awadallah's guilt is the strongest, most reliable evidence the Government can present to prove the knowing element of perjury, the element upon which this case will most likely turn. 31 We find this argument curious in light of the fact that, as the district court noted, the Government has tried hundreds, if not thousands, of perjury cases without eliciting opinion evidence from a grand juror to prove knowledge. None of our opinions indicate that a grand juror has ever previously been called in this Circuit to give such testimony and, as authority, the Government has uncovered only a lone out-of-circuit case where a grand juror testified about a subject matter other than materiality of a defendant. 7 As the district court noted, a trial strategy is not improper merely because it is innovative; but, when such a strategy has almost never been used, there is generally a good reason. Suffice it to say, we have some difficulty understanding why a class of testimony that is unprecedented in this Circuit can, at the same time, be the most reliable, powerful evidence available to the Government in a relatively straight-forward perjury prosecution. 32 Probative value is also informed by the availability of alternative means to present similar evidence. Specifically, the Supreme Court has advised that the Rule 403 `probative value' of an item of evidence... may be calculated by comparing evidentiary alternatives. Old Chief, 519 U.S. at 184, 117 S.Ct. 644. The availability of alternative testimony does not alone provide a basis for excluding evidence and the district court did not rely on such a basis here; however, it did properly consider alternatives as a factor in balancing the probative value and the risk of prejudice. See id. 33 The defendant stresses that, in addition to calling the grand jurors (who are permitted to testify under the limitations imposed by the district court), the Government could also elicit essentially the same testimony from other categories of witnesses, such as the court reporter, the interpreter, or Assistant United States Attorneys who were present during the Grand Jury but are not expected to participate at trial. 34 The Government responds that the grand jurors' testimony is the most probative and reliable evidence of Awadallah's demeanor because the Government attorney would be cross-examined for bias, and the court reporter and interpreter who both participated in the proceeding are unlikely to have been as attuned as a grand juror would be to Awadallah's demeanor. They could also be cross-examined for bias based on, for example, their employment arrangements with the Government. We are not especially persuaded. It seems intuitively unlikely that the interpreter or the court reporter, both of whom presumably were present for the entirety of Awadallah's testimony, would not have been attuned to his facial expressions, the pace of his answers, or his general demeanor. These observations are, to a certain extent, beside the point, since the Government is, of course, free to select whichever witnesses it believes will most effectively advance its case. But the fact remains that we see nothing about the grand jurors that makes them clearly more reliable than other witnesses to the events that transpired in the grand jury room.