Opinion ID: 590217
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Testimony from Hostile Government Witnesses

Text: 68 Eisen argues that he was deprived of a fair trial because the Government was permitted to call numerous witnesses associated with the defendants and to elicit from them trial testimony that the Government anticipated would be perjurious and argued to the jury was in fact perjurious. In its opening, the prosecution told the jury that it would call some witnesses who have refused to give up the lie or the fraud of the particular case that they were involved in. The Government made this argument with regard to a portion of the testimony of 11 of its 75 witnesses. The District Judge allowed the practice, reasoning that it was not unduly prejudicial because the witnesses' testimony, in fact, tended to exculpate the defendants, and because the prosecutor confined himself to arguing that each witness persisted in his lie from personal motives rather than at the behest of the defendants. Eisen argues that this evidence should have been excluded because it was irrelevant, and even if it was relevant, Eisen argues, it should have been excluded because the danger of unfair prejudice substantially outweighed its probative value. 69 Eisen contends that the testimony from these witnesses exculpating the defendants was not probative of the Government's theory of the case and therefore should not have been presented to the jury. The Government notes, however, that impeachment of hostile Government witnesses is admissible as negative inference evidence, see Marchand, 564 F.2d at 985-86, and that the testimony of these hostile witnesses provided other affirmative proof that was important to the Government's case. 70 In arguing that this practice should not have been permitted, Eisen relies on two sets of cases that are clearly distinguishable. First, Eisen points to a series of cases that hold that while a jury may be permitted to draw negative inferences from disbelieved testimony, a case cannot go to a jury solely on that basis. 6 Second, Eisen relies on a series of cases that hold that a party may not call a witness whose testimony it knows to be adverse for the sole purpose of impeaching him and thereby presenting evidence to the jury that would not otherwise be admissible. 7 The first line of cases is inapposite because in this case there was independent evidence to support the Government's case. The second line of cases is inapplicable because the Government did not call these witnesses as a mere subterfuge to get before the jury evidence not otherwise admissible. 71 Federal Rule of Evidence 607 provides: The credibility of a witness may be attacked by any party, including the party calling the witness. Rule 607, having no special restrictions, allows the Government to impeach its own witnesses. United States v. DeLillo, 620 F.2d 939, 946-47 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, 449 U.S. 835, 101 S.Ct. 107, 108, 66 L.Ed.2d 41 (1980). Where the Government has called a witness whose corroborating testimony is instrumental to constructing the Government's case, the Government has the right to question the witness, and to attempt to impeach him, about those aspects of his testimony that conflict with the Government's account of the same events. Id. Here, the testimony of the hostile witnesses provided affirmative proof that was necessary to construct the Government's case, and thus the Government was entitled to question these witnesses and to invite the jury to disbelieve that portion of their accounts that contradicted the prosecution's theory of the case. 72 Eisen claims that, if the Government is allowed to proceed in this fashion, it could routinely pre-empt the defendant, offer his 'defense,' and effectively preclude him from presenting his case as he and his lawyers determined to be in his best interests. Brief for Appellant Eisen at 31 n. 34. Eisen complains that in eliciting testimony exculpatory of the defendants, the Government, in essence, foisted witnesses and testimony onto the defendants' case thereby curtailing their ability to shape their own defense. Certainly, a defendant should be allowed to present his best defense consistent with the bounds of the law and the limits of the practicable. But the defendants cannot blame the Government's actions in this case for frustrating their ability to put on such a defense. The Government called as witnesses those who had participated in various ways in the personal injury suits underlying the allegations in the indictment and who clearly had relevant evidence to offer the Court. The Government need not confine itself to fragments of their testimony just because the witnesses persist in repeating untruthful portions. 73 A finding that the evidence was relevant and that the practice at issue is not proscribed does not, however, end the inquiry. Under Federal Rule of Evidence 403, the trial judge must determine if relevant evidence should be excluded because its probative value is substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice. United States v. Robinson, 560 F.2d 507, 513-14 (2d Cir.1977) (in banc), cert. denied, 435 U.S. 905, 98 S.Ct. 1451, 55 L.Ed.2d 496 (1978). We give the trial judge wide discretion in assessing the balance, and his ruling will not be overturned unless he acted arbitrarily or irrationally. Id. at 515. Eisen does not argue that the Government introduced highly prejudicial or inflammatory evidence in order to impeach these witnesses; instead he argues that, in the context of a case revolving around the subornation of perjury, the very argument that the witnesses were lying was highly prejudicial. Eisen contends that because the defendants are accused of suborning these witnesses' perjury (or conspiring with them to suborn perjurious testimony) in the underlying personal injury trials, the jury will naturally assume that the Government accuses the defendants of complicity in these criminal trial lies as well. The Court, however, had foreclosed this line of argument and the prosecutor was careful to attribute the alleged lies to the personal motivations of these witnesses. The District Court acted reasonably in concluding that the negative inference evidence need not be excluded as unfairly prejudicial simply because of the risk that the jury might, nonetheless, embrace a theory of causation eschewed by the prosecution.