Opinion ID: 2671505
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Truthfulness

Text: The district court also declined to instruct the jury that the government had no greater ability to verify Cook and Melgar’s truthfulness than the jury. Smalls argues this curative instruction was necessary because the truthfulness provisions in Cook and Melgar’s plea agreements—which conditioned the receipt of certain -29- government benefits on a finding that they testified truthfully— were entered into evidence and thus had the effect of vouching for the witnesses’ truthfulness. He cites to United States v. Harlow, 444 F.3d 1255, 1265 (10th Cir. 2006), in which we held that to the extent that any impermissible vouching occurred by the admission of plea agreements with truthfulness provisions, the district court’s credibility instructions cured any error. Harlow is distinguishable. We held in Harlow that submission of the witnesses’ plea agreements, which also contained provisions conditioning government benefits on a finding of truthful testimony, was erroneous because they were submitted “in conjunction with the evidence that the prosecutor moved for the benefits thereunder and the judge issued his approval.” Id. at 1262. It was the additional evidence of the government’s finding that the testimony was truthful, not the truthfulness provisions on their own, that had the effect of improper government vouching. Here, by contrast, the government introduced only the plea agreements, which does not constitute improper vouching. See United States v. Claycomb, 372 F. App’x 832, 840 (10th Cir. 2010) (“[I]t is permissible for a prosecutor to introduce a witness’s plea agreement including a truthfulness provision and to discuss that provision to make sure the witness is aware of the consequences of failing to tell the truth and for the purpose of heading off any claim the witness’s testimony is suspect because of the plea agreement.”). -30- The district court did not abuse its discretion in declining to issue a credibility instruction.