Opinion ID: 2774634
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Untruthful Statement

Text: On direct examination, Sabban testified that, during his investigation, he had asked Plato “if he had been disclosing his criminal convictions to the investors,” and that Plato had answered “that some of the investors knew and some didn’t.” Since some of the investors had independently discovered Plato’s criminal history, Plato’s response to Sabban’s question was technically true, and the prosecution did not challenge the veracity of Plato’s response during direct examination. On cross-examination, defense counsel asked Sabban whether Plato’s statement was correct; Sabban disagreed, before finally explaining that he took Plato’s statement as responding affirmatively to his question (i.e., “as Mr. Plato telling me if he told some of his invest -- some of the investors, whether they knew or not, and I received conflicting information later”). The challenged statement came about on re-direct, as follows: Q Now, Mr. Cogdell asked you if you thought the Defendant was being truthful when he made these statements to you; is that right? A Yes, sir. Q Now, based on your review of this evidence, do you believe he was being truthful when he made these statements? A No, I do not. Defense counsel did not object, and we review Plato’s challenge to this testimony for plain error. 28 28 See United States v. Williams, 343 F.3d 423, 434 (5th Cir. 2003). 16 Case: 13-20222 Document: 00512919459 Page: 17 Date Filed: 01/29/2015 No. 13-20222 The Government argues that defense counsel “opened the door” to Sabban’s opinion testimony on Plato’s truthfulness. We agree. In United States v. Ruppel, this court found that a series of questions by defense counsel “[w]hether intentional or not[] . . . conveyed the impression” that an actor in the conspiracy did not believe the defendant was aware of the activity’s criminal aspect. 29 In response, the prosecution elicited a specific “No, sir” in response to the question of whether the actor believed the defendant was aware of their activity’s criminality. 30 The Ruppel panel did not find error in the statement’s admission because “counsel may not mislead the jury or convey an erroneous impression without opening the avenue for cross-interrogation for purposes of clarification.” 31 Here, the efforts by defense counsel to establish that Sabban thought Plato’s response was a “true statement” (when the prosecution had not made its accuracy an issue during direct examination) ambiguously characterizes Plato’s response as truthful regarding investor knowledge, or truthful regarding Plato’s disclosure of the information. This ambiguity “opened the door” for the challenged statement’s admission as helpful to understand Sabban’s testimony, and to clarify any erroneous impression of Plato’s truthfulness in responding to Sabban’s inquiry. We find no error, plain or otherwise, in the admission of the challenged testimony.