Opinion ID: 2314198
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: treating different situations differently

Text: As I have noted above, this entire hornet's nest could have been avoided if we had left Jaggers and its progeny alone, at least until someone came to us with a legally cognizable injury attributable to Jaggers. Now that we have gone en banc, however, it cannot be gainsaid that Judge Gallagher has assembled an impressive array of authorities for two propositions on which the government relies: 1. that it is not the province of the judge to predict what action the prosecution will or will not take vis-a-vis a prospective defense witness; [8] and 2. that the validity of a witness' invocation of the privilege against self-incrimination turns on the legal possibility of prosecution, and not on the question whether, as a practical matter, the witness is likely to be prosecuted. Formidable as these authorities may seem, however, most of them deal with a situation quite different from the one presented here, and none is dispositive of our case. As the division majority explained in Carter I, Judge Gallagher relies on United States v. Miranti, 253 F.2d 135, 139 (2d Cir.1958), and on a substantial number of other decisions from various jurisdictions, which would limit the trial judge's inquiry, in assessing a witness' Fifth Amendment claim, to the question whether prosecution of the witness would be legally possible (rather than reasonably possible). The claims of privilege in Miranti (and in most of the other cases relied on by Judge Gallagher) were asserted by witnesses whose testimony the government was seeking to compel, and not by prospective defense witnesses. There was thus no actual or potential collision between the rights of an accused under the Sixth Amendment and a witness' privilege against self-incrimination, and there was no occasion for the courts to attempt to balance or reconcile these basic constitutional protections. Cf. Wilson [ v. United States], 558 A.2d [1135], 1140 [(D.C.1989)] (because forced election between Fifth and Sixth Amendment rights is so painful, courts must attempt to preserve them both to a reasonable extent). A few courts have followed the analysis utilized in Miranti even where the privilege has been asserted by a defense witness whose testimony a criminal defendant has sought to compel. See, e.g., Commonwealth v. Francis, 375 Mass. 211, 375 N.E.2d 1221, 1224-25, cert. denied, 439 U.S. 872, 99 S.Ct. 205, 58 L.Ed.2d 185 (1978); In re Keijam T., 226 Conn. 497, 628 A.2d 562, 565-66 (1993). In Francis, the court explicitly reject[ed] the defendant's contention that we should attempt to `balance' his rights under the Sixth Amendment against his [witness'] decision to invoke the Fifth Amendment. 375 N.E.2d at 1224. This approach apparently permits a purely theoretical possibility that a witness could be prosecuted to deprive a criminal defendant of potentially exculpatory testimony which may be essential to his defense. See Wilson, supra, 558 A.2d at 1140, and authorities there cited; (James) Harris v. United States, supra, 614 A.2d [1277,] 1283 n. 10 [(D.C.1992)]. 643 A.2d at 358 n. 17. Some of the decisions on which Judge Gallagher relies are evidently animated by a civil libertarian spirit which would rarely be generated by a case in which the defendant has a palpable need for the witness' testimony, and in which the practical likelihood of the witness' prosecution is nil. The Supreme Court has aptly cautioned that the words of our opinions are to be read in the light of the facts of the order under discussion. To keep opinions within reasonable bounds precludes writing into them every limitation or variation which might be suggested by the circumstances of cases not before the Court. General expressions transposed to other facts are often misleading. Armour & Co. v. Wantock, 323 U.S. 126, 132-33, 65 S.Ct. 165, 168, 89 L.Ed. 118 (1944) (emphasis added); see also Khiem v. United States, 612 A.2d 160, 164 (D.C.1992), cert. denied, 507 U.S. 924, 113 S.Ct. 1293, 122 L.Ed.2d 684 (1993). I am not at all sure that the courts which decided most of the cases on which the majority relies would rule in the government's favor on facts such as these, in which the defendant's right to a fair trial is implicated, and where the actual likelihood of self-incrimination is remote or even non-existent. Where the privilege against self-incrimination is the only constitutional protection at issue, it should be accorded the broadest possible scope. If, however, one person's Fifth Amendment protection comes into conflict with another individual's Sixth Amendment right to present a defense, then some reasonable accommodation must be made. In the crunch, when all else fails, the Fifth Amendment privilege of the witness prevails over the defendant's right to compel him to testify. Wilson, supra, 558 A.2d at 1140. Courts should, however, take reasonable steps to avert the crunch. [9] There ought surely to be some give at the outer edges of the Fifth Amendment right where the actual danger of self-incrimination is negligible, [10] and where the defendant genuinely needs the evidence in order to receive the fair trial to which he is entitled under the Sixth Amendment. When a defendant confronts the awesome power and resources of the government in a criminal trial, courts should jealously guard his right to present his defense. He should be denied the right to present relevant exculpatory evidence only upon a showing that his need for that evidence is outweighed by some even more compelling interest. Recently, in Winfield v. United States, 676 A.2d 1 (D.C. 1996) (en banc), this court removed one unreasonable impediment  the clearly link doctrine  to the vindication of the accused's Sixth Amendment rights. I fear that in the present case, the court has constructed a new such impediment to take the place of the old one. By the time this case went to trial, the government knew or should have known for years that Craig Carter had been using drugs. In fact, Craig's work release had been revoked on account of such use. His urine tests had been dirty. The Chief of the Felony Trial Division of the United States Attorney's office candidly advised the trial judge that it was extremely unusual for the government to ever prosecute misdemeanor drug possessions based on historical testimony. He was right; in more than sixteen years as a judge in the District of Columbia court system, I do not recall hearing of a single case in which the government did so. Yet, because the theoretical legal possibility of prosecution existed, George Carter was precluded from presenting testimony from Craig Carter which might have cast serious doubt on the credibility of one of George Carter's accusers. A statistically negligible chance of harm to Craig was used to cause real and palpable harm to George. Somewhere in our hard-nosed judicial landscape of bright line rules and no exceptions  of a rose is a rose is a rose, and that, Mr. Defendant, is that  there ought to be room for a measure of proportionality and for the saving grace of common sense  for a decision, I suggest, like Jaggers. Perhaps Mark Antony was right. To paraphrase his famous oration, The evil that [cases] do lives after them The good is oft interred with their [prose] So let it be with [ Jaggers ]. WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Julius Caesar, Act III, Scene 2. All the same, I count myself among those who would like to place a bouquet of forget-me-nots on the Jaggers decision's grave. [11]