Opinion ID: 206316
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Confrontation Clause and the journalist's privilege

Text: Treacy contends that the strict limitations the district court placed on his cross-examination of Forelle violated his rights under the Confrontation Clause. Specifically, he argues that: (1) prescribed questioning of Forelle was no substitute for adversarial examination; (2) the Confrontation Clause requires that the defense be able to attack credibility; and (3) because the Government argued repeatedly to the jury that Treacy was denying any involvement at all in Monster's stock options processa notion that the defense says is preposterousTreacy should have been able to test Forelle's testimony by attempting to show that Treacy was only speaking of his own options. Treacy Br. at 36-37. We review a district court's decision to restrict cross-examination for abuse of discretion, even where the basis for challenging those restrictions is the Confrontation Clause. See, e.g., United States v. Figueroa, 548 F.3d 222, 226-27 (2d Cir. 2008). When that decision rests on an error of law (such as the application of the wrong legal principle), a district court necessarily abuses its discretion. Id. (quoting Zervos v. Verizon N.Y., Inc., 252 F.3d 163, 169 (2d Cir.2001)). It is settled law in this Circuit, at least in the civil context, that a journalist possesses a qualified privilege protecting him or her from the compelled disclosure of even nonconfidential materials. See Chevron Corp. v. Berlinger, 629 F.3d 297, 306-07 (2d Cir.2011); Gonzales v. NBC, 194 F.3d 29, 35 (2d Cir.1999). This is so because even where there [is] no issue of betrayal of a promised confidence, . . . wholesale exposure of press files to litigant scrutiny would burden the press with heavy costs of subpoena compliance, and could otherwise impair its ability to perform its dutiesparticularly if potential sources were deterred from speaking to the press, or insisted on remaining anonymous, because of the likelihood that they would be sucked into litigation [and] ... unrestricted litigant access to press files would create socially wasteful incentives for press entities to clean out files containing potentially valuable information lest they incur substantial costs of subpoena compliance, and would risk the symbolic harm of making journalists appear to be an investigative arm of the judicial system, the government, or private parties. Chevron Corp., 629 F.3d at 307 (quoting Gonzales, 194 F.3d at 35 (internal citations omitted)). No party or amicus argues that any of the information sought from Forelle was confidential, or that he is protecting the identity of any source. Forelle, therefore, is not entitled to invoke the stronger privilege that protects confidential materials. Cf. United States v. Cutler, 6 F.3d 67, 71 (2d Cir.1993) (where a party seeks confidential material from a journalist, disclosure may be ordered only upon a clear and specific showing that the information is: [(1)] highly material and relevant, [(2)] necessary or critical to the maintenance of the claim, and [(3)] not obtainable from other available sources). On the contrary, not only was Forelle not protecting any confidential material or source, he sought to withhold evidence that his source himself (Treacy) desired be disclosed. Thus, because the protection of confidential sources is not involved, the nature of the press interest protected by the privilege is narrower and the privilege is more easily overcome. Gonzales, 194 F.3d at 36. Where a civil litigant seeks nonconfidential materials from a nonparty press entity, the litigant is entitled to the requested discovery notwithstanding a valid assertion of the journalists' privilege if he can show that the materials at issue are of likely relevance to a significant issue in the case, and are not reasonably obtainable from other available sources. Id. Before we review the manner in which the district judge curtailed cross examination, we will address the argument of amicus Dow Jones & Company (Dow Jones), parent company of the Wall Street Journal, which urges us to hold that the district court ought to have quashed the subpoena to Forelle outright. Although appearing in support of neither party and taking no position with respect to whether Treacy's conviction should be reversed, Dow Jones argues that the bar should be higher for overcoming the reporters' privilege in criminal cases, and that we should apply the clear and specific showing standardused in civil cases only when confidentiality is at stakein all criminal cases. We are not persuaded. Dow Jones argues that its proposed rule is necessary to avoid a constitutional paradox that arises when a court must balance a reporter's First Amendment rights with a criminal defendant's Sixth Amendment rights, but this argument depends on the assumption that the reporter's privilege is derived from the First Amendment rather than a federal common law of privileges, a question we have previously declined to resolve absent any Congressional retrenchment of the privilege. See Gonzales, 194 F.3d at 35 n. 6. We once again decline to wade into these constitutional waters, because absent from Dow Jones's brief is any convincing reason why the Gonzales test should not apply in criminal cases where the prosecution seeks to introduce nonconfidential materials. Dow Jones suggests that because the Department of Justice has adopted strict guidelines for itself with respect to subpoenaing reporters, see 28 C.F.R. § 50.10, this Court should adopt the same principles as binding propositions of law. Nothing in our case law suggests, however, that the journalist's privilege is stronger in criminal cases. If anything, in fact, we have recognized that our Court once set too high a bar for overcoming the privilege in criminal cases and consciously lowered that bar. See United States v. Cutler, 6 F.3d 67, 73 (2d Cir.1993); United States v. Burke, 700 F.2d 70, 76-78 (2d Cir.1983); see also Gonzales, 194 F.3d at 34 n. 3 (observing that Cutler recognized that Burke undervalued the needs of criminal defendants). We now hold that, in instances where a reporter is not protecting a confidential source or confidential materials, the showing required to overcome the journalist's privilege is the same in a criminal case as it is in a civil case namely, the showing required by Gonzales and that this is true whether the party seeking to overcome the privilege is the prosecution or the defense. [3] To the extent that it denied Forelle's motion to quash, while limiting the scope of the Government's direct examination of the reporter, the district court applied Gonzales correctly. As that court explained, false exculpatory statements can provide circumstantial evidence of guilt, and this satisfies the Gonzales likely relevance test. Because Treacy possessed an absolute Fifth Amendment right not to testify himself, Forelle was the only potential witness who could confirm that Treacy had made the statements quoted in the article, satisfying the requirement that the material be not reasonably obtainable from other sources. Finally, by restricting the questions the Government could ask on direct examination, the district court protected the privilege, tailoring the questions to the showing of relevance and necessity made by the Government. The limitations the district court imposed on the scope of cross -examination, however, are another matter. Treacy and his supporting amicus, the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, argue that once a trial court has determined that the Government has made the required showing to overcome the journalist's privilege and compel a reporter's direct testimony, the trial court may not, consistent with the Sixth Amendment's Confrontation Clause, thereafter employ the privilege to restrict the defendant's cross-examination of the reporter to a greater degree than it would restrict such cross-examination in a case where no privilege was at issue. We agree. During Forelle's testimony, when Treacy's counsel attempted to challenge Forelle's credibility by bringing up Forelle's follow-up e-mail to Monster's public relations representative, the district court sustained objections from Forelle's counsel, stating: In the balancing of various competing considerations here, I did not open it up to a general attack on credibility. Anything can relate to credibility, and I limited the scope much more specifically. Trial Tr. at 2244-45. Defense counsel argued that [t]his relates to his writing of the article and that this isn't just general impeachment here. Id. at 2245. The judge replied: It was always the defense position that if he recalled at all, you should be able to get into the whole interview, both to establish context and to test credibility. And the [c]ourt, because it had to consider the third party's interests here, namely, the press interests and the press privilege, said no, you can't do that. Id. The Confrontation Clause guarantees a criminal defendant the right to delve into the witness' story to test the witness' perceptions and memory and to impeach, i.e., discredit, the witness. Davis v. Alaska, 415 U.S. 308, 316, 94 S.Ct. 1105, 39 L.Ed.2d 347 (1974). Although the scope of cross-examination is generally within the sound discretion of the trial court, United States v. Pedroza, 750 F.2d 187, 195 (2d Cir.1984), the trial judge's discretion `cannot be expanded to justify a curtailment which keeps from the jury relevant and important facts bearing on the trustworthiness of crucial testimony,' id. at 196 (quoting Gordon v. United States, 344 U.S. 414, 423, 73 S.Ct. 369, 97 L.Ed. 447 (1953)). Once the district court made the (correct) decision that the Government had sufficiently overcome the Gonzales privilege to compel Forelle's testimony, it was an abuse of discretion to restrict Treacy from cross-examining Forellesubject to ordinary rules regarding the scope of direct and relevance, see Fed.R.Evid. 611(b)as he would any other witness. The only privilege Forelle possessed in this case was the qualified Gonzales privilege, and the question before the district court during cross-examination was the same as on direct examination, namely, whether the answers defense counsel sought were of likely relevance to a significant issue in the case, [and] not reasonably obtainable from other available sources. The district court committed an error of law when, instead of applying the test we set forth in Gonzales to evaluate Treacy's need for Forelle's answers, it treated Forelle's interest as a competing interest to be balanced against Treacy's Confrontation Clause rights. It will generally be the case that the defense can satisfy the Gonzales test on cross-examination to the extent that it seeks to challenge a reporter's credibility about the specific content of his direct testimony. We agree, of course, with the district court's observation that [a]nything can relate to credibility, and the district court possessed the discretion to prevent a general attack on credibility. But we agree with Treacy that, because the purpose of Forelle's testimony was to confirm the accuracy of the statements in the Wall Street Journal article, attempts to test Forelle's memory with respect to the writing of the article were not a general attack on credibility but a challenge to the specific details of Forelle's direct testimony. Such a challenge is of likely relevance to a significant issue in the case, and no person but Forelle could provide the required answers. With the Gonzales test satisfied, the district court erred in balancing the defendant's Confrontation Clause rights against a general press interest. It is the law in this Circuit that if a witness's invocation of the Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination prevents the defendant from cross-examining the witness with respect to a non-collateral matter, the witness's direct testimony must be stricken. See Bagby v. Kuhlman, 932 F.2d 131, 135 (2d Cir.1991); Dunbar v. Harris, 612 F.2d 690, 693 (2d Cir.1979); United States v. Cardillo, 316 F.2d 606, 611 (2d Cir.1963). A general attack on credibility is, concededly, a collateral matter. See Cardillo, 316 F.2d at 611. But testimony should ordinarily be stricken when the invocation of the privilege against self-incrimination prevents the defendant from cross-examining the witness with respect to his credibility regarding the specific details of his direct testimony. See id. at 613. And if the Confrontation Clause requires this result when a constitutional privilege is involved, it must a fortiori require the same result when a witness invokes a privilege that may derive only from federal common law, and the weakest variation on the common law privilege, at that. In other words, if the district court had believed that Treacy could not fully exercise his Confrontation Clause rights because of Forelle's assertion of the privilege, it ought to have granted Forelle's motion to quash or subsequently stricken his testimony. However, [e]ven if we conclude that the trial judge has improperly curtailed cross-examination in violation of the defendant's confrontation rights, we are not to reverse automatically but are to apply harmless-error analysis, in order to determine `whether, assuming that the damaging potential of the cross-examination were fully realized,' the error was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. United States v. Rosa, 11 F.3d 315, 336 (2d Cir.1993) (quoting Delaware v. Van Arsdall, 475 U.S. 673, 684, 106 S.Ct. 1431, 89 L.Ed.2d 674 (1986)). That is, we should not reverse if we conclude that the error was `unimportant in relation to everything else the jury considered on the issue in question.' Id. (quoting Yates v. Evatt, 500 U.S. 391, 403, 111 S.Ct. 1884, 114 L.Ed.2d 432 (1991)). The factors to be considered on harmless error review include `the importance of the witness' testimony in the prosecution's case, whether the testimony was cumulative, the presence or absence of evidence corroborating or contradicting the testimony of the witness on material points, the extent of cross-examination otherwise permitted, and ... the overall strength of the prosecution's case.' Cotto v. Herbert, 331 F.3d 217, 254 (2d Cir.2003) (quoting Van Arsdall, 475 U.S. at 684, 106 S.Ct. 1431). Here, even though the prosecutor repeatedly emphasized Treacy's statements to Forelle as evidence of his mendacity, any Confrontation Clause error was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt because the other evidence in the prosecution's case was vastly more significant to demonstrating Treacy's actual actions. First, although Treacy was unable to cross-examine Forelle based on the e-mail, he was able to introduce the e-mail itself. He was therefore able to makeif somewhat less forcefully than he could have if permitted to engage in effective cross-examination the argument during summation that his comments to Forelle were taken out of context. Second, this Court has recognized that false exculpatory statements evincing consciousness of guilt are only circumstantial evidence of guilt, and weak circumstantial evidence at that. See United States v. Lorenzo, 534 F.3d 153, 161 (2d Cir.2008). Concededly, the Government, at summation, did repeatedly point to Treacy's statements as evidence of a guilty mind, but it is highly unlikely that it would have been unable to secure a conviction in the absence of Forelle's testimony. In addition to the particularly inculpatory testimony from Olesnyckyj, the Government introduced significant documentary evidence showing that Treacy actively voted on and approved backdating of documents. Particularly devastating is an exchange of e-mails between Olesnyckyj and Treacy in April 1999, in which Olesnyckyj, inquiring about how many options could plausibly be granted beyond the 3 million already discussed, wrote: I think we should authorize the highest number we can get away withwhat number do you think will fly with the investment community? E-mail from Myron Olesnyckyj to Jim Treacy (Apr. 12, 1999 11:20 a.m.). Treacy replied, Go to 15, up 12!, E-mail from Jim Treacy to Myron Olesnyckyj (Apr. 12, 1999 2:27 p.m.), and four days later added: Spoke to Andy last evening, and Greg this morning, and all decided to go even higher. The new plan should be $15 million. So, together with the old plan, it would total $18 million. Please confirm this gets handled correctly for the upcoming meeting, E-mail from Jim Treacy to Myron Olesnyckyj (Apr. 16, 1999 5:51 p.m.). In short, even if Treacy had been able to persuade the jury that Forelle's memory of their conversation was hazy, and that Treacy had only been discussing his own options, not a general backdating scheme, the other evidence at trial demonstrated that Treacy was, in fact, involved broadly in the backdating of options at Monster, and we are confident that the jury would not have been persuaded otherwise by an ambiguous newspaper article. We find the district court's error harmless beyond a reasonable doubt.