Opinion ID: 411723
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Warnings on Reinstatement of the Dismissed Charge

Text: 55
56 During trial, the judge repeatedly stated and the prosecutor suggested on one occasion that the gun charge which was to be dropped as part of Robinson's plea bargain would be reinstated if she testified in Blackwell's defense that she, not Blackwell, had brought the guns into the hotel room. These warnings, in our view, reflected a serious misunderstanding of Fed.R.Crim.P. 11 on the part of the trial judge. 57 On the first day of Blackwell's trial, Robinson pled guilty to possession of marijuana in return for the dismissal of a gun possession charge. Immediately after the trial judge accepted the plea, Blackwell's attorney indicated that he was going to call Robinson to testify in Blackwell's behalf. At that time, the prosecutor stated that Robinson had a fifth amendment privilege not to testify because the charges are still pending, implying that she could still be prosecuted on the charge scheduled to be dismissed in the plea. Blackwell's counsel did not object to the accuracy of the prosecution's remarks on the status of the gun charge. 58 The next day Robinson's attorney informed the court that Robinson planned to waive her fifth amendment privilege and testify for the defense. The judge then questioned Robinson, informing her that 59 I just wanted to be sure that you understand that, first of all, you have an absolute right not to testify in this case, as you know; you have a right to testify. 60 You have been subpoenaed and you have a Fifth Amendment right, because you haven't been sentenced yet and you still have your charges hanging over your head. 61 The only understanding was that they would be dismissed at the time of sentence. 62 Now, it would work against you, as I am sure you understand.... 63 Tr. at 129-30 (emphasis added). 64 The judge reiterated this point several times during Blackwell's trial. When the prosecutor asked Robinson, who was called to the stand at the request of the judge, whether she would claim possession of the weapons if she testified, the trial judge sustained defense counsel's objection to the question, commenting that if she were going to testify that the guns were hers, she would lay herself open to the case not being dismissed against her. Tr. at 133. At another point in the trial, the judge indicated her concern that Robinson would be in the incriminating situation of bringing the guns into the District of Columbia herself, Tr. at 226, and remarked that if she testified as defense counsel proffered, [w]e obviously couldn't allow [the weapons charge] to be dismissed. Tr. at 228. The judge also informed Robinson personally that if she testified that she possessed the guns in the District of Columbia, she could be found guilty of the gun charges. Tr. at 261. At no time did Blackwell's counsel indicate disagreement with or object to the judge's warnings concerning the gun charge. 65 Near the end of the trial, however, Blackwell's attorney mentioned to the court Blackwell's concern that if Robinson testified she would be prosecuted. The court answered, She will. There is no doubt about it. Tr. at 263. Immediately thereafter, Blackwell withdrew his subpoena for Robinson, stating under oath that he was doing so because if she testified she could still be prosecuted on the original gun charge and because it was at least conceivable that she might also invite prosecution for violations of Virginia law for transporting weapons into the District of Columbia. 66 Our reading of Fed.R.Crim.P. 11 persuades us that both the judge and the prosecutor were bound by the plea agreement accepted by the court on the first day of the trial. Neither had the power to renege on the agreement as to dismissal of the gun charge. 13 67 As far as the prosecutor is concerned, it is no longer open to question that when a plea rests in any significant degree on a promise or agreement of the prosecutor, so that it can be said to be part of the inducement or consideration, such promise must be fulfilled. Santobello v. New York, 404 U.S. 257, 262, 92 S.Ct. 495, 499, 30 L.Ed.2d 427 (1971). As this court recently stated in United States v. Pardo, 636 F.2d 535, 543 (D.C.Cir.1980), promises to dismiss charges as part of a plea agreement are binding on the Government. As a result, a witness may not be exposed to prosecution on [the dismissed] charges. Id. Thus, in this case the government could not have refused to keep its promise to dismiss the gun charge simply because Robinson subsequently testified in Blackwell's defense. 14 Consequently, it was misleading for the prosecutor even to suggest that this might occur. 15 68 Robinson's plea to the drug charge was expressly based on the government's promise to dismiss the gun charge at the time of sentencing. Once she accepted that plea on the record, we believe that the trial judge was also without authority to vacate the plea and order reinstatement of the gun charge. Although, as pointed out in Santobello, 404 U.S. at 262, 92 S.Ct. at 499, there is no absolute right to have a guilty plea accepted, and [a] court may reject a plea in exercise of sound judicial discretion, once a judge has accepted a plea and bound the defendant to it, she cannot, except possibly for fraud, refuse to carry through on the bargain. Even if the trial judge at the time the plea was offered might have questioned Robinson about her intentions to testify in favor of Blackwell, and even if she might have refused to accept the plea if Robinson had indicated that she would so testify, once the plea was accepted the judge no longer had discretion to repudiate the agreement because of Robinson's subsequent testimony. 69 We base this conclusion on the straightforward language of Fed.R.Crim.P. 11, which states that the judge shall indicate on the record at the time a plea is offered whether she will accept it, reject it, or defer the decision. See Rule 11(e)(2); 8 Moore's Federal Practice p 11.05 at 11-90. In addition, Fed.R.Crim.P. 11(e)(3) makes it mandatory, if the trial judge accepts a plea agreement, that she tell the defendant that she will incorporate in the judgment and sentence the disposition provided for in the plea agreement. This serves the purpose of informing the defendant immediately that the agreement will be implemented. 16 Fed.R.Crim.P. 11 advisory committee note, 1974 amendment (emphasis added). 70 There is no dispute that the trial judge here accepted the guilty plea and that its bargained-for predicate, the dismissal of the gun charge at the time of sentencing, was set out on the record and accepted by her as well. Indeed, the trial judge expressly warned Robinson when she accepted her plea that in the event that you should want to withdraw this plea before the imposition of sentence, the Court would tell you that because we are ready to proceed to trial right now, you would not be permitted to do that either. Transcript of plea at 3-4. The plea and the bargain were sealed at that point, 17 and we know of no authority for the judge, short of evidence of fraud, 18 to change her mind as to the wisdom of the bargain and refuse to enforce it. 19 71 Indeed, Rule 11's requirement that the judge make a definite announcement of acceptance, rejection, or deferral of her decision about a plea bargain is indispensible to a criminal justice system so heavily dependent on plea bargaining. See Santobello v. New York, 404 U.S. at 260, 92 S.Ct. at 498 (plea bargaining is an essential component of the administration of justice). Pleas that bind only the defendant, or even the prosecutor and the defendant, but not the judge, would be unfair to the defendant and would dilute the incentive for defendants to plead at all. If compliance with the terms of a plea bargain were to be dependent on some implied but unannounced conditions of good behavior between the acceptance of the plea and the imposition of the sentence, the advantages to the defendant of pleading guilty would be substantially reduced. Rule 11 appears to speak unequivocally; if the plea is accepted, the judge does not announce any deferral of that acceptance, and the defendant adheres to the terms of the bargain, all parties to it are bound. Although the rule does permit deferral of the decision to accept or reject the plea, usually for the purpose of viewing the presentence report, the mere postponement of the sentencing itself to a future date does not authorize the judge to remake or vacate the plea bargain for whatever reasons later seem appropriate to her. 72 The judge's faithful observance of the requirements of Rule 11 is just as vital to the fairness and efficiency of the process as the prosecutor's compliance. She has a primary duty under that rule to insure not only that the terms of the bargain are understood by the defendant but that they are adhered to by both sides, as well as by the court itself. That, we believe, is the purpose of Rule 11's insistence that there be a public record of the terms of plea bargains. 20 73 In this case, perhaps inadvertently but nonetheless certainly, the trial judge misled both Robinson and Blackwell by stating that the gun charge to be dismissed as part of Robinson's plea agreement could still be prosecuted. This information, moreover, had a definite potential for infringing Blackwell's sixth amendment right to present witnesses in his own defense. Since counsel failed to raise the proper objection at trial to the warnings of reinstatement, 21 however, we must now decide whether the error was evident enough and the resultant prejudice to Blackwell attributable to the warnings grave enough to constitute plain error requiring reversal of Blackwell's conviction. Although the question is a close one, we conclude that the error was not plain, and therefore affirm the conviction. 22 74
75 Fed.R.Crim.P. 52 recognizes three classes of errors, two explicitly and one implicitly: first, errors that do not prejudice the defendant are considered harmless and disregarded on appeal, whether or not objected to at trial; second, errors that may have been prejudicial and were objected to at trial are deemed reversible; and third, errors that are so fundamental a violation of the defendant's rights that they require reversal regardless of the defendant's failure to object to them at trial are termed plain. 3A C. Wright, Federal Practice and Procedure: Criminal 2d Sec. 851 (1982). Rule 52(b) allows appellate courts to correct [p]lain errors or defects affecting substantial rights although they were not brought to the attention of the trial court. See United States v. Frady, 456 U.S. 152, 163, 102 S.Ct. 1584, 1592, 71 L.Ed.2d 816 (1982); United States v. Alston, 551 F.2d 315, 320-21 (D.C.Cir.1976); United States v. Williams, 463 F.2d 958, 962 (D.C.Cir.1972); United States v. McClain, 440 F.2d 241, 245 (D.C.Cir.1971). 76 Although a cursory reading of the rule would seem to require only that the unobjected-to error be a plain one (i.e., so obvious that the judge should have recognized it on her own) or that it affect substantial rights (i.e., that it not be harmless), the case law on which the rule rests requires much more. According to the Supreme Court's latest pronouncement, the plain error rule is to be used sparingly and only in those circumstances in which a miscarriage of justice would otherwise result. United States v. Frady, 456 U.S. at 163 n. 14, 102 S.Ct. at 1592 n. 14. From that we surmise that neglected error must rise to a level far above that required to survive Rule 52(a)'s ban against reversals for harmless error. 23 77 On the basis of a careful weighing of the factors discussed below, we find that the error in this case, while probably reversible if objected to at trial, does not rise to the level of error so obvious and substantial or so serious and manifest, 3A C. Wright, Federal Practice and Procedure: Criminal 2d Sec. 856 at 336, that it affects the very integrity of the trial process, and requires reversal of Blackwell's conviction. We do not find this to be a situation where a defendant is convicted in a way inconsistent with the fairness and integrity of judicial proceedings, [and where] the courts should invoke the plain error rule in order to protect their own public reputation. Id. at 341; United States v. Atkinson, 297 U.S. 157, 56 S.Ct. 391, 80 L.Ed. 555 (1936). 78
79 Rule 52(a) mandates that errors at trial that do not affect substantial rights of the defendant are insufficient to reverse a criminal conviction on appeal. Although the Supreme Court has held that some constitutional rights are so basic to a fair trial that their infraction can never be treated as harmless error ..., Chapman v. California, 386 U.S. 18, 23, 87 S.Ct. 824, 827, 17 L.Ed.2d 705 (1967), and four circuits have held that intimidation of defense witnesses requires reversal without a showing of prejudice, see United States v. Hammond, 598 F.2d at 1013; United States v. Morrison, 535 F.2d at 228; United States v. Thomas, 488 F.2d at 336; Bray v. Peyton, 429 F.2d 500, 501 (4th Cir.1970) (per curiam); see also United States v. MacCloskey, 682 F.2d at 479; Berg v. Morris, 483 F.Supp. at 186-87, more recently the Court has stated that interests protected by the Sixth Amendment look to the degree of prejudice incurred by a defendant as a result of governmental action or inaction. United States v. Valenzuela-Bernal, --- U.S. ----, 102 S.Ct. 3440, 3448, 73 L.Ed.2d 1193 (1982). 80 On the basis of the trial record in this case, we cannot decide that it could have made no significant difference to the jury if Robinson had testified along the lines suggested in the proffer. See id. at 3447 (defendant must show testimony of deported witness would have been both material and favorable to his defense). Although the testimony of Williams, Blackwell's only defense witness other than himself, paralleled the proffer for Robinson, the significance of Robinson's nonappearance could not have been lost on the jury. Robinson was Blackwell's common-law wife and the person in whose name the hotel room where the guns were found was rented. The fact that she did not take the stand to corroborate or supplement Williams' testimony as to how the guns came to be found in the Pitts Hotel room or to testify whether Blackwell knew they were there could have been a fatal gap in his defense. Robinson was the only logical person other than Blackwell who might have known the circumstances of the guns' presence in the room and the extent of Blackwell's knowledge of their presence. Indeed, Robinson allegedly told Blackwell's attorney, who then informed the court, that there was absolutely no way in the world Mr. Blackwell knew that those guns were in the apartment. Tr. at 262. Robinson kept knowledge of her possession of the guns from Blackwell, his attorney stated, because she knew he had a prior record and because she did not want Blackwell to know she had been in Virginia with Williams. 81 Since the test for prejudice in cases of this type is whether the missing evidence might likely have substantially affected the outcome of the trial, see United States v. Bass, 535 F.2d 110 (D.C.Cir.1976); Rule 52(b), we assess the substantiality of the right affected as militating in favor of finding plain error in this case. 82
83 As we have pointed out, the error in interpreting Rule 11 was one not previously ruled upon by this court. Indeed, none of the participants at trial--prosecutor, defense counsel, or trial judge--appears to have been aware it was an error. Thus, this is not the case of an obvious error which went unobjected-to in the heat of trial. 84 A key reason for requiring that an error be objected to if it is to be noticed on appeal is so that a trial court will have a fair and prompt opportunity to cure or prevent the original error, or at least any recurrences. That principle is especially appropriate here, since the misinformation was conveyed on several occasions during trial; an objection the first time might have focused attention on the issue and allowed the judge to retract her warnings, thereby curing any potential harm to Blackwell. Also, if the defendant had objected, the prosecutor might possibly have been able to produce evidence to justify reinstatement of the charges under a fraud exception to Rule 11. If, as we discern the situation here, no objection was made because defense counsel labored under the same misapprehension about the judge's power to reinstate the gun charge as the judge herself did, that too militates against labelling the error as one that implicates the fairness and integrity of judicial proceedings or represents a miscarriage of justice. We must be very confident before applying the plain error doctrine to issues of first impression in interpreting the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, unless the rule in question incorporates a well-established constitutional or legal principle. Since Rule 11 was designed to set up a new uniform structure for the acceptance of guilty pleas, where there had been none before, its correct interpretation and application may require some trial and error. In sum, the lack of prior precedent in the circuit and the novelty of the issue presented militate against calling the judge's mistake plain error. 85
86 Finally, the clear causal connection between the misinformation conveyed by the judge's and prosecutor's remarks and the failure of Robinson to testify is weak; thus, we cannot be sure that the Rule 11 violation infringed Blackwell's constitutional right. This concern tilts our decision against a finding of plain error in this case. As the government points out, Blackwell himself abandoned the right to call Robinson to the witness stand. 87 This circumstance serves to distinguish the case from the usual one in which the witness succumbs to intimidation by the trial judge or the prosecutor and refuses to testify. See, e.g., Webb v. Texas, 409 U.S. 95, 93 S.Ct. 351, 34 L.Ed.2d 330; United States v. Simmons, 670 F.2d 365; United States v. Smith, 478 F.2d 976; United States v. MacCloskey, 682 F.2d 468; United States v. Hammond, 598 F.2d 1008; United States v. Thomas, 488 F.2d 334; Berg v. Morris, 483 F.Supp. 179. While we would be reluctant to rule that the same constitutional protections that apply against prosecutorial and judicial acts that directly intimidate a defense witness have no application to acts that motivate a defendant to refuse to expose a particular witness to risk, especially one with whom he has an intimate family relationship, the peculiar circumstances surrounding Robinson's failure to be called to the stand make us reluctant to reverse the conviction because she did not testify. 88 We all recognize a potential for abuse if a defendant is allowed to forego calling a key witness solely on his assertion that he is protecting her welfare. It is always possible that the defendant is really refraining from calling a witness because the testimony might not be favorable to him or because the witness intended to raise the privilege on grounds other than the mistaken fear that the charges in a plea bargain could be reinstated. In this case, all we know is that the defendant took the stand immediately after the trial judge's warnings to the witness and testified he would not call her, although he had previously intended to, because of the threat of renewed prosecution on the gun charge and of possible prosecution on a state gun charge. The witness, on the other hand, had only minutes before stated her continued intention to testify. In short, we have no way of knowing what would have actually happened if Blackwell had called Robinson as a defense witness. We have obvious concerns about allowing a defendant to decide for himself when legal risks to another person will suffice to permit him to waive his constitutional right to a defense witness and still assign it as plain error on appeal. Where, as here, the witness herself never refuses to testify, the nexus between the error and the loss of her testimony to the defendant is inevitably attenuated and the substantiality of the harm attributable to the error less than manifest. 24 While on balance, if it had been objected to at trial, we might have concluded that the misinformation constituted harmful and reversible error, under this scenario we cannot find that it meets the significantly higher standard required for plain error. 89 In sum, the error was plain to no one at trial and had not been ruled on previously by this court; it also involved the interpretation of a relatively recent federal rule, rather than a well-established constitutional or common law right. More important, however, is the lack of a direct nexus between the judge's and prosecutor's remarks and Blackwell's loss of Robinson's testimony. On balance, despite the violation of Rule 11 and the sixth amendment interest implicated, we find no plain error sufficient to require reversal of the conviction. 90 Affirmed. 91