Opinion ID: 3013361
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Violation of Confrontation Clause

Text: Zemba claims that his Sixth Amendment Confrontation Clause right was violated when the District Court did not allow him to impeach Beaken’s credibility with her ARD status. Under the Confrontation Clause, a defendant has a right to “engag[e] in otherwise appropriate cross-examination designed to show a prototypical form of bias on the part of the witness.” Delaware v. Van Arsdall, 475 U.S. 673, 680 (1986). Zemba asserts that because Beaken’s ARD was still pending, she had a reason to cooperate with the Government to ensure that the charge was dismissed and that this incentive to cooperate is a form of bias that should have been put before the jury. Her ARD status gave her an incentive to cooperate for the following reason: Beaken’s cooperation would ensure that she was not charged in connection with the shooting incident. Because her time under ARD had already been extended for a technical violation, were she to be charged for her involvement in the shooting incident (it was, after all, her gun), she could be tried on the charge underlying the ARD. We find that while the District Court may have erred by not allowing Beaken’s credibility to be impeached with her ARD status, any error was harmless. 6 A. Right to Cross-Examination Cross-examination directed to revealing a witness’s possible biases, prejudices, and ulterior motives is subject to exploration at trial, and is “always relevant as discrediting the witness and affecting the weight of his testimony.” Davis v. Alaska, 415 U.S. 308, 316 (1974). In Davis, the trial court granted the prosecution a protective order to prevent the defense from cross-examining a witness about the witness’s probation by order of a juvenile court. Id. at 310-11. In opposing the protective order, defense counsel in Davis made it clear that he sought to introduce the witness’s probationary status in order to argue that “[he] acted out of fear or concern of possible jeopardy to his probation . . . [and] might have been subject to undue pressure from the police and made his identifications [of the suspect] under fear of possible probation revocation . . . [and that the witness’s] record would be revealed only as necessary to probe [him] for bias and prejudice and not generally to call [his] good character into question.” Id. at 311. Although the Supreme Court acknowledged “the state’s policy interest in protecting the confidentiality of a juvenile offender’s record,” the Court overturned Davis’s conviction and remanded for a new trial, finding that this interest was “outweighed by petitioner’s right to probe into the influence of possible bias in the testimony of a crucial identification witness.” Id. at 319-20. Beaken was one of only two witnesses connecting Zemba to the crime and as such she was a “crucial identification witness.” The purpose of affording a right to crossexamine on bias is to provide a way in which the defense can “afford the jury a basis to 7 infer that the witness’ character is such that he would be less likely than the average trustworthy citizen to be truthful in his testimony.” Id. at 316. As stated by the Supreme Court, “[w]e cannot speculate as to whether the jury would have accepted this line of reasoning [that the witness was biased because of his probationary status] had counsel been permitted to fully present it. But we do conclude that the jurors were entitled to have the benefit of the defense theory before them.” Id. at 317; see also U.S. v. Landerman, 109 F.3d 1053, 1062 (5th Cir. 1997) (“[T]he jury, as finder of fact, should have been allowed to draw its own inferences regarding [the witness’s] credibility and determine what effect, if any, the pending criminal charge had on [his] motivation to testify.”). Here, Zemba’s jury was entitled to have the fact of Beaken’s ARD status before them, and to have the opportunity to draw their own conclusions regarding her credibility. The Government argues that because Zemba did not request an opportunity to cross-examine Beaken, but rather requested that the jury be told of Beaken’s ARD status, the reasoning of Davis does not apply. While it is true that in Davis the Court focused on the right to cross-examination, the reason for allowing that cross-examination was the Court’s conclusion that “the jurors were entitled to have the benefit of the defense theory before them.” Davis, 415 U.S. at 317. Here we do not have a situation where the defense did not attempt to cross-examine the witness and later tried to have the evidence put before the jury. Rather, in our case the defense’s attempt to cross-examine the witness was foreclosed by a misrepresentation (apparently inadvertent) by the Government. 8 When the defense learned the truth, counsel attempted to rectify the mistake by having the evidence put before the jury. In these circumstances, we think that the reasoning of the Court in Davis appears to apply and that the jury was therefore entitled to have the benefit of the defense theory before them. The District Court concluded that Zemba could not tell the jury about Beaken’s pending ARD because “there’s no evidence that she’s been promised anything by the Government.” The fact that Zemba lacked evidence of explicit government promises of leniency does not mean that he should have been denied the right to introduce evidence relevant to Beaken’s potential bias. See, e.g., U.S. v. Anderson, 881 F.2d 1128, 1138 (D.C. Cir. 1989) (concluding that “[t]he permissible scope of exploration on crossexamination is not curtailed by the absence of promises for leniency, for the defense may attempt to show government conduct which might have led a witness to believe that his prospects for lenient treatment by the government depended on the degree of his cooperation”); Landerman, 109 F.3d at 1063 (noting that the “right of cross-examination is so important that the defendant is allowed to ‘search’ for a deal between the government and the witness, even if there is no hard evidence that such a deal exists. What tells, of course, is not the actual existence of a deal but the witness’ subjective belief or disbelief that a deal exists.”) (internal citations omitted); U.S. v. Alexius, 76 F.3d 642, 646 (5th Cir. 1996) (finding 6th Amendment violation where the district court refused to allow defendant to cross-examine witness on subject of pending federal and state drug charges, even though witness testified, outside of presence of jury, that he had 9 received no promise of leniency from the government and no specific hope for leniency).3 We do not agree with the Fifth Circuit that no cross-examination need be permitted if a pending charge is a misdemeanor. Landerman, 109 F.3d at 1063 n.15 (distinguishing case disallowing cross-examination on ground that pending charge in prior case was misdemeanor); see also Alexius, 76 F.3d at 646 (“Because the penalties for felonies are greater than those for misdemeanors, a witness is more likely to attempt to curry favor with prosecutors if he is facing felony charges than if he is facing misdemeanor charges.”). At the core of this distinction between felonies and misdemeanors is the severity of punishment faced by the witness. Here Beaken’s misdemeanor exposed her to a potential two-year imprisonment. While this punishment does not approach the severity of the potential life sentence faced by the witness in Landerman, 109 F.3d at 1063, there is no requirement that pending charges be for severe crimes with life sentences. Indeed, in Davis, the witness was on probation for a crime he committed as a juvenile. 415 U.S. at 311. Thus, to our view, Beaken was exposed to punishment sufficiently severe to suggest that her testimony might be biased in the Government’s favor. B. Harmlessness 3 In U.S. v. Casoni, 950 F.2d 893, 918-19 (3d Cir. 1992), we concluded that the District Court’s decision to restrict cross-examination into the pending investigation of a witness’s alleged drug use did not result in an unfair trial. Unlike Beaken, the witness in Casoni was cross-examined concerning his prior relationship with federal and state prosecutors, and at the time of the trial, the witness was merely subject to an investigation, and was not on probation or subject to a pending criminal charge, as was Beaken. Id. at 918-19. 10 While the District Court may have erred in concluding that the jury could not be informed of Beaken’s pending ARD, that error was harmless. The Constitution entitles a criminal defendant to a fair trial, not a perfect one. Van Arsdall, 475 U.S. at 680. In Van Arsdall, the Supreme Court held that even where a defendant’s Sixth Amendment Confrontation Clause right is violated by an improper restriction of the cross-examination of a witness for bias, a court must consider whether that error was harmless in the context of the trial as a whole. Id. at 674. Violations of this right do not fit within the limited category of constitutional errors that are deemed prejudicial in every case. Id. at 681. The correct standard for the harmlessness inquiry is “whether, assuming that the damaging potential of the cross-examination [was] fully realized, a reviewing court might nonetheless say that the error was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt.” Id. at 684. Factors to be considered 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.” Id. In this case, two witnesses directly connected Zemba to the crime--Beaken and Waldron. Waldron testified that on two occasions he heard Zemba mention his involvement in the shooting. On one of those occasions, he testified, Beaken was in their presence and confirmed Zemba’s involvement to Waldron at Zemba’s request. As already noted, Beaken testified that on October 22, 1997, Zemba removed her .22 caliber Colt from his waistband and fired shots at District Justice Bilik’s office. 11 Several factors weigh in favor of the conclusion that the District Court’s error was not harmless. There is no question that Beaken’s testimony was very important to the prosecution’s case. Beaken’s testimony cannot be said to have been cumulative, as she was the only eyewitness to testify that Zemba fired her gun into the offices of District Justice Bilik. Finally, Miller, the other occupant of Beaken’s car on that day, denied that the incident ever took place. We are persuaded by the other factors, which weigh more heavily in favor of the conclusion that the District Court’s error was harmless. Beaken’s testimony was corroborated in part by Waldron’s testimony, particularly her account of the time when, in her presence, Zemba allegedly told Waldron that he had fired the shots.4 The crossexamination of Beaken was extensive, and the District Court did allow Zemba to broach with Beaken the subject of the charge for hindering apprehension of a suspect that led to her ARD status, albeit not extensively and without allowing him to bring out her probationary status itself.5 Finally, and most importantly, Zemba was able to introduce 4 It should also be noted that one of the defense’s theories, the subject of the second issue presented in this appeal, is that this corroboration of Waldron’s testimony by Beaken occurred because Waldron and Beaken had been involved in a sexual relationship, a relationship which both Beaken and Waldron denied at the trial, and upon which defense counsel was ultimately prevented from presenting evidence. 5 The District Court told Zemba that “you can ask her if she lied on a particular instant.” Beaken was cross-examined about the facts underlying the charge for hindering apprehension of a suspect as follows: Q: Now, on January 6 of 2000 some police officers came to your door and were looking for a Mr. Curtz, do you remember that? 12 the fact that at a pretrial hearing Beaken had admitted that she was told by the prosecution that she would not be prosecuted for her role in the shooting incident. On this basis, defense counsel was able to argue to the jury that “[Beaken] is getting something for not rocking the boat, not changing the story that’s been given to the police. It is the safest thing for her to do–or else Waldron asked her.” This last fact convinces us that the error was harmless. The jury was given an opportunity to consider Beaken’s testimony in light of the defense theory that she had made a deal with the Government not to be prosecuted in exchange for her testimony. Assuming that the fact of Beaken’s ARD status had been admitted, the conclusion that reasonable jurors could have reached was that Beaken distorted her testimony in favor of the prosecution--precisely the same conclusion that they could have reached on the basis of the evidence actually presented to them that she was not charged for her role in the shooting incident. We conclude, therefore, that while the District Court may have violated Zemba’s Sixth Amendment right by not allowing the fact of the ARD to be presented to the jury, A: Yes. Q: And you told him he wasn’t there, didn’t you? A: Yes. Q: In fact, he was there, wasn’t he? A: No. Q: Where was he? Court: That is irrelevant, where he was. Q: You say he wasn’t in your house at all? Court: She already answered that; he was not there. 13 that error was harmless.