Opinion ID: 2731
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Confrontation Clause: Forfeiture of the Right

Text: 10 The Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment provides that [i]n all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right . . . to be confronted with the witnesses against him. U.S. Const. amend. VI. Nonetheless, `the law [will not] allow a person to take advantage of his own wrong,' United States v. Mastrangelo, 693 F.2d 269, 272 (2d Cir.1982) ( Mastrangelo ) (quoting Diaz v. United States, 223 U.S. 442, 458, 32 S.Ct. 250, 56 L.Ed. 500 (1912) (other internal quotation marks omitted)) (brackets ours), and it is thus well established, as a matter of [s]imple equity and common sense, that the right to confrontation is forfeited if the defendant has wrongfully procured the witnesses' silence through threats, actual violence or murder, United States v. Dhinsa, 243 F.3d 635, 651 (2d Cir.) ( Dhinsa ) (internal quotation marks omitted), cert. denied, 534 U.S. 897, 122 S.Ct. 219, 151 L.Ed.2d 156 (2001). See, e.g., id. at 652 (`It is hard to imagine a form of misconduct more extreme than the murder of a potential witness.... We have no hesitation in finding, in league with all circuits to have considered the matter, that a defendant who wrongfully procures the absence of a witness or potential witness may not assert confrontation rights as to that witness.' (quoting United States v. White, 116 F.3d 903, 911 (D.C.Cir.), cert. denied, 522 U.S. 960, 118 S.Ct. 390, 139 L.Ed.2d 305 (1997))); United States v. Miller, 116 F.3d 641, 667-68 (2d Cir.1997), cert. denied, 524 U.S. 905, 118 S.Ct. 2063, 141 L.Ed.2d 140 (1998); United States v. Thai, 29 F.3d 785, 814 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, 513 U.S. 977, 115 S.Ct. 456, 130 L.Ed.2d 364 (1994); United States v. Aguiar, 975 F.2d 45, 47 (2d Cir.1992); Mastrangelo, 693 F.2d at 272-73; United States v. Cherry, 217 F.3d 811, 814-15 (10th Cir.2000); Steele v. Taylor, 684 F.2d 1193, 1201-02 (6th Cir.1982), cert. denied, 460 U.S. 1053, 103 S.Ct. 1501, 75 L.Ed.2d 932 (1983); United States v. Carlson, 547 F.2d 1346, 1358-60 (8th Cir.1976), cert. denied, 431 U.S. 914, 97 S.Ct. 2174, 53 L.Ed.2d 224 (1977). See also Crawford v. Washington, 541 U.S. 36, 62, 124 S.Ct. 1354, 158 L.Ed.2d 177 (2004) (the rule of forfeiture by wrongdoing (which we accept) extinguishes confrontation claims on essentially equitable grounds). 11 In 1997, the Federal Rules of Evidence were amended to recognize[] the need for a prophylactic rule to deal with [this type of] abhorrent behavior `which strikes at the heart of the system of justice itself.' Fed.R.Evid. 804 Advisory Committee Note (1997) (quoting Mastrangelo, 693 F.2d at 273). Under the heading Forfeiture by wrongdoing, Rule 804(b)(6) provides that the hearsay rule does not require the exclusion of [a] statement offered against a party that has engaged or acquiesced in wrongdoing that was intended to, and did, procure the unavailability of the declarant as a witness.  Fed.R.Evid. 804(b)(6) (emphasis added). Accordingly, the district court may admit hearsay evidence as to statements by an unavailable declarant if it finds by a preponderance of the evidence, see Fed.R.Evid. 804 Advisory Committee Note (1997); Fed.R.Evid. 104(a), that (a) the party against whom the out-of-court statement is offered[] was involved in, or responsible for, procuring the unavailability of the declarant through knowledge, complicity, planning or in any other way, and (b) that party acted with the intent of procuring the declarant's unavailability as an actual or potential witness, Dhinsa, 243 F.3d at 653-54 (internal quotation marks omitted). 12 In the present case, the district court found that the government had shown by a preponderance of the evidence that Mr. Stewart acted through Mr. Dixon to secure the absence of the witness, Robert Thompson, and that [he did] so with intent to do just that. (Tr. 738.) Stewart challenges these findings. He points out that he was in custody at the time the murder was committed, arguing that there was no direct evidence that [he] commanded or directed that Mr. Dixon shoot the witness. (Stewart brief on appeal at 16.) And he argues that there was no competent evidence, either direct or circumstantial, that [he] acted with the intent required under the second prong of Dhinsa.  ( Id. ) Stewart's challenge is both legally flawed and contradicted by the record. 13 First, the government was not required to show Stewart's involvement in Dixon's murder of Ragga by direct evidence. Both the existence of a conspiracy and a given defendant's participation in it with the requisite knowledge and criminal intent may be established through circumstantial evidence. See, e.g., United States v. Villegas, 899 F.2d 1324, 1338-39 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, 498 U.S. 991, 111 S.Ct. 535, 112 L.Ed.2d 545 (1990); United States v. Tutino, 883 F.2d 1125, 1129 (2d Cir.1989), cert. denied, 493 U.S. 1081, 110 S.Ct. 1139, 107 L.Ed.2d 1044 (1990); United States v. Young, 745 F.2d 733, 762 (2d Cir.1984), cert. denied, 470 U.S. 1084, 105 S.Ct. 1842, 85 L.Ed.2d 142 (1985). Here the record contains ample circumstantial evidence of Stewart's involvement in Ragga's murder, principally in the form of telephone records and testimony from Stewart confidantes. 14 For example, Stewart's cousin Devon Tate testified that after Stewart was arrested in Buffalo, Stewart made a number of telephone calls to Tate from jail. Tate testified, [Stewart] asked me to get in touch with Ragga's mother ... to tell her to have [Ragga] not go to the identification line-up .... (Tr. 433.) Tate passed that message to Ragga's brother Delroy and received a return call from Ragga's mother ( id. at 433-34), who advised Tate not to be involved and said that Ragga would go forward ( id. at 435). Tate testified that he relayed that response to Stewart; Stewart subsequently told [Tate] that [Stewart] was ID-d by Ragga and he's an informer and informer must die. ( Id. ) 15 Susan Sanchez, a girlfriend of Stewart's, testified that while Stewart was in custody, first in Buffalo and then in Brooklyn, she frequently, at Stewart's behest, arranged untraceable three-way calls between Stewart and others. ( See Tr. 921-23.) She arranged such calls between Stewart and Dixon two or three times a week. ( See Tr. 923.) 16 Patio Crew member Horace Burrell, one of the witnesses who described the Crew's rule that [i]nformers must dead (Tr. 312), testified that he witnessed a conversation between Dixon and Ragga's brother Delroy about Ragga after Stewart was arrested. In that conversation, Dixon said that Stewart had called him and instructed him to tell Delroy to tell Ragga that he not supposed to go testify against him. (Tr. 342.) Burrell testified that when Delroy did not agree to relay that message to Ragga, [Dixon] was upset and he was walking away and said tell your brother that if you don't listen to what we say shot will fire. (Tr. 343.) 17 The government also introduced Dixon's cellular telephone records and Stewart's prison telephone records. They showed telephone contacts between Dixon and Stewart in the weeks leading up to the murder and on the day of the murder itself. 18 Thus, before any witnesses were allowed to testify that Ragga told them he had been shot by Stewart, the court heard evidence that Stewart had instructed Dixon and others to try to persuade Ragga not to testify that Stewart was the person who shot him in July 1999, that the Patio Crew's code was that [i]nformer must dead, and that both Stewart and Dixon had sent the message that if Ragga insisted on testifying against Stewart, Ragga would be shot. Accordingly, the district court's ruling that the government had established by a preponderance of the evidence that Stewart acted through Dixon to murder Ragga, and did so with the intent to prevent Ragga from testifying against Stewart, was amply supported by the record. 19 Finally, we note that the forfeiture-by-wrongdoing principle made the testimony as to Ragga's statements admissible at Stewart's trial on the present federal charges even though Stewart's efforts had been focused on preventing Ragga from testifying at a different trial, to wit, Stewart's state trial for assault, rather than the trial in the present federal case (which had not yet been initiated). The text of Rule 804(b)(6) requires only that the defendant intend to render the declarant unavailable `as a witness.' The text does not require that the declarant would otherwise be a witness at any particular trial.... A defendant who wrongfully and intentionally renders a declarant unavailable as a witness in any proceeding forfeits the right to exclude, on hearsay grounds, the declarant's statements at that proceeding and any subsequent proceeding. United States v. Gray, 405 F.3d 227, 241, 242 (4th Cir.) (emphasis in original), cert. denied, ___ U.S. ___, 126 S.Ct. 275, 163 L.Ed.2d 245 (2005). Indeed, the forfeiture principle applies even to 20 situations where there was [no] ongoing proceeding in which the declarant was scheduled to testify. Miller, 116 F.3d at 668; see also [United States v.] Houlihan, 92 F.3d [1271, 1279-80 (1st Cir. 1996) ]. The application of Mastrangelo under these circumstances is both logical and fair since a contrary rule would serve as a prod to the unscrupulous to accelerate the timetable and murder suspected snitches sooner rather than later. Houlihan, 92 F.3d at 1280. 21 Dhinsa, 243 F.3d at 652. A defendant will not be allowed to profit from such wrongdoing. 22 In sum, Stewart, by his involvement in the murder of Ragga, forfeited any right to exclude evidence of out-of-court statements by Ragga that he had previously been shot by Stewart.