Opinion ID: 2968022
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Substitutions proposed by the Government

Text: The Government proposed substitutions for the witnesses’ deposition testimony in the form of a series of statements derived from the [ ] summaries.27 The district court rejected all proposed substitutions as inadequate.28 The ruling of the district court was based on its conclusions regarding the inherent inadequacy of the substitutions and its findings regarding the specific failings of the Government’s proposals. For the reasons set forth below, we reject the ruling of the district court that any substitution for the witnesses’ testimony would be inadequate. We agree, however, with the assessment that the particular proposals submitted by the Government are inadequate in their current form. First, the district court deemed the substitutions inherently inadequate because the [ ] reports, from which the substitutions were ultimately derived, were unreliable.29 This was so, the court rea27 In the case of Witness A, the proposed substitutions were submitted in narrative form rather than as excerpts from the [ ] summaries. The substitutions for Witnesses B and C more closely tracked the language of the [ ] summaries. 28 The court filed a memorandum opinion discussing in detail its reasons for rejecting the proposed substitutions for Witness A’s deposition testimony. The rejection of the Government’s proposed substitutions for the deposition testimony of Witnesses B and C was accomplished by a brief order finding the substitutions inadequate for the reasons stated in its order concerning the proposed substitutions for Witness A’s deposition testimony. 29 The court also deemed the substitutions inadequate because the use of substitutions would deprive Moussaoui of the ability to question witnesses regarding matters that do not appear [ ] in the reports. In essence, the district court appears to have concluded that the substitutions are inadequate because they are not the same thing as a deposition. However, we have already determined that a proposed substitution need not provide Moussaoui with all the benefits of a deposition in order to be adequate. UNITED STATES v. MOUSSAOUI 47 soned, because the witnesses’ [ ] Supp. J.A.C. (03-4162) 271, [ ] The district court also com- plained that it cannot be determined whether the [ ] reports accurately reflect the witnesses’ statements [ ]30 The court further commented that the lack of quotation marks in the [ ] reports made it impossible to determine whether a given statement is a verbatim recording or [ ] Id. at 273. The conclusion of the district court that the proposed substitutions are inherently inadequate is tantamount to a declaration that there could be no adequate substitution for the witnesses’ deposition testimony. We reject this conclusion. The answer to the concerns of the district court regarding the accuracy of the [ ] reports is that those who are [ ] the witnesses have a profound interest in obtaining accurate information from the witnesses and in reporting that information accurately to those who can use it to prevent acts of terrorism and to capture other al Qaeda operatives. These considerations provide sufficient indicia of reliability to alleviate the concerns of the district court. Next, the district court noted that the substitutions do not indicate that they are summaries of statements made over the course of several months. We agree with the district court that in order to adequately protect Moussaoui’s right to a fair trial, the jury must be made aware of certain information concerning the substitutions. The particular content of any instruction to the jury regarding the substitutions lies within the discretion of the district court. See United States v. Wills, 346 F.3d 476, 492 (4th Cir. 2003), cert. denied, 124 S. Ct. 2906 (2004). However, at the very least the jury should be informed that 30 The district court did not complain that the [ ] summaries do not accurately summarize the [ ] reports. At the hearing concerning the Government’s proposed substitutions for Witness A’s testimony, the court commented that it had been impressed with the accuracy of the [ ] summaries. Supp. J.A.C. (03-4162) 175. 48 UNITED STATES v. MOUSSAOUI the substitutions are derived from reports [ ] of the witnesses. The instructions must account for the fact that members of the prosecution team have provided information and suggested [ ] The jury should also be instructed that the statements were obtained under circumstances that support a conclusion that the statements are reliable.31 We reject the suggestion of the district court that the Government acted improperly in attempting to organize the information presented in the substitutions. Counsel rarely, if ever, present information to the jury in the order they received it during pretrial investigations. Indeed, organizing and distilling voluminous information for comprehensible presentation to a jury is a hallmark of effective advocacy. In short, while there may be problems with the manner in which the Government organized the substitutions, the fact that the Government has attempted such organization is not a mark against it. The district court identified particular problems with the proposed substitutions for Witness A’s testimony. For example, the court noted that the proposed substitutions failed to include exculpatory information provided by Witness A and incorporated at least one incriminatory inference not supplied by Witness A’s statements.[ ] Our own 31 Nothing in the Government’s submission in connection with the Petition contradicts our conclusion that those [ ] the witnesses have a profound interest in obtaining truthful information. To the contrary, we are even more persuaded that the [ ] process is carefully designed to elicit truthful and accurate information from the witnesses. We emphasize that we have never held, nor do we now hold, that the witnesses’ statements are in fact truthful, and the jury should not be so instructed. Instead, the jury should be informed that the circumstances were designed to elicit truthful statements from the witnesses. We offer no opinion regarding whether this instruction may include information regarding [ ] [ UNITED STATES v. MOUSSAOUI 49 review of the proposed substitutions for the testimony of Witnesses B and C reveals similar problems.[ ] These problems, however, may be remedied as described below.