Opinion ID: 198362
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Allen Franklin's Testimony About Gaines's Defense Counsel

Text: 103 Gaines asserts that the district court committed reversible error in permitting Allen Franklin to testify that Franklin had been represented in defending against a 1995 drug charge by Michael Cioffi, one of Gaines's lawyers in the present case, and that Gaines was the person who had referred Cioffi to Franklin. According to Gaines, this testimony was unduly prejudicial in that it gave the jury an impression that Gaines had associated himself with a drug lawyer. 104 In our view, Gaines's defense--that he barely knew Franklin and was unaware of Franklin's involvement with drugs--made Gaines's referral of an attorney to Franklin to defend him against a drug-related charge highly relevant. The government had a right to present evidence that such a referral had been made. However, the actual identity of the lawyer referred by Gaines was irrelevant for this purpose. Testimony that the attorney in question was Mr. Cioffi, Gaines's trial counsel, needlessly injected Gaines's lawyer into the factual fabric of the case and created the troubling possibility that Gaines's choice of a trial attorney could be used by the jury to draw a negative inference about Gaines's involvement with drugs. Thus viewed, Franklin's testimony that Gaines referred him to Mr. Cioffi has arguable Sixth Amendment right-to-counsel implications. 105 Whether admission of the evidence was not only inappropriate but error is another matter, however. The presentation of this issue at sidebar was not as clear as it should have been. Defense counsel never urged that, if the court found the testimony generally relevant, it at least should exclude the attorney's name. We need not resolve whether the point was adequately preserved, however, because, in the context of the entire case, any error was harmless. The standard for determining harmless error is whether we can say with fair assurance ... that the judgment was not substantially swayed by the error. Vincent v. Louis Marx & Co., Inc., 874 F.2d 36, 41 (1st Cir.1989). There was compelling evidence establishing Gaines as Franklin's supplier of drugs. Moreover, we note that the evidence about Franklin and Mr. Cioffi did not implicate Gaines directly in the criminal activity charged. See United States v. Figueroa, 976 F.2d 1446, 1455 (1st Cir.1992). Given that the government did not refer to this evidence in its argument to the jury, and in light of the strong evidence against Gaines, we are convinced that the error was harmless because it is  'highly probable' that the error did not contribute to the verdict. United States v. Arias-Montoya, 967 F.2d 708, 714 (1st Cir.1992). 106