Opinion ID: 497997
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Voluntariness of the October 21, 1986 Admission

Text: 21 The government argues that the district court improperly relied on its personal experience in concluding that the October 21, 1986 admission was not voluntary rather than on the evidence in the record. The government claims that the facts in Degnan's declaration concerning Lewis' condition at the time of the two minute conversation on October 21, 1986 demonstrate that her statements were voluntary. We agree. 22 The court accepted as true Degnan's sworn statement that Lewis said she was feeling O.K. The evidence shows that Lewis was alert and her answers to the agent's questions were responsive. She was able to recall past events accurately including the inability of Special Agent Fujita to run as fast as she can. All contradictory statements in Lewis' declaration were rejected by the court as untrue. Degnan's declaration shows that her responses were made knowingly and voluntarily. 23 There was no evidence in Degnan's declaration that would support an inference that Lewis was withdrawing from heroin addiction on October 21, 1986 or what effect such condition would have on her ability to act voluntarily. There is no evidence in the record showing when she last injected or ingested any narcotic substance. There is no evidence in the record that a person is not accountable for what he or she says for several hours after receiving a general anesthetic. 24 In making his oral findings, the trial judge candidly acknowledged that his determination of the issue of voluntariness was influenced by his personal experience and what other people told him about his own behavior after surgery as the result of receiving a general anesthetic. 25 We begin our discussion of the applicable law with the statement of an obvious principle. The trial judge in this matter was not a competent witness to Lewis' condition. The judge presiding at the trial may not testify in that trial as a witness. No objection need be made in order to preserve the point. Fed.R.Evid. 605. 26 Furthermore, Rule 602 of the Federal Rules of Evidence prohibits a witness from testifying unless evidence is introduced sufficient to support a finding that the witness has personal knowledge of the matter. No evidence was presented that the trial judge has personal knowledge of Lewis' actual condition at the time she spoke to the agents on October 21, 1986. Thus, had the trial judge been sworn as a witness to testify to the effect of a general anesthetic on Lewis' ability to make a knowing and voluntary statement, his testimony would have been incompetent because of his role as presiding judge in this matter and his lack of percipiency. 27 Lewis contends for the first time on appeal that the trial judge properly relied on his personal experience based on the court's power to take judicial notice of adjudicative facts under Rule 201 of the Federal Rules of Evidence. This argument is unpersuasive. 28 A trial judge is prohibited from relying on his personal experience to support the taking of judicial notice. It is therefore plainly accepted that the judge is not to use from the bench, under the guise of judicial knowledge, that which he knows only as an individual observer outside of court. 9 J. Wigmore, Evidence in Trials at Common Law Sec. 2569, at 723 (J. Chabourn rev. ed. 1981) (emphasis in original). 29 In relying on his personal knowledge the trial judge did not advise the parties he was taking judicial notice of Lewis' condition at the time she spoke to the agents on October 21, 1986. Furthermore, the trial judge did not rely on facts generally known within the territorial jurisdiction of the trial court or ... capable of accurate and ready determination by resort to sources whose accuracy cannot reasonably be questioned. Fed.R.Evid. 201(b). Instead, he looked solely to his own reaction to an anesthetic. The record is silent concerning the nature of his illness, the surgical procedure performed upon the trial judge, the type and amount of anesthetic administered to him, or its general effect on a patient. Announcement on the record of the fact that a court is taking judicial notice is necessary to accord a party the opportunity to be heard as to the propriety of taking judicial notice and the tenor of the matter noticed. Fed.R.Evid. 201(e). 30 Lewis relies on Bey v. Bolger, 540 F.Supp. 910 (E.D.Pa.1982) for the proposition that [c]ourts have also taken judicial notice of commonly known health facts. In Bey, the district court took judicial notice in a written memorandum setting forth the basis for its ruling in cross motions for partial summary judgment that a person suffering hypertension is susceptible to stroke, heart attack or other physical ailment. Thus, in Bey, the parties were given an opportunity to ask the court to reconsider the propriety of taking judicial notice of the effect of hypertension. Furthermore, the trial judge in Bey did not indicate to the parties that he was relying on his personal experience with hypertension. 31 The trial judge's reliance in the instant matter on facts known to him from his personal experience, denied the government the opportunity to test the basis for the court's opinion concerning the effect of an anesthetic on a person's freedom of choice through the usual methods that assure trustworthiness in our adversarial system of justice. The prosecutor was denied the opportunity to contrast the nature of the illness or injury suffered by the judge with Lewis' abscessed shoulder, the amount of anesthesia administered to each, or the actual statements made by the judge which others characterized as incredible with the responses made by the defendant in this matter. Lewis' statements on October 21, 1986 were not incredible nor unresponsive. Instead, her answers demonstrated her capacity to understand what was said to her and to respond truthfully. 32 Our independent review of the record has convinced us that Lewis' October 21, 1986 statement was voluntary. The district court was correct in finding that the agents' conduct was not coercive. The district court erred, however, in concluding, based on his personal knowledge of the effect of an anesthetic upon him, that Lewis was not in a position to make a voluntary and knowing statement at the time of her brief conversation with the agents on October 21, 1986. There is no evidence in the record to support the court's finding that this statement was obtained by trickery or deceit. No ruse or false representation was employed by the agents. The questions asked by the agents concerning whether she would come clean, and how many banks were involved, were straight forward and clear in their objective. 33