Opinion ID: 14713
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Government’s Provision of

Text: Inducements to Its Witnesses Garcia Abrego contends that the government’s extensive use of incentives such as motions for downward departure pursuant to § 5K1.1 of the Sentencing Guidelines, Rule 35 reductions in sentence, immigration permits, cash payments, and grants of 11 immunity from prosecution to motivate many government witnesses to testify denied him his constitutional right to due process. He argues that, because he was denied the opportunity to offer similar incentives to obtain testimony, the adversarial process was skewed to an exceptional degree in the government’s favor and that his constitutional right to due process was thereby violated. Garcia Abrego’s claim lacks merit. This court has observed that “[n]o practice is more ingrained in our criminal justice system than the practice of the government calling a witness who is an accessory to the crime for which the defendant is charged and having that witness testify under a plea bargain that promises him a reduced sentence.” United States v. Cervantes-Pacheco, 826 F.2d 310, 315 (5th Cir. 1987) (en banc). We have also noted that a witness who receives financial compensation in exchange for testimony has less of an incentive to testify falsely than a witness who testifies in exchange for a reduced sentence. See id. Accordingly, “[a]s in the case of the witness who has been promised a reduced sentence, it is up to the jury to evaluate the credibility of the compensated witness.” See id. at 315.1 1 Garcia Abrego urges us to “reconsider” our decision in Cervantes-Pacheco. However, in the absence of any intervening Supreme Court or en banc circuit authority that conflicts with Cervantes-Pacheco--and Garcia Abrego has pointed to none--we are bound by our decision in that case. “It has long been a rule of this court that no panel of this circuit can overrule a decision previously made by another.” Ryals v. Estelle, 661 F.2d 904, 906 (5th Cir. Nov. 1981). This principle applies a fortiori here because Cervantes-Pacheco is an en banc decision. 12 We have acknowledged that the government must observe certain procedural safeguards when it intends to offer testimony of a witness receiving some sort of compensation for his testimony. See United States v. Bermea, 30 F.3d 1539, 1552 (5th Cir. 1994). Specifically, these safeguards include the following: The government must not use or encourage the use of perjured testimony; the government must completely and timely disclose the fee arrangement to the accused in accordance with Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83, 83 S. Ct. 1194, 10 L. Ed. 2d 215 (1963); the accused must be given an adequate opportunity to cross-examine the informant and government agents about any agreement to compensate the witness; and the trial court should give a special jury instruction pointing out the suspect credibility of paid witnesses. Id. Garcia Abrego does not contend that the government or the district court failed to comply with any of the above safeguards. Garcia Abrego contends that he does not seek to resurrect any per se barrier to the admissibility of testimony by witnesses compensated by the government. Rather, he contends that “‘due process’, fundamental fairness and an accused’s meaningful right to some parity in the compulsory process of witnesses will [not] tolerate a system that permits only one side of the adversary process to utilize . . . non-reciprocal incentives to entice witnesses.” This court rejected a virtually identical argument in United States v. Thevis, 665 F.2d 616 (5th Cir. Unit B Jan. 1982). In that case, the defendants argued that “the government’s granting immunity to its witnesses while denying immunity to [the defendants’ prospective witness] skewed the evidence against [the defendants] and denied them a fair trial.” 13 Id. at 639. This court rejected the defendants’ argument, noting that “[n]o Fifth Circuit case has upheld a grant of immunity by a trial court, and our cases have strongly suggested, without specifically deciding, that courts lack such power under any circumstances.” Id. at 639 n.25. The court observed that the only situation in which due process even arguably warrants a judicial grant of immunity to a defense witness is a situation in which the government abuses its power to grant immunity to such a degree that it denies the defendant a fair trial. See id. at 640-41; see also United States v. Bustamante, 45 F.3d 933, 943 (5th Cir. 1995) (“It is also settled that, unless the government has abused its immunity power, a defendant has no due process right to have the trial court immunize defense witnesses.”); United States v. Follin, 979 F.2d 369, 374 (5th Cir. 1992) (“District Courts have no inherent power to grant immunity. A district court may not grant immunity simply because a witness has essential exculpatory evidence unavailable from other sources.”). Garcia Abrego has alleged no abuse on the part of the government in this case. Indeed, he has not even alleged the existence of witnesses who would have been willing to testify in his favor had he been able to offer them incentives similar to those offered by the government. Garcia Abrego nonetheless argues that “the issue here presented is not whether [a] defendant must be accorded immunity for defense witnesses, but rather whether and at what point the prosecution’s advantage in obtaining favorable testimony so 14 substantially distorts the delicately balanced adversarial process as to render such proceedings unfair.” Garcia Abrego’s argument thus appears to boil down to a contention that the sheer number of witnesses who received some sort of consideration from the government in exchange for their testimony rendered his trial fundamentally unfair. However, we see no logical basis for departing from the principle articulated in Cervantes-Pacheco and Bermea--that “‘it is up to the jury to evaluate the credibility of a compensated witness’”--based merely upon the number of witnesses that received inducements from the government in exchange for their testimony. Bermea, 30 F.3d at 1552 (quoting Cervantes-Pacheco, 826 F.2d at 315). Garcia Abrego’s claim that the government violated his right to due process through the use of inducements to obtain favorable testimony from witnesses therefore lacks merit.