Opinion ID: 742598
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Massiah Challenge to the Testimony of Julio Hernandez

Text: 81 The present prosecution was commenced in January 1992, and Supreme Team member Julio Hernandez was arraigned on the federal charges in February. Federal agents immediately made the usual efforts to persuade him to cooperate, and although Hernandez showed some interest, he gave little information, and no further cooperation session was scheduled. More than a month later, Hernandez's court-appointed counsel contacted the government to request a proffer session. Such a session was held in April 1992, and Hernandez recounted the details of several of the crimes charged in the indictment; in May he signed a formal cooperation agreement. From the time of his federal arraignment until July 2, 1992, Hernandez was held in the Metropolitan Correctional Center (MCC), where the other Supreme Team members too were being detained. Several times prior to, during, or after trial, one or more defendants moved to dismiss the indictment or to preclude Hernandez's testimony, contending that their Sixth Amendment rights had been violated because the government had permitted Hernandez to remain housed with them and to attend defense strategy sessions with the attorneys after he had begun cooperating with the government. The district court denied the motion, finding that the government neither intended to violate defendants' rights nor benefited from these events. Defendants challenge these rulings on appeal, contending that the court at least erred in failing to hold a hearing. For the reasons that follow, we see no error. 82 It is well settled that the Sixth Amendment right to counsel is violated when a private individual, acting as a government agent, deliberately elicit[s] incriminating statements from an accused in the absence of his counsel. Massiah v. United States, 377 U.S. 201, 206, 84 S.Ct. 1199, 1203, 12 L.Ed.2d 246 (1964). With respect to the detention of a cooperating witness in proximity to other defendants, the Massiah rule applies only to situations that  'look' like government interrogations, United States v. Stevens, 83 F.3d 60, 64 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 117 S.Ct. 255, 136 L.Ed.2d 181 (1996); we have declined to treat every inmate who hopes to cut some future deal as a 'government informant,'  id. 83 The right to counsel may also be violated when a cooperating defendant participates with noncooperating defendants and their attorneys in joint strategy sessions. See, e.g., Maine v. Moulton, 474 U.S. 159, 176-77, 106 S.Ct. 477, 487-88, 88 L.Ed.2d 481 (1985). Although it is obviously preferable that cooperating witnesses be separated from noncooperating codefendants and not attend joint defense strategy meetings, such isolation is not always possible. For example, a cooperating witness's continued association with his codefendants may be necessary in order to conceal the cooperation and thereby protect the cooperating defendant's family. In such an instance, a Massiah claim will fail unless it is shown that the government benefited from the cooperating defendant's attendance. See, e.g., United States v. Ginsberg, 758 F.2d 823, 833 (2d Cir.1985) (Where the presence of the government's agent or informant at the defense conference is either unintentional or justified by the necessity of protecting the informant's identity, there can be no violation of the sixth amendment without some communication of valuable information derived from the intrusion to the government....). 84 A defendant's claim of a Massiah violation does not automatically require an evidentiary hearing. In order to require a hearing on such a claim, assuming that the government has not interfered with the attorney-client relationship deliberately, the defendant bears the burden of alleging specific facts that indicate communication of privileged information to the prosecutor and prejudice resulting therefrom. United States v. Aulicino, 44 F.3d 1102, 1117 (2d Cir.1995); see United States v. Ginsberg, 758 F.2d at 833 (e.g., a showing that a prosecution witness testified concerning privileged communications, that prosecution evidence originated in such communications, or that such communications have been used in any other way to the substantial detriment of the defendant). 85 Defendants made no showing here sufficient to warrant a hearing. When Hernandez was first placed in federal custody in February, he gave the government no reason to believe he would become a government witness. He provided little information when the agents urged him to cooperate, and, therefore, no further meetings with him were scheduled. There was no basis for an assumption that he would become a government witness until April, when he met again with the government and made disclosures about several of the crimes charged in the indictment. Until that proffer session, there was no impetus for the government to separate Hernandez from his codefendants. 86 In the wake of Hernandez's eventual decision to cooperate, his attorney and the Assistant United States Attorney (AUSA) discussed the possibility of separating Hernandez from the defendants, but that option was rejected because of concern that it would signal to the Supreme Team that Hernandez was cooperating and would thus endanger his family. His family's whereabouts were known to the gang, and one family member had undergone surgery and could not be relocated until after a period of recuperation. Thus, it was decided to delay Hernandez's removal from MCC until his family could be moved; Hernandez was returned to MCC with instructions to minimize his contact with his codefendants to the extent possible. At a later meeting with the government, Hernandez's guilty plea was scheduled for June 19, 1992, a date by which it was expected that the relocation of his family could be accomplished, and Hernandez was again instructed to avoid his codefendants and refrain from attending their meetings to the extent possible. As it turned out, Hernandez pleaded guilty as scheduled, but the recuperating family member was still too ill to be moved at that time, so Hernandez was returned to MCC, again with the instruction to avoid his codefendants. By July 2, 1992, Hernandez's family had been relocated, and Hernandez was promptly removed from MCC. 87 The soundness of the concern for the safety of Hernandez's family is well documented. When Supreme Team member Trent Morris was scheduled to testify for the prosecution at Miller's state trial in 1991, Trent's brother William received communications and threats to himself and the Morris family if Trent were to testify. In anticipation of Trent Morris's testimony, his wife and child had been relocated. In a taped conversation with William Morris before that trial and after the relocation, Miller noted that Trent had  'send [sic ] them away,'  but pointed out to William,  '[h]e ain't send [sic ] you away, he ain't send [sic ] away his moms [sic ] and them, you know what I'm saying?'  (Affidavit of AUSA Leslie R. Caldwell dated September 9, 1992, in support of motion for anonymous jury, p 18, at 16 (quoting transcript).) Miller then asked whether William Morris still lived at a certain address; after receiving a negative response, Miller said,  'If you notice, Robin's still staying in, in Baisley Projects.'  (Id. p 18, at 17-18 (quoting transcript).) Robin Carrington was Trent Morris's sister-in-law who lived in the Baisley Park Houses with her father. (Id. p 18, at 18 n. 2.) Miller said,  'if I really wanted to do anything to anybody, it would be a snap of a finger.'  (Id. p 18, at 18 (quoting transcript).) Notwithstanding this and other efforts to persuade Trent Morris not to testify, he began his testimony against Miller in the state-court trial. On that night, Trent Morris's sister-in-law Robin Carrington and her father were killed; the first letter of Miller's nickname was carved in their torsos. Against this background, prudent concern for human life plainly required that Hernandez's decision to cooperate not be revealed prematurely. The failure to separate him from his codefendants until his family could be relocated thus did not constitute a Massiah violation unless defendants could show that the government thereby gained valuable information. 88 Although defendants argue that it would be naive simply to conclude ... that Hernandez made no efforts to obtain incriminating statements from defendants (Arroyo brief on appeal at 42), the record indicates that no such efforts were made. Rather, it appears that after Hernandez agreed to cooperate, he carefully adhered to the government's instruction to minimize contact with his codefendants. For example, he risked angering Miller by refusing to attend a defense meeting that Miller ordered him to attend. Further, defendants' suggestions as to what benefits the government may have gained do not withstand scrutiny. For example, defendants claim that Hernandez had learned that certain witnesses would be called by the defense, and that the defense was considering calling Tucker as a witness because of his relatively short criminal history and the purported weakness of the evidence against him; they point to Hernandez's trial testimony that it was during conversations with defendants while in detention that Hernandez learned Tucker's first name, and to the fact that during their detention a superseding indictment was filed, alleging a new RICO predicate act against Tucker. But it is difficult to perceive any benefit to the government from Hernandez's learning Tucker's name while Hernandez was in custody; Tucker's first name was in the indictment. Nor would the government have needed the information that Tucker might be called as a defense witness in order to file a superseding indictment charging him with the additional RICO predicate act; that act was reflected in a prior state-court conviction. Defendants also argue that Hernandez may have learned of the plan to call one Ivan Bonner as a witness, and they point to trial testimony by Bonner that government agents visited him in jail to warn him not to testify on Miller's behalf. But the government hardly needed a tip that Bonner might be a defense witness; he, like many of the witnesses called by the defense, had been a defense witness at Miller's state trial. Defendants' assertion that Hernandez's trial testimony was fabricated from defendants' incriminating jailhouse statements was rejected by the district judge, who presided over the trial and heard all of the evidence, including the testimony of Hernandez. The court stated, there's absolutely no reasonable indication in the record that the evidence or the testimony of Mr. Hernandez was the product of any infiltration, if you will, much less government sponsored infiltration. (Arroyo Sentencing Transcript at 18.) 89 We see nothing in the record to indicate that the government was benefited or that defendants were prejudiced by Hernandez's remaining in MCC until he and his family could be safely relocated and nothing to suggest that the district court erred in rejecting defendants' Massiah claims without conducting an evidentiary hearing. 90