Opinion ID: 564323
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Declarant Unavailable?

Text: 50 Federal Rule of Evidence 804(a)(1) provides:(a) Definition of unavailability. Unavailability as a witness includes situations in which the declarant-- 51 (1) is exempted by ruling of the court on the ground of privilege from testifying concerning the subject matter of the declarant's statement;   . 52 We have long recognized that unavailability includes within its scope those witnesses who are called to testify but refuse based on a valid assertion of their fifth amendment privilege against self-incrimination. See, e.g., United States v. Salvador, 820 F.2d 558, 560 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, 484 U.S. 966, 108 S.Ct. 458, 98 L.Ed.2d 398 (1987); United States v. Rodriguez, 706 F.2d 31, 40 (2d Cir.1983); United States v. Beltempo, 675 F.2d 472, 480 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, 457 U.S. 1135, 102 S.Ct. 2963, 73 L.Ed.2d 1353 (1982). Thus, it is without question that once they were subpoenaed and had invoked their fifth amendment privilege, both Bruno and DeMatteis became unavailable to the defendants, who could not compel them to testify. 53 However, the government could compel that testimony through a grant of use immunity. The unavailability of a witness under rule 804 depends on the situation of the parties and their relationship to the witness. See J. Weinstein & M. Berger, Weinstein's Evidence p 804(a), at 804-36 (1990) (the crucial factor is not the unavailability of the witness but the unavailability of his testimony.). A declarant is not unavailable as a witness if exemption, refusal, claim of lack of memory, inability, or absence is due to the procurement or wrongdoing of the proponent of a statement for the purpose of preventing the witness from attending or testifying. Fed.R.Evid. 804(a) (emphasis added). In such a case, the witness is not unavailable to the proponent, who is thereby prevented from invoking rule 804(a). That same principle of adversarial fairness should prevent the opponent of a hearsay declaration from invoking the protections of rule 804(b)(1) when the declarant, although unavailable to the proponent, is available to the opponent of the declaration. If the witness has been by the opponent procured to absent himself, this ought of itself to justify the use of his deposition or former testimony   . 5 J. Wigmore, Evidence in Trials at Common Law Sec. 1405, at 218-19 (Chadbourn rev. 1974) (emphasis in original). In short, the testimony of Bruno and DeMatteis was available to the government but unavailable to the defendants. 54