Opinion ID: 751402
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: whether the government violated the proffer agreement by

Text: USING HECHAVARRIA AS A WITNESS AGAINST HER 19 Because Varona did not object to the government calling Hechavarria as a witness, we can only reverse her conviction if it was plain error for the district court to allow him to testify. See Fed.R.Crim.P. 52(b). The plain error rule places a daunting obstacle before Varona. In United States v. Olano, 507 U.S. 725, 732, 113 S.Ct. 1770, 1776, 123 L.Ed.2d 508 (1993), the Supreme Court held that for a judgment to be reversed for plain error, three conditions must exist: (1) a legal error must have been committed; (2) that error must be plain; and (3) the error must have affected the substantial rights of the appellant. 20 Even if all three requirements are met, it is still within the court of appeals' discretion whether to correct the forfeited error. See United States v. King, 73 F.3d 1564, 1572 (11th Cir.1996); United States v. Vazquez, 53 F.3d 1216, 1221 (11th Cir.1995). Moreover, that discretion may be exercised to notice a forfeited error only if ... the error seriously affects the fairness, integrity, or public reputation of the judicial proceedings. Johnson v. United States, 520 U.S. 461, ----, 117 S.Ct. 1544, 1549, 137 L.Ed.2d 718 (1997); accord United States v. Gaudin, 515 U.S. 506, 527, 115 S.Ct. 2310, 2322, 132 L.Ed.2d 444 (1995)(A court of appeals should not exercise that discretion unless the error seriously affects the fairness, integrity or public reputation of judicial proceedings )(internal quotation marks and brackets omitted). 21 The narrowness of the plain error rule is a reflection of the importance, indeed necessity, of the contemporaneous objection rule to which it is an exception. The contemporaneous objection rule fosters finality of judgment and deters sandbagging, saving an issue for appeal in hopes of having another shot at trial if the first one misses. See, e.g., Esslinger v. Davis, 44 F.3d 1515, 1525 and n. 36 (11th Cir.1995)(contemporaneous objection rule deters 'sandbagging,' the withholding of claims in an effort to get more than 'one bite at the apple.' ); United States v. Joshi, 896 F.2d 1303, 1307 and n. 3 (11th Cir.1990)(noting the Supreme Court's 'admonition against sandbagging on the part of defense lawyers' who intentionally decline to object to a potentially unconstitutional trial procedure in order to inject reversible error into the proceeding.); Spencer v. Kemp, 781 F.2d 1458, 1473 (11th Cir.1986)(contemporaneous objection rules prevent a defendant from 'sandbagging,' taking a chance on a jury verdict while reserving his claim in the event of an unfavorable verdict). 22 The contemporaneous objection rule also promotes the salutary interest of making the trial the main event. Failure to enforce it tends to detract from the perception of the trial of a criminal case ... as a decisive and portentous event. Wainwright v. Sykes, 433 U.S. 72, 90, 97 S.Ct. 2497, 2508, 53 L.Ed.2d 594 (1977). Moreover, requiring timely objections allows trial courts to develop a full record on the issue, consider the matter, and correct any error before substantial judicial resources are wasted on appeal and then in an unnecessary retrial. See United States v. Sorondo, 845 F.2d 945, 948-49 (11th Cir.1988). A full record and a prior decision in the district court are essential ingredients to our substantive review of issues--they flesh out an issue in a way the parties' briefs may not. 23 In the absence of plain error ... it is not our place as an appellate court to second guess the litigants before us and grant them relief they did not request, pursuant to legal theories they did not outline, based on facts they did not relate. Adler v. Duval County School Bd., 112 F.3d 1475, 1481 n. 12 (11th Cir.1997). Because the contemporaneous objection rule is essential to the integrity and efficiency of our judicial process, we have stressed that [t]he plain error test is difficult to meet. United States v. King, 73 F.3d 1564, 1572 (11th Cir.1996); accord, e.g., United States v. Sorondo, 845 F.2d at 948-49; United States v. Chaney, 662 F.2d 1148, 1152 n. 4 (5th Cir. Unit B 1981). We turn now to application of that test to the issue at hand. Of course, there can be no plain error if there was no error at all. So, we begin with this inquiry: was there any error, plain or not? 24 Varona's proffer agreement precludes the government from using in criminal proceedings against her any information or statements it acquired from her in the course of her cooperation. She contends that the government's use of Hechavarria's testimony, which it acquired only because of Varona's statements, is a breach of the proffer agreement. Therefore, she argues, the district court should not have allowed Hechavarria to testify against her. 25 The construction of proffer agreements, like plea agreements, is governed generally by the principles of contract law, as we have adapted it for the purposes of criminal law. See United States v. Weaver, 905 F.2d 1466, 1472 (11th Cir.1990); Rowe v. Griffin, 676 F.2d 524, 528 (11th Cir.1982) (interpreting immunity agreements pursuant to principles applied to interpretation of plea agreements); cf. United States v. Jefferies, 908 F.2d 1520, 1523 (11th Cir.1990) (Plea agreements are interpreted and applied in a manner that is sometimes likened to contractual interpretation.). This analogy, however, should not be taken too far. Jefferies, 908 F.2d at 1523. A hyper-technical reading of the written agreement and a rigidly literal approach in the construction of language should not be accepted. In re Arnett, 804 F.2d 1200, 1203 (11th Cir.1986)(internal citation and quotes omitted). The written agreement should be viewed against the background of the negotiations. Id. Any ambiguities in the terms of a proffer agreement should be resolved in favor of the criminal defendant. See Rowe, 676 F.2d at 526 n. 4. 26 Paragraph three of the proffer agreement in this case states, in relevant part: 27 No information or statement provided by Maria Varona may be used against [her] in this case or any other criminal investigation.... 28 Gov. Ex. 48 at 1-2, para. 3. However, the proffer agreement further provides in paragraph four that: 29 The government also expressly reserves the right to pursue any and all investigative leads derived from Maria Varona's statements or information and use such derivative evidence in any criminal or civil proceeding against her and/or others. 30 Gov. Ex. 48 at 2, para. 4. Those two paragraphs set out two separate terms: (1) the government may not use the information or statements obtained from Varona directly against her, which is to say it may not use them as evidence to obtain an indictment or guilty verdict; but (2) the government may use evidence derived from her information or statements against her to obtain an indictment or guilty verdict. 31 If only paragraph three existed, we might well agree with Varona and conclude that the government, by using testimony it would not have obtained but for the information provided by Varona, violated her proffer agreement. Without the information she provided, the government would not have known that Carlos was Hechavarria, instead of Caceras, and therefore would not have indicted Hechavarria. Had the government not indicted Hechavarria, he would have had no incentive to testify against Varona. Therefore, the government used Varona's information against her in the broadest sense of the term. 32 However, paragraph four explicitly allows the government to use evidence derived from the information and statements Varona proffered against her. We do not believe that the two paragraphs, when properly construed, conflict. It is a cardinal principle of contract law that no term of a contract should be construed to be in conflict with another unless no other reasonable construction is possible. See Guaranty Financial Services, Inc. v. Ryan, 928 F.2d 994, 1000 (11th Cir.1991); United States v. Johnson Controls, Inc., 713 F.2d 1541, 1555 (Fed.Cir.1983). In this case, paragraph four should be read as qualifying, instead of contradicting, paragraph three. Both paragraphs describe the government's right to use evidence acquired from Varona's proffer. Paragraph three, read together with paragraph four, prohibits the government from directly using the statements and information which made up Varona's proffer against her. Paragraph four correspondingly allows the government to use evidence derived from her proffer statements against Varona. The fact that Varona's trial counsel did not object to Hechavarria's testimony indicates that her lawyer, the same lawyer who negotiated the proffer agreement for Varona, believed then that the government was within its rights to put Hechavarria on the stand. 33 Moreover, even if the provisions of the two paragraphs conflicted, another contract interpretation principle would vindicate the government's position. When two contract terms conflict, the specific term controls over the general one. See United States Postal Service v. American Postal Workers Union, 922 F.2d 256, 260 (5th Cir.1991); Boatmen's National Bank of St. Louis v. Smith, 835 F.2d 1200, 1203 (7th Cir.1987)(Where the document contains both general and specific provisions relating to the same subject, the specific provision controls). In Varona's proffer agreement, paragraph three is the general provision, using broad language to forbid the government from using statements or information it acquired from Varona against her; paragraph four is the specific term, permitting the government to use evidence it derived from the information and statements she gave against her. 34 Consistent with paragraph four, the more specifically applicable provision, the government's use of Hechavarria's testimony did not breach the agreement. The government used Varona's proffer statements to indict Hechavarria. As a result of his indictment, Hechavarria decided to cooperate, plead guilty and testify against Varona and Pielago. Therefore, by its very nature, Hechavarria's testimony was derivative evidence. See Black's Law Dictionary 443 (6th Ed.1991)(defining derivative as coming from another; taken from something preceding; secondary ... [a]nything obtained or deduced from another). The government was only forbidden from introducing Varona's statements and the information she provided into evidence against her, and did not violate the proffer agreement by putting Hechavarria on the stand. Because it would not have been error for the district court to allow Hechavarria to testify even if there had been an objection, there is no plain error. 35 The dissenting opinion leaves us unmoved. Its position is based upon an interpretation of the term derivative evidence in paragraph four that is at variance with the plain meaning of that term. The dissenting opinion constructs a hypothetical involving hidden cocaine, which might be interesting to discuss in an academic setting, but it bears no resemblance to the facts of this case. What happened in this case is that Varona made statements conveying information to the government. The government did not introduce any of those statements into evidence against Varona. Instead, it used what she said to obtain an indictment of Hechavarria. His indictment was derived from Varona's statements and information. That indictment itself was not used as evidence against Varona. Instead, the government used Hechavarria's indictment in its successful effort to persuade him to cooperate. Thus, his cooperation including his testimony against Varona was derived, in part, from an indictment that was in turn derived from statements and information Varona gave. We do not think that Hechavarria's testimony, which is two steps removed in the derivative chain from Varona's statements and information, can be considered anything but derivative evidence, which paragraph four expressly permits the government to use. 36 Moreover, even if we were to conclude that it was error for the district court to have allowed Hechavarria's testimony, we would not conclude that such an error was plain error. In practice, errors become plain errors in either of two ways. First, an intervening decision of this Court or the Supreme Court squarely on point may make an error plain. See, e.g., United States v. Antonietti, 86 F.3d 206, 208-09 (11th Cir.1996)(intervening decision of this Court made counting seedlings as marijuana plants plain error); United States v. Walker, 59 F.3d 1196, 1198 (11th Cir.1995)(intervening decision of the Supreme Court holding the Gun Free School Zone Act unconstitutional made defendant's conviction under the law plain error). Second, errors have been found to be plain where they are particularly egregious, and strike at a core principle which the violated rule or law embodies. See, e.g., United States v. Quinones, 97 F.3d 473, 475 (11th Cir.1996)(finding plain error where district court failed to ensure that the defendant understood the nature of the charges against him, one of the core principles of Fed.R.Crim.P. 11). 37 The dissenting opinion never satisfactorily explains why, if the error in interpretation it perceives is plain, that error escaped the attention not only of the district court judge but also of the very defense counsel who negotiated the terms of the agreement. Nor does the dissent adequately explain how such a plain error could appear, even after briefing and oral argument, to be no error at all to two-thirds of this panel. We have previously recognized that no one is perfect, least of all federal appellate judges. United States v. Hogan, 986 F.2d 1364, 1369 (11th Cir.1993). Notwithstanding that truth, if the plain requirement of the Rule 52(b) plain error provision is to have any teeth, when two of the three judges who address a matter conclude that there is no error at all, that must mean there is no plain error. As the Supreme Court has held, [a]t a minimum, court[s] of appeals cannot correct an error pursuant to Rule 52(b) unless the error is clear under current law. United States v. Olano, 507 U.S. 725, 734, 113 S.Ct. 1770, 1777, 123 L.Ed.2d 508 (1993). 38