Opinion ID: 449054
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Admissibility of Rodriguez's Former Testimony

Text: 11 Rodriguez and Pizarro were jointly tried for a second time in November 1981. At that time, Rodriguez took the stand in his own defense. The government's theory was that Pizarro was the source of the heroin supplied to Agent Peasant on April 6, 1979. During his testimony, however, Rodriguez identified someone else as the source. 1 Rodriguez's subsequent refusal to testify at a third trial rendered him unavailable, Fed.R.Evid. 804(a)(1), and Pizarro sought admission of Rodriguez's former testimony pursuant to Fed.R.Evid. 804(b)(1). The district judge refused to admit the testimony, concluding that the government had been unable to develop the testimony fully at the second trial. Finding that the government had both the opportunity and the motive to develop the testimony, we reversed. United States v. Pizarro, 717 F.2d 336, 349 (7th Cir.1983). 12 Pizarro again sought admission of the testimony at the trial below. After conducting an extensive hearing at which both Rodriguez and his attorney testified, the district court judge found that Pizarro had procured Rodriguez's refusal to testify by threatening that both Rodriguez and his family would be harmed or killed if Rodriguez testified against Pizarro. Under Fed.R.Evid. 804(a), 13 [a] declarant is not unavailable as a witness if his exemption, refusal, claim of lack of memory, inability, or absence is due to the procurement or wrongdoing of the proponent of his statement for the purpose of preventing the witness from attending or testifying. 14 Pizarro argues that we have already evaluated the evidence of death threats in United States v. Pizarro, 717 F.2d 350 (7th Cir.1983), and found it wanting. We disagree with the appellant's reading of our prior opinion. While the government argued in Pizarro that Rodriguez's refusal to testify had been procured by Pizarro through threats, the trial court never ruled on the credibility of the testimony by Rodriguez's attorney asserting the threats, nor did she rule on the question of whether Rodriguez's refusal to testify was based on a bona fide assertion of his Fifth Amendment privilege. 2 Moreover, Rodriguez never testified at the earlier hearing, and the trial judge refused to allow Pizarro to take the stand and deny the accusations of threats under oath. 15 At the hearing below, by contrast, Rodriguez did testify. As appellant notes, his testimony was singularly evasive, and he never named Pizarro directly as the source of his fear. But the court was entitled to take into consideration, as it did, Rodriguez's demeanor 3 and the fact that he refused to give a direct answer to the question whether Pizarro was the source of the threats. Rodriguez's attorney also testified that Pizarro had twice directly threatened him, telling him it would be better for Rodriguez if he did not testify, and that the attorney had relayed these threats to Rodriguez. 4 The trial judge, who heard all the testimony, stated that he was persuaded that Pizarro made it known to Rodriguez through a feedback operation that it would be dangerous for Rodriguez and his family if he testified. A district court's determination on the question of unavailability will be reversed only for an abuse of discretion. United States v. Puckett, 692 F.2d 663, 670 (10th Cir.1982), cert. denied, 459 U.S. 1091, 103 S.Ct. 579, 74 L.Ed.2d 939 (1982) and 460 U.S. 1024, 103 S.Ct. 1276, 75 L.Ed.2d 497 (1983); United States v. Amaya, 533 F.2d 188, 191 (5th Cir.1976), cert. denied, 429 U.S. 1101, 97 S.Ct. 1125, 51 L.Ed.2d 551 (1977). The district court's determination here that Pizarro procured Rodriguez's refusal to testify was not an abuse of discretion, and the exclusion of Rodriguez's former testimony was not error. 16