Opinion ID: 781722
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 7

Heading: Murad's Sixth Amendment Right to Present a Defense

Text: 242 According to Murad, the District Court denied him his Sixth Amendment right to present a defense. First, he contends that the Court improperly excluded evidence of human rights violations and bias [against] Muslims in the Philippines. Murad Br. at 94. Second, he asserts that his right to present a defense was violated because of his inability to obtain full discovery in the Philippines. Id. Third, Murad insists that the District Court erred in instructing the jury about the legal definition of voluntariness. Id. at 94-95.
243 Under the Sixth and Fourteen Amendments of the Constitution, a person charged with a crime has a fundamental right to present a defense. See, e.g., Herring v. New York, 422 U.S. 853, 856-57, 95 S.Ct. 2550, 45 L.Ed.2d 593 (1975); Chambers v. Mississippi, 410 U.S. 284, 302, 93 S.Ct. 1038, 35 L.Ed.2d 297 (1973); United States v. Corr, 543 F.2d 1042, 1051 (2d Cir.1976). Nonetheless, [a] criminal defendant's right to present a full defense and to receive a fair trial does not entitle him to place before the jury evidence normally inadmissible. United States v. Bifield, 702 F.2d 342, 350 (2d Cir.1983). We will overturn a district court's exclusion of evidence pursuant to Federal Rule of Evidence 403 only if there is a clear showing that the court abused its discretion or acted arbitrarily or irrationally. Salameh I, 152 F.3d at 110 (internal citation and quotation marks omitted). 244 B. Reports by Amnesty International and the United States Department of State Regarding Abusive Treatment by Philippine Police 245 Although Murad presented a vigorous defense based in part on the involuntariness of his confession, he nonetheless maintains that his Sixth Amendment right to present a defense was violated when the District Court excluded from evidence reports from Amnesty International and the United States Department of State which were offered to show Philippine police misconduct toward Muslims. Murad regarded these reports as crucial corroboration for his claims of torture in the Philippines. Murad Br. at 93. 246 Notably, however, Murad did not offer these reports into evidence at trial. 58 Although Hegarty's final written evaluation — which stated that she believed Murad's account of torture — relied in part on these reports, Murad's attorney did not question Hegarty about these reports or try to offer them into evidence. It is therefore not surprising that the District Court never made a comment or finding, Murad Br. at 93, to support their exclusion. By failing to offer these reports into evidence at trial, Murad has waived any right to argue before us that they should have been admitted. 59 See United States v. Harvey, 959 F.2d 1371, 1374 (7th Cir. 1992) (holding that a defendant cannot complain about the district court's `decision' to refuse to admit evidence that he never moved to admit); cf. Fed.R.Evid. 103(a)(2) (Error may not be predicated upon a ruling which ... excludes evidence unless ... the substance of the evidence was made known to the court by offer or was apparent from the context within which questions were asked); United States v. Carson, 52 F.3d 1173, 1187 (2d Cir.1995) (neither the trial court ... nor the appellate court ... will ordinarily take note of errors that were not pointed out to the district court judge by the party at the proper time.) (quoting 9A Charles A. Wright & Arthur R. Miller, Federal Practice and Procedure, § 2472, at 95 (1995)). C. Discovery from the Philippines 247 Murad also asserts that his Sixth Amendment right to present a defense was undercut by his inability to timely obtain thorough discovery reports and testimony of Philippine police officers and other Philippine witnesses. Specifically, Murad objects that [t]he Philippine government cooperated with the United States government, but not with the defense. Murad Br. at 92. 248 The Government is not under an obligation to produce prior statements of foreign law enforcement officials that it does not possess. Instead, even in the course of a joint investigation undertaken by United States and foreign law enforcement officials the most the Jencks Act requires of United States officials is a good-faith effort to obtain the statements of prosecution witnesses in the possession of the foreign government. United States v. Paternina-Vergara, 749 F.2d 993, 998 (2d Cir.1984). The record reflects that the Government made such a goodfaith effort. The Government disclosed a number of documents from the Philippines, including statements by Philippine witnesses, and made good-faith, but ultimately futile, efforts to obtain further materials. 60 Indeed, Shah's attorney acknowledged the Government's efforts: the government has clearly indicated on the record that they've made efforts to gather all the reports created. The Philippine government has not turned those reports over. ATr. 3292. The District Court accept[ed] [the Government's] representation that they made a complete effort. ATr. 3293. 249 Nonetheless, Murad contends that he should have received earlier the testimony of various Philippine law enforcement officers given in connection with the January 7, 1995 proceeding before the Philippine court to obtain a search warrant for the defendants' Manila apartment. Even if this delay could be attributed to the United States Government, we discern no prejudice from the late production of this evidence. Murad primarily sought the testimony of Lieutenant José Cruz, Jr. See note 5, ante. Yet, Cruz acknowledged at trial that he had testified falsely in connection with the search warrant application. In particular, Cruz admitted that he had not been given an attaché case containing bomb parts by local police after their search of the defendants' Manila apartment — as he had attested to before the Philippine court — but, rather, he had collected the items in the apartment and placed them inside the case himself. ATr. 2122-27, 2168-76. In light of Cruz's admission that he lied to the Philippine court, it is not clear that Cruz's prior testimony would have been particularly helpful to Murad's defense. Murad's attorney vigorously cross-examined Cruz about his false testimony before the Philippine court and assailed the competence and honesty of the Philippine law enforcement during his summation. 250 In sum, we conclude that Murad received adequate discovery from the Philippines to meet Sixth Amendment requirements. D. Jury Charge on Voluntariness 251 Murad also argues that the District Court erred because it failed to give a more detailed instruction to the jury on the legal definition of voluntariness. Murad Br. at 94. A defendant who challenges a jury instruction must establish (1) that he requested an instruction that accurately represented the law in every respect and (2) that the instruction actually given was, viewed as a whole, prejudicial to his rights. United States v. Pujana-Mena, 949 F.2d 24, 27 (2d Cir.1991) (internal citation and quotation marks omitted). 252 The District Court gave the following jury instruction on the voluntariness of confessions: 253 You have also heard the testimony of certain statements or admissions made by the defendants after they had been arrested in this case. I instruct you that these statements can only be used against the defendant who made the statement and not as proof against any other defendant. 254 In deciding what weight to give each of these statements, you should first examine with great care whether the statement was made and whether in fact it was voluntarily and understandingly made. 255 I instruct you that you are to give each statement such weight as you feel it deserves in light of all the other evidence. Remember, this applies only to statements made to government agents after the particular defendant was arrested in this case. 256 ATr. 5585-86. 257 In contrast, Yousef's attorney-advisor requested the following instruction during the charge conference: 258 I have charged you at the beginning of my instructions concerning testimony you heard of post-arrest statements allegedly made by each of the defendants to government agents following his being taken into custody by FBI agents. In this regard it is for you and you alone to determine whether you believe the testimony of the interviewing agent as to what a particular defendant is alleged to have said and the circumstances under which such statement was made. 259 ... 260 In the event you determine that a statement of a defendant was not freely and voluntarily made, that such statement was the proximate result of some type of force or circumstance which immediately preceded his being taken into custody, and were [sic] circumstances which existed at the time the alleged statement was made, you should disregard the statement as having been involuntarily made. In determining the voluntariness of a statement at the time it was allegedly made, you may consider the following: 261 Was the defendant influenced in any way to make the statement? 262 Was the defendant relying on any promise as an inducement to make the statement? 263 Was he intimidated by any events or circumstances existing either prior to or at the time of the statement? 264 Thus, you should consider the state of mind of the defendant as it existed at the time of making the alleged statement in determining the voluntariness of such statement and its usefulness. 265 ATr. 5711-12. The Court denied the requested charge. ATr. 5712. 266 The District Court's charge was neither erroneous nor prejudicial to Murad's rights. The instruction was consistent with 18 U.S.C. § 3501(a), which requires a district court to instruct the jury to give such weight to the confession as the jury feels it deserves under all the circumstances. See United States v. Bloom, 865 F.2d 485, 489, 491-92 (2d Cir. 1989) (holding that jury instructions on voluntariness are proper as long as they are consistent with § 3501(a)). Furthermore, the charge was virtually identical to a commonly used instruction on defendant confessions. See 1 L. Sand et al., Modern Federal Jury Instructions ¶ 5.07, Instr. 5-19. 267 Having concluded that the instruction given was proper, it is unnecessary to analyze the instruction proposed by Yousef's attorney-advisor. Nevertheless, we observe that the proposed instruction did not provide an accurate recitation of the law on voluntariness. For example, Yousef's instruction apparently would have required the jury to find involuntary any statement which resulted from some type of force or circumstance which immediately preceded his being taken into custody. But as Murad concedes, [n]o single criteria controls whether a statement is voluntary. Murad Br. at 74. Rather, voluntariness depends on the totality of the circumstances. See Haynes v. Washington, 373 U.S. 503, 513-14, 83 S.Ct. 1336, 10 L.Ed.2d 513 (1963). Because the proposed instruction would have rendered one factor all-important in the determination of voluntariness, Yousef's instruction did not accurately convey the law. 268 In sum, the District Court's jury instruction on voluntariness did not violate Murad's Sixth Amendment right to present a defense. 269