Opinion ID: 2310654
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Boone's Sixth Amendment Claim

Text: Mr. Boone argues that his Sixth Amendment rights were violated by the manner in which the court accommodated the Fifth Amendment rights of James Bowe. When counsel for Boone announced (in the jury's absence) that Bowe would be the next defense witness, Bowe  through counsel  asserted his Fifth Amendment privilege on the ground that his three previous drug charges, two of which had been dismissed for lack of prosecution and the third dismissed without prejudice by the government, might be revived on the basis of his testimony in this case. Both the prosecutor and the court recognized that the possibility of prosecution, however slim, is real. The parties agreed, however, after discussing potential problems, that Mr. Bowe could truthfully answer the prosecutor's questions on cross-examination without incriminating himself. [11] The prosecutor said, The only thing I see that would be within the scope of proper cross-examination would be bias, and that would be limited to a direct connection to these two defendants. However, before the trial court could make a final decision on Bowe's claim of privilege, Boone's counsel told the court, My client informs me that he does not want Mr. Bowe to testify. As a result, Bowe gave no testimony and was excused. The jury never heard him say a word. Thus, as an initial matter, Boone waived his argument that his Sixth Amendment rights were violated by Bowe's failure to testify on his behalf. The issue before us is not, as Boone suggests, how to resolve the conflict between a defendant's Sixth Amendment right to call witnesses and the Fifth Amendment privilege of a particular witness. The record makes clear that the potential conflict between these two constitutional rights was rendered moot by Boone's voluntary decision not to put Bowe on the stand. Indeed, the court never even had an opportunity to make a final ruling on the matter. In any event, the court was following the relevant case law in proceeding as it did. The right to call witnesses in one's own defense is an essential attribute of our adversary system, fundamental to a fair trial and basic to due process of law. Taylor v. Illinois, 484 U.S. 400, 407-409, 108 S.Ct. 646, 98 L.Ed.2d 798 (1988); Wilson v. United States, 558 A.2d 1135, 1140 (D.C.1989). But that right is not absolute. Littlejohn v. United States, 705 A.2d 1077, 1083 (D.C.1997). [N]o [person] may vindicate his constitutional rights by requiring another to forego his own. Wilson, 558 A.2d at 1140 (citation omitted). [A] criminal defendant's right to present witnesses in his own defense is a fundamental one. . . . Nevertheless, in the crunch, when all else fails, the Fifth Amendment privilege of the witness prevails over the defendant's right to compel him to testify. . . . Because both rights are so precious ... and because a forced election is so painful, it is the responsibility of the trial judge to take all reasonable steps to avoid a direct collision. Harris v. United States, 614 A.2d 1277, 1281-1282 (D.C.1992) (citing Wilson ); accord, Carter v. United States, 684 A.2d 331, 336 (D.C.1996) (en banc) (adopting this quotation from Harris as a summary of basic legal principles). In this case, after the trial court and the government both recognized that there was at least a possibility that the charges against Mr. Bowe could be revived if he were to testify, the court directed the government to limit its cross-examination of the witness so as not to affect the privilege, and the government appeared willing to do so. Boone argues nevertheless that at the time of his trial (a few months before Carter was decided), a witness had such a privilege only when the court determined that there was a real and substantial risk of prosecution. See Wilson, 558 A.2d at 1141. Consequently, he maintains that applying this court's decision in Carter, which lowered the standard from a probability to a possibility of prosecution in determining whether to uphold a witness' claim of a Fifth Amendment privilege, would violate his due process rights. This contention is without merit for two reasons. In the first place, a `new rule for the conduct of criminal prosecutions is to be applied retroactively to all cases . . . pending on direct review . . . with no exception for cases in which the new rule constitutes a clear break with the past.' Johnson v. United States, 520 U.S. 461, 467, 117 S.Ct. 1544, 137 L.Ed.2d 718 (1997) (citing Griffith v. Kentucky, 479 U.S. 314, 328, 107 S.Ct. 708, 93 L.Ed.2d 649 (1987)). More fundamentally, we agree with the government's observation in its brief that nothing in this appeal hinges on this change because the trial court never had a chance to decide (and did not decide) which standard  probability or possibility  to apply. It was in the process of deciding the issue, trying to avoid a direct collision between Boone's rights and Bowe's rights, as Harris and Carter dictate, when Boone chose to withdraw Bowe as a witness. While in some cases there might be a significant issue as to the applicable standard, [12] on the present record the issue evaporates. Cf. Luce v. United States, 469 U.S. 38, 105 S.Ct. 460, 83 L.Ed.2d 443 (1984) (declining to consider claim that trial court erred in ruling that certain evidence would be admissible to impeach defendant if he testified, when defendant thereafter elected not to testify). [13] Boone further argues that his Sixth Amendment rights were violated by the manner in which the court accommodated the Fifth Amendment rights of Dante Wade and Maurice Wilkes. But these were Stone's witnesses, not Boone's, and Stone has not joined in Boone's argument. We conclude that Boone has no standing to complain here about the manner in which the court dealt with Wade's and Wilkes' claims of privilege. See United States v. Jones, 44 F.3d 860, 873 (10th Cir.1995); United States v. Partin, 601 F.2d 1000, 1006 (9th Cir.1979), cert. denied, 446 U.S. 964, 100 S.Ct. 2939, 64 L.Ed.2d 822 (1980). In any event, Boone's counsel was free to confront these witness on cross-examination but instead chose to ask Wilkes only one question and refrained altogether from questioning Wade. The record thus fails to support Boone's argument regarding these two witnesses.