Opinion ID: 772667
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Harmlessness of Alleged Error.

Text: 32 The Appellants have presented a substantial argument that the admission into evidence of the plea allocutions of the non-immunized co-defendant former employees, following the Government's selective conferring of immunity upon other former employees, is a fundamental unfairness that might well amount to a denial of due process. However, we need not adjudicate the merits of that argument because we conclude that the admission into evidence of the plea allocutions, even if error, was harmless. We have discretion to consider the harmlessness of an alleged error even though the Government has not argued this line of defense. See, e.g., United States v. Rose, 104 F.3d 1408, 1414 (1st Cir. 1997); United States v. Langston, 970 F.2d 692, 704 n.9 (10th Cir. 1992); United States v. Pryce, 938 F.2d 1343, 1348 (D.C. Cir. 1991). 33 In this case, the plea allocutions were offered only to prove the element of the existence of the alleged conspiracy, not the Appellants' participation in it. That element was overwhelmingly established by the testimony of the immunized former employees, who were available for cross-examination. The plea allocutions of the non-immunized former employees added nothing of significance to the proof that the conspiracy existed, and, although the allocutions provided evidence of overt acts of the non-immunized former employees, ample live testimony established overt acts of other participants. Moreover, as the District Court noted, Dolah himself doomed whatever hopes he might have entertained that the jury might find that the government had not met its beyond a reasonable doubt requirement by telling the jury blatant and transparent lies on the witness stand and by making foolishly absurd assertions, all of which did not aid his cause. United States v. Dolah, 72 F. Supp. 2d 235, 236 (S.D.N.Y. 1999).