Opinion ID: 2995200
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Evidence regarding Cox’s prior

Text: cooperation. Green also contends that the district court erred in permitting testimony about Cox’s cooperation with the government’s investigation and prosecution of two individuals unrelated to Green’s case. He claims that this testimony was improper bolstering of Cox’s credibility and barred by Federal Rule of Evidence 608(b). We begin with a few general comments. First, bolstering is the practice of building up a witness’s credibility before impeachment has been attempted. United States v. Lindemann, 85 F.3d 1232, 1242 (7th Cir. 1996); United States v. LeFevour, 798 F.2d 977, 983 (7th Cir. 1986). All of the testimony elicited by the government regarding Cox’s cooperation in other investigations was in response to Green’s earlier questions of Agent Bookwalter, which were intended to suggest that Cox was setting up a number of people, including Green, in order to avoid prosecution for his own crimes. As a consequence, the government did not engage in improper bolstering when it introduced further evidence of Cox’s cooperation to rebut Green’s allegation of bias. See Lindemann, 85 F.3d at 1243; United States v. Penny, 60 F.3d 1257, 1264 (7th Cir. 1995); United States v. McKinney, 954 F.2d 471, 478 (7th Cir. 1992); see also United States v. Lochmondy, 890 F.2d 817, 821-22 (6th Cir. 1989). Second, Federal Rule of Evidence 608(b) bars the use of extrinsic evidence of [s]pecific instances of the conduct of a witness, for the purpose of attacking or supporting the witness’ credibility. Fed. R. Evid. 608(b). However, we have held that if evidence of the witness’s cooperation in other investigations is directed at rebutting allegations of the witness’s bias, and not at his character for truthfulness in general, the limitations of Rule 608(b) do not apply. Lindemann, 85 F.3d at 1243; see also United States v. Smith, 232 F.3d 236, 242-43 (D.C. Cir. 2000); United States v. Fusco, 748 F.2d 996, 998 (5th Cir. 1984). Instead, the evidence is governed by the relevance standard of Rule 402. Lindemann, 85 F.3d at 1243; United States v. Curry, 187 F.3d 762, 767 (7th Cir. 1999). The question, then, is whether the testimony of Cox’s prior cooperation was relevant to the issue of Cox’s bias, and if so, whether its probative value was substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice. See Lindemann, 85 F.3d at 1243; Curry, 187 F.3d at 767. Turning to the specific testimony in this case, we note that Green made no objection at trial to the testimony that he now complains was improper (with one exception, which we will address in a moment), and our review is therefore for plain error. Penny, 60 F.3d at 1264. Agent Bookwalter (a member of the GRIT team who had worked with Cox) testified that the information provided by Cox in other investigations was credible and reliable and consistent with what the GRIT team observed. This testimony tends to make Green’s theory of bias less probable and was therefore relevant. See Smith, 232 F.3d at 241 (stating that the fact that the witness has informed and testified truthfully in the past under his plea agreement certainly bears on his response to similar pressures and temptations in the present). And although Green does not argue that the evidence was unduly prejudicial, we note that the jury had already heard almost identical testimony elicited during Green’s cross-examination of Bookwalter. Given this context, we would be hard pressed to conclude that the testimony elicited by the government, even if unduly prejudicial if standing alone, had any affect on the outcome. See United States v. Napue, 834 F.2d 1311, 1324 (7th Cir. 1987); United States v. Mazzone, 782 F.2d 757, 763 (7th Cir. 1986). Therefore reversal is not warranted under plain error review. See Penny, 60 F.3d at 1265./5 Green did make a timely objection to Bookwalter’s statement that the other trial in which Cox testified resulted in conviction, and so we review the district court’s decision to admit that statement for abuse of discretion. Curry, 187 F.3d at 767. Green contends that the jury may not hear that the witness’s cooperation resulted in convictions, relying on our decision in United States v. Napue, 834 F.2d 1311, 1324 (7th Cir. 1987), and the government concedes this point. However, in Napue, we did not hold that such testimony is never admissible. Instead, we considered whether a mistrial was warranted when a prosecutor made reference in closing argument to convictions that resulted from a witness’s testimony in another case, despite the trial judge’s earlier ruling barring the evidence on relevancy grounds. Id. The question there was whether the prosecutor’s violation of the earlier ruling required reversal, and not whether the earlier ruling was correct or incorrect./6 But given the government’s concession, we decline to explore the question of whether the district court abused its discretion in this case by admitting evidence of the convictions that resulted from Cox’s testimony. Instead, we agree with the government that the error, if any, was harmless because of the overwhelming evidence of Green’s guilt. See Fed. R. Crim. P. 52(a). The most significant evidence provided by Cox was his identification of Green as the person who arrived at Guzman’s home immediately before Guzman delivered the cocaine to Cox on April 10. But this identification was confirmed not only by Guzman’s testimony, but by three GRIT agents who testified that Green confessed to that incident--testimony that Green does not challenge on appeal. Given this testimony, and other corroborating evidence, we find that even if it was error to admit testimony that Cox’s cooperation in other cases resulted in convictions, the error was harmless. See Curry, 187 F.3d at 767; cf. Smith, 232 F.2d at 243.