Opinion ID: 196936
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Waiver by Homicide: The Confrontation Clause.

Text: 11 To resolve Houlihan's and Nardone's main objections, we must decide whether a defendant waives his rights under the Confrontation Clause by murdering a potential witness to prevent that witness from turning state's evidence and/or testifying against him at trial. We believe that he does. 12 It is apodictic that in all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right ... to be confronted with the witnesses against him.... U.S. Const. Amend. VI. This trial right is designed to assure defendants of a meaningful opportunity to cross-examine the witnesses who testify against them, see, e.g., Delaware v. Van Arsdall, 475 U.S. 673, 678, 106 S.Ct. 1431, 1434, 89 L.Ed.2d 674 (1986); United States v. Laboy-Delgado, 84 F.3d 22, 28 (1st Cir.1996), thereby enhancing the jury's ability to separate fact from fiction. 13 Though the Confrontation Clause is a cornerstone of our adversary system of justice, it is not an absolute; there are circumstances in which the prosecution may introduce an unsworn out-of-court statement without procuring the declarant's presence at trial. See, e.g., Puleio v. Vose, 830 F.2d 1197, 1205-07 (1st Cir.1987) (discussing exception for spontaneous exclamations), cert. denied, 485 U.S. 990, 108 S.Ct. 1297, 99 L.Ed.2d 506 (1988). Moreover, a defendant may waive his right to confrontation by knowing and intentional relinquishment. See Boykin v. Alabama, 395 U.S. 238, 243, 89 S.Ct. 1709, 1712, 23 L.Ed.2d 274 (1969) (holding that a guilty plea is an express waiver of the constitutional right to confrontation); see also Johnson v. Zerbst, 304 U.S. 458, 464, 58 S.Ct. 1019, 1023, 82 L.Ed. 1461 (1938). While a waiver of the right to confront witnesses typically is express, the law is settled that a defendant also may waive it through his intentional misconduct. See, e.g., Taylor v. United States, 414 U.S. 17, 20, 94 S.Ct. 194, 196, 38 L.Ed.2d 174 (1973) (finding such a waiver when a defendant boycotted his trial); Illinois v. Allen, 397 U.S. 337, 343, 90 S.Ct. 1057, 1060, 25 L.Ed.2d 353 (1970) (ruling that a defendant waives the right to confrontation by engaging in disruptive behavior requiring his removal from the courtroom during the trial). 14 By the same token, courts will not suffer a party to profit by his own wrongdoing. Thus, a defendant who wrongfully procures a witness's absence for the purpose of denying the government that witness's testimony waives his right under the Confrontation Clause to object to the admission of the absent witness's hearsay statements. See Reynolds v. United States, 98 U.S. (8 Otto) 145, 158, 25 L.Ed. 244 (1878) (holding that the defendant's refusal to disclose the whereabouts of a witness constituted such a waiver); Steele v. Taylor, 684 F.2d 1193, 1201-02 (6th Cir.1982) (holding that a defendant who silences a witness by exploiting an intimate relationship waives the right to confrontation), cert. denied, 460 U.S. 1053, 103 S.Ct. 1501, 1502, 75 L.Ed.2d 932 (1983); United States v. Balano, 618 F.2d 624, 629 (10th Cir.1979) (concluding that a defendant waives his confrontation right by threatening a witness's life and bringing about the witness's silence), cert. denied, 449 U.S. 840, 101 S.Ct. 118, 66 L.Ed.2d 47 (1980); United States v. Carlson, 547 F.2d 1346, 1358-60 (8th Cir.1976) (similar), cert. denied, 431 U.S. 914, 97 S.Ct. 2174, 53 L.Ed.2d 224 (1977). Moreover, it is sufficient in this regard to show that the evildoer was motivated in part by a desire to silence the witness; the intent to deprive the prosecution of testimony need not be the actor's sole motivation. Cf. United States v. Thomas, 916 F.2d 647, 651 (11th Cir.1990) (stating that the obstruction of justice statute, 18 U.S.C. § 1503, requires proof that the defendant's conduct was prompted, at least in part, by the requisite corrupt motive). 15 Houlihan and Nardone argue, however, that the waiver-by-misconduct doctrine, even if good law, should not be employed here because Sargent was not an actual witness--no charges had been lodged against Houlihan or Nardone at the time of Sargent's murder, and no grand jury had as yet been convened--but at most a turncoat cooperating with the police. Thus, they could not have been on notice that they were waiving a trial right. We find this argument unpersuasive. Although the reported cases all appear to involve actual witnesses, see, e.g., United States v. Thai, 29 F.3d 785, 798 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 115 S.Ct. 456, 130 L.Ed.2d 364 & --- U.S. ----, 115 S.Ct. 496, 130 L.Ed.2d 406 (1994); United States v. Mastrangelo, 693 F.2d 269, 271-72 (2d Cir.1982), cert. denied, 467 U.S. 1204, 104 S.Ct. 2385, 81 L.Ed.2d 343 (1984), we can discern no principled reason why the waiver-by-misconduct doctrine should not apply with equal force if a defendant intentionally silences a potential witness. 16 When a defendant murders an individual who is a percipient witness to acts of criminality (or procures his demise) in order to prevent him from appearing at an upcoming trial, he denies the government the benefit of the witness's live testimony. In much the same way, when a defendant murders such a witness (or procures his demise) in order to prevent him from assisting an ongoing criminal investigation, he is denying the government the benefit of the witness's live testimony at a future trial. In short, the two situations are fair congeners: as long as it is reasonably foreseeable that the investigation will culminate in the bringing of charges, the mere fact that the homicide occurs at an earlier step in the pavane should not affect the operation of the waiver-by-misconduct doctrine. Indeed, adopting the contrary position urged by the appellants would serve as a prod to the unscrupulous to accelerate the timetable and murder suspected snitches sooner rather than later. We see no justification for creating such a perverse incentive, or for distinguishing between a defendant who assassinates a witness on the eve of trial and a potential defendant who assassinates a potential witness before charges officially have been brought. In either case, it is the intent to silence that provides notice. 17 We therefore hold that when a person who eventually emerges as a defendant (1) causes a potential witness's unavailability (2) by a wrongful act (3) undertaken with the intention of preventing the potential witness from testifying at a future trial, then the defendant waives his right to object on confrontation grounds to the admission of the unavailable declarant's out-of-court statements at trial. 18 Before applying this holding to the case at hand, we must correctly calibrate the quantum of proof. The lower court, paying obeisance to United States v. Thevis, 665 F.2d 616, 629-30 (5th Cir. Unit B), cert. denied, 456 U.S. 1008, 102 S.Ct. 2300, 73 L.Ed.2d 1303 (1982), adopted the minority view and decided that the government must prove the predicate facts essential to the waiver by clear and convincing evidence. Houlihan, 887 F.Supp. at 360. This sets too high a standard. Unlike the Fifth Circuit, we think that the government need only prove such predicate facts by a preponderance of the evidence. 19 The Thevis court compared the waiver-by-misconduct problem to the admissibility of in-court identifications that follow tainted out-of-court identifications. See, e.g., United States v. Wade, 388 U.S. 218, 240, 87 S.Ct. 1926, 1939, 18 L.Ed.2d 1149 (1967) (requiring government to prove by clear and convincing evidence in such circumstances that the proposed in-court identification has a reliable independent basis). With respect, we believe the better comparison is to the admission of out-of-court statements under the coconspirator exception to the hearsay rule. See Fed.R.Evid. 801(d)(2)(E). To invoke the coconspirator exception, the proponent of the statement must show by a preponderance of the evidence certain predicate facts, namely, that a conspiracy embracing both the declarant and the defendant existed, and that the declarant uttered the statement during and in furtherance of the conspiracy. United States v. Sepulveda, 15 F.3d 1161, 1180 (1st Cir.1993), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 114 S.Ct. 2714, 129 L.Ed.2d 840 (1994); see also Bourjaily v. United States, 483 U.S. 171, 175-76, 107 S.Ct. 2775, 2778-79, 97 L.Ed.2d 144 (1987). 20 Proving the conditions precedent to the applicability of the coconspirator exception is analytically and functionally identical to proving that a defendant's wrongdoing waives his rights under the Confrontation Clause. See Steele, 684 F.2d at 1203; United States v. White, 838 F.Supp. 618, 624 (D.D.C.1993). We therefore align ourselves with the majority of federal appellate courts that have considered the question, see, e.g., Mastrangelo, 693 F.2d at 273; Steele, 684 F.2d at 1202-03; Balano, 618 F.2d at 629, and set the government's burden of proof at the preponderance-of-the-evidence level. 21 Measured against this more conventional benchmark, the district court's findings easily pass muster. The record amply demonstrates that Houlihan and Nardone knew when they conspired to murder Sargent that they were depriving the government of a potential witness. First, the district court supportably found that they believed Sargent was cooperating with the police and could harm them and the organization by talking. 4 See Houlihan, 887 F.Supp. at 363-64. Second, Sargent was in fact cooperating with law enforcement officials at the time and made two voluntary statements in which he provided detailed accounts of the organization's modus operandi, descriptions of the principals' roles in various murders, and a frank admission of his own involvement in the conspiracy. While the defendants' perception of likely cooperation may well be enough to meet this prong of the test, the fact of Sargent's cooperation reinforces the inference that the killers believed Sargent was spilling the beans and murdered him on that account. Last but not least, the conspirators knew to a certainty that Sargent had keen insight into their felonious activities both from his own work in the distribution network and from sundry conversations in which they spoke openly to him--in retrospect, too openly--of their participation in serious crimes. 22 This evidentiary foundation sturdily supports the conclusion that Houlihan and Nardone reasonably could have foreseen Sargent becoming a witness against them and plotted to kill him in order to deprive the government of his firsthand testimony. Hence, the district court did not err in overruling objections to the introduction of portions of Sargent's out-of-court statements insofar as those objections stemmed from the Confrontation Clause. 5 23