Opinion ID: 2426901
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Government's Visits to Defense Witnesses Allen and Randall

Text: Brown argues that the Government substantially interfered with her right to present witnesses in her favor when agents visited Semaj Allen and Lakita Randallboth identified as defense witnesses on Brown's pretrial disclosures and questioned them regarding the Medicaid fraud at ANBNO. Allen and Randall subsequently declined to testify on Brown's behalf. They were school teachers who worked with Brown at the same school and were PCS providers with ANBNO. Brown alleges that Allen and Randall would have testified that Brown spent time with the Morales boystwo children Brown provided PCS forbefore school, at the park, and at football practice. [1] We affirm Brown's convictions on this ground because the district court did not clearly err in deciding that the agents' conduct did not substantially interfere with Allen's and Randall's free choice to testify. Both the prosecution and the defense have a right to interview witnesses; the fact that Allen and Randall were interviewed after the Government found out they were on the defense witness list was not improper, even if the Government previously knew Allen and Randall were connected with ANBNO. The undisputed testimony was that the two agents asked to talk with both witnesses about the ANBNO investigation, informed them that they did not have to speak with them, and told them that answering questions was voluntary and that they could stop the interview at any time. The agents did not tell Allen or Randall that they were targets of the Medicaid fraud investigation nor did they tell Allen or Randall that they had engaged in wrongdoing or criminal conduct. Nor did the Martha Stewart warning that Allen's and Randall's only obligation was to speak truthfully amount to substantial interference in their decision to testify. See Bieganowski, 313 F.3d at 291-92 (holding that prosecutor's comment that a defense witness could be prosecuted for perjury did not amount to substantial interference); Thompson, 130 F.3d at 687 (holding that a warning of the consequences of perjury even if carried out in a caustic manner, is no cause to dismiss the indictment against the defendants) (citation omitted). In short, Brown hangs her hat on the correlation between the agents' interviews and the witnesses' subsequent decisions not to testify on Brown's behalf. But correlation is not enough; Brown must at a minimum prove causation. The district court rejected Brown's causation argument and this finding was not clearly erroneous. See Skilling, 554 F.3d at 571 (rejecting a proof in the pudding argument that there must have been substantial interference where many potential witnesses declined to cooperate with the defense); Thompson, 130 F.3d at 687 (The defendant bears the burden of showing that testimony would have been different but for the government's actions.). There are a multitude of reasons why Allen and Randall may have decided not to testify, neither witness testified to improper conduct on the part of the agents, and Allen stated in her affidavit that her decision not to testify was not due to intimidation by the prosecution. Even if the information Allen and Randall obtained from the interviews caused the witnesses to decide not to testify on Brown's behalf, Brown has nevertheless failed to show that the district court committed clear error when it found that there was no substantial interference with Allen's and Randall's free choice to decide for themselves whether they wished to testify. Presenting the potential defense witnesses with the facts of the investigation and the crimes charged does not amount to witness intimidation; there must be evidence of threats or intimidation. See United States v. Viera, 839 F.2d 1113, 1118 (5th Cir.1988) (en banc); Bieganowski, 313 F.3d at 291-92. Testimony from the special hearings on Brown's motion to dismiss the indictment shows that neither Allen nor Randall knew the details of the crimes of which Brown was charged before meeting with the agents, that Allen never felt threatened or intimidated by the agents and that she subsequently decided she did not want to put her family through the stress of trial, and that Randall was generally uncooperative and Brown could only speculate as to the reason why Randall decided not to testify on Brown's behalf. The government's right to interview Allen and Randall did not disappear simply because they may have been ignorant of Brown's crimes. If, after learning the true nature of Brown's alleged crimes, Allen and Randall decided not to testify on her behalf for whatever reason, that is their choice.