Opinion ID: 380341
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Witnesses' Agreements with the Government.

Text: 11 Barham contends that because the government witnesses failed fully to disclose the extent and nature of their agreements with the United States Attorney for the Middle District of Tennessee, this court should reverse his conviction on the third trial, just as a prior panel of this court reversed his conviction on the second trial. He admits that the evidence in the third trial gave the jury a more accurate impression of the agreements than did the evidence in the first or second trials, but he contends that the distortions in his trial were nevertheless sufficient to deny him due process. 12 Specifically, Barham objects to two instances of examination of the witnesses. First, when the prosecutor asked government witness Jerry Beech, Did (the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Alabama) explain to you that any promises made up in the Middle District of Tennessee had no effect on anything that happened down here in Alabama? Beech replied, Yes, sir. Barham objected, asking for an instruction, which the court declined to give, that the promise made in the Middle District of Tennessee would be binding on the government. Barham also contends that the testimony of Secret Service Special Agent Crosby exacerbated the jury's impression that the promise made in Nashville had no effect in the Northern District of Alabama. 13 Second, Barham objects to the court's treatment of Shaver's equivocations about his agreement with the government. Shaver testified that he was to be prosecuted on only one count in exchange for entering a guilty plea, not in exchange for his willingness to testify in Barham's trial. He agreed to cooperate with the government by helping to set up a controlled buy, by telling the government what he knew, by testifying in Barham's (and co-defendant Simon's) trial, and by pleading guilty only in hopes that it would go easier if he cooperated, he testified. Only his guilty plea resulted in a promise, he asserted. Barham sought to question Shaver about the discrepancy between his understanding and that contained in the letter from the U.S. Attorney, but the court refused to allow the questioning, commenting that the confusion was caused by Shaver's not really understanding the phraseology that you've used about deals and exhorting Barham, let's don't further confuse this issue, though. 14 Barham contends that the net effect of the testimony of Beech and Shaver about their agreements with the government, coupled with the court's refusal to give the requested instructions and its comments from the bench in the jury's presence, precluded the jury from fully understanding the nature of the government's agreements with its witnesses. The jury was unable to understand the witnesses' bias, Barham contends, thereby denying him a fair trial. 15 This argument is without merit. The reasons relied on by the court for reversal in Barham I are conspicuously absent from this case. First, Barham had a copy of the letter from the U.S. Attorney for the Middle District of Tennessee during the entire course of the third trial. Therefore, he was able to determine at exactly what point the witnesses' testimony may have departed from the truth, if at all. The government knew nothing about the nature of the agreements that Barham did not also know. Second, Barham conducted informed cross-examination of Beech and Shaver, making clear to the jury the witnesses' understanding of, or confusion about, the meaning of the agreements. 2 The witnesses testified at length, even if not in entirely consistent fashion, about their understanding of the agreements. A witness's belief that an agreement exists and his understanding of the scope of that agreement are far more crucial for assessing whether the witness has a motive for testifying untruthfully than is the U.S. Attorney's intention in making the agreement. 3 See United States v. Onori, 535 F.2d 938, 945 (5th Cir. 1976). The letter embodying the agreement itself was put into evidence, so the jury could determine what it believed the scope of the agreement to be and could more readily assess whether the witnesses' testimony of their understanding of the agreement was credible. Unlike the jury in the second trial, this jury amply understood that there was an agreement of some sort between the government and these witnesses, made its own assessment of their possible bias or motive in testifying, and weighed the credibility of their testimony accordingly. 16