Opinion ID: 149112
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: BIE's Guilty Plea

Text: As explained above, see supra at 33, BIE pleaded guilty to violating the Sherman Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1, by engaging in the bid-rigging conspiracy. Pursuant to Rule 11 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, BIE also submitted a memorandum describing the conspiracy and BIE's role. This guilty plea and accompanying memorandum explained that BIE and others rigged bids by submitting bids on USAID-funded Contracts 20A, 29 and 07 and making payments to co-conspirators who agreed to not compete for USAID-funded contracts 20A and 08 pursuant to the bid-rigging conspiracy. Pl.Ex. 562A, at Joint App'x Pl. Exs. 568-69 (Joint Rule 11 Memorandum, United States v. Bill Harbert Int'l, No. 01-00302, 2002 WL 34377422 (N.D.Ala. Feb. 4, 2002), as redacted). When the Government sought to introduce evidence of BIE's guilty plea in the district court, the defendants argued that admitting the guilty plea and accompanying Rule 11 memorandum into evidence would improperly impute BIE's involvement to the remaining defendants. The district court disagreed, concluding that the plea and accompanying memorandum were evidence of the factual admissions therein, and were therefore relevant pieces of evidence that are admissible against all defendants. United States ex rel. Miller v. Bill Harbert Int'l Constr., Inc., Civ. No. 95-1231, slip op. at 4 (D.D.C. Mar. 21, 2007) (Mem. Op. & Order Den. Mot. to Sever). Of course, the plaintiffs would still bear the burden of establishing a link between the `others' who BIE allegedly conspired with, and specific defendants in this case. Id. at 4 n. 3. The court therefore allowed the Government to use the plea in its opening statement and again at the end of its case-in-chief, when counsel read the text of the memorandum to the jury. The defendants contend that this use of BIE's guilty plea should have been excluded as hearsay. They dispute the plaintiffs' contention that it is admissible under the hearsay exception set forth in Federal Rule of Evidence 803(22). They further argue that the danger of unfair prejudice substantially outweighed its probative value. See Fed.R.Evid. 403. We disagree. Rule 803(22) permits a judge to admit [e]vidence of a final judgment, entered after a trial or upon a plea of guilty ... to prove any fact essential to sustain the judgment, but not including, when offered by the Government in a criminal prosecution for purposes other than impeachment, judgments against persons other than the accused. First, we note that the exception to Rule 803(22)the clause beginning but not includingdoes not apply. Because this case is not a criminal prosecution, the rule does not preclude introduction of the plea documents as evidence of the judgment against persons other than the accused ( i.e., the other defendants) for reasons other than impeachment. That is, because this is a civil case, BIE's guilty plea may be admitted under Rule 803(22) against all the defendants as long as the plea was admitted to prove any fact essential to sustain the judgment. The defendants argue the guilty plea was not admitted to establish any fact. Instead, they assert, BIE's guilty plea was submitted only as evidence of the legal conclusion that BIE was guilty of conspiracy. But the Rule 11 memorandum clearly states more than the bare conclusion that BIE was guilty. Instead, it asserts the several facts already mentioned: that BIE and others submitted bids and made payments as part of a bid-rigging conspiracy involving Contracts 20A, 29, and 07. Each of those facts is essential to sustain the legal conclusion of BIE's guilt under Section 1 of the Sherman Act, and therefore fell within the scope of the rule. Other facts that were not essential to that conclusionsuch as specific references to the defendantswere redacted by the district court. See United States ex rel. Miller v. Bill Harbert Int'l Constr., Inc., 2007 WL 842079, 2007 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 18560, at 3 (D.D.C. Mar.16, 2007). We hold therefore that the district court properly interpreted the scope of Rule 803(22) and properly admitted BIE's guilty plea and Rule 11 memorandum under that rule. Nor was the admission of BIE's guilty plea improper under Rule 403. Rule 403 states that relevant evidence may be excluded if, inter alia, the evidence's probative value is substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice, confusion of the issues, or misleading the jury. Fed.R.Evid. 403. But to quote the district court, properly admitted but potentially incriminating evidence does not equate to unfairly prejudicial evidence that must be excluded. United States ex rel. Miller v. Bill Harbert Int'l Constr., Inc., Civ. No. 95-1231, slip op. at 4-5, 2007 WL 6370493 (D.D.C. March 21, 2007) (Mem. Op. & Order Den. Mot. to Sever). In assessing prejudice and probativeness, the district court, not this court, is in the best position to perform this subjective balancing. United States v. Cassell, 292 F.3d 788, 795-96 (D.C.Cir.2002) (quoting United States v. Washington, 969 F.2d 1073, 1081 (D.C.Cir.1992)). We are therefore extremely wary of second-guessing the district court, United States v. Law, 528 F.3d 888, 898 (D.C.Cir.2008) (quoting Henderson v. George Wash. Univ., 449 F.3d 127, 133 (D.C.Cir.2006)), and review its decision only for `grave abuse,' Cassell, 292 F.3d at 796 (quoting Washington, 969 F.2d at 1081). BIE's guilty plea did carry with it the potential to cause prejudice or confuse the juryit might have presumed that the co-conspirators referred to in the plea were the other defendants in the case. The district court recognized that potential, acknowledging that the documents pose certain problems insofar as they refer to other parties who are defendants here, United States ex rel. Miller v. Bill Harbert Int'l Constr., Inc., 2007 WL 842079, 2007 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 18560, at 3 (D.D.C. March 16, 2007), and that a jury might assume the other parties were also guilty under BIE's plea just because the case caption listed them. Therefore, the court struck any names other than BIE's in the case caption and elsewhere on the document. See id. With that redaction, the court held that the recitation of facts admitted to by BIE is highly probative, and, under these conditions [of redaction], poses relatively little risk of undue prejudice. Id. at 3-4. The court further mitigated the potential problem by twice instructing the jury that [t]he fact that BIE pleaded guilty may not in any respect be considered against any other defendants, nor may any inference be drawn against them by reason of BIE's plea of guilty. Given these protective measures against undue prejudice, the district court clearly did not abuse its discretion in admitting against all defendants the evidence of BIE's guilty plea. HII separately argues the guilty plea was particularly prejudicial to it because the Government implied in its opening statement that HII was trying to avoid responsibility. According to HII, this implication would look particularly reprehensible when juxtaposed with BIE's guilty plea. The jury, HII asserts, might have seen the guilty plea as evidence of BIE taking responsibility while HII avoided doing the same. Again, we disagree. HII's argument rests on a short passage from the Government's opening statement, in which counsel argued that just because [HII] assigned [the contracts] out to Harbert International Establishment, they don't assign away their responsibilities. As the plaintiffs argue, that brief comment did not suggest that HII had been implicated in the earlier criminal case against BIE, but instead noted only that HII did not escape liability for its own actions when it assigned Contracts 20A and 07 to BIE. Thus, the Government's comment does not disturb our holding that the district court did not abuse its discretion in admitting against all defendants the evidence of BIE's guilty plea.