Opinion ID: 3181879
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Examining Gilmer

Text: Green-Bowman claims the government committed misconduct while examining Gilmer at the second trial. Green-Bowman maintains the government subverted the rules generally excluding hearsay evidence, see Fed. R. Evid. 802, by calling Gilmer and asking him questions it did not expect him to answer.7 His apparent concern is the government could have asked Gilmer if he saw Green-Bowman with the shotgun and, if Gilmer again said no, as everyone expected he would, could have impeached Gilmer with his grand-jury testimony. That would have risked the jury impermissibly treating Gilmer’s out-of-court statements as substantive evidence of Green-Bowman’s guilt, just as in the first trial. See United States v. Demery, 674 F.3d 776, 780 (8th Cir. 2011). Regardless of whether the government’s conduct would have been improper had things played out the way Green-Bowman feared, but see United States v. Logan, 121 F.3d 1172, 1175 (8th Cir. 1997) (“[T]he government’s motive in eliciting testimony is irrelevant.”), his fears never actually materialized. The government did not impeach Gilmer with his grand-jury testimony, so the jury never heard anything it was not supposed to hear. Because the government used an innocuous question to test Gilmer’s willingness to repeat his grand-jury testimony, the jury could not infer anything from the exchange other than Gilmer might have previously mentioned Green-Bowman having a nickname. That did not make the government’s conduct improper or unfairly prejudicial. 7 Green-Bowman disclaims the argument, suggested in his initial brief, that calling Gilmer to testify again was itself improper, so we do not address it. -12- We are also unpersuaded by Green-Bowman’s suggestion of impropriety stemming from the possibility that Gilmer’s recalcitrance might “sully the jury’s impression of” Green-Bowman. Nor does Green-Bowman’s assertion that the government waited until after the second trial to indict Gilmer for perjury change our conclusion. That the alleged delay in punishing Gilmer might have emboldened him not to cooperate at the second trial is irrelevant, because the government was not allowed to use his noncooperation as an opportunity to let the jury hear his potentially prejudicial grand-jury testimony. We find no support for Green-Bowman’s suggestion that a discretionary charging decision in a separate case could be misconduct simply because Green-Bowman otherwise might have been able to impeach Gilmer with a pending perjury charge.8