Opinion ID: 2790833
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Robbins's Testimony

Text: Sean Robbins testified on direct examination that he had pleaded guilty to 24 counts of misprision of a felony. When asked to define misprision, Robbins responded: Misprision means that I had knowledge of crimes committed by Mr. Foley at the Law Office of Marc Foley; namely, mortgage fraud. It means I didn't report those crimes to the authorities, and it also means that I concealed those crimes by having disbursement authorizations signed by Lisa Reed, which were essentially an agreement to conceal the nature of the transaction from the lenders. Defense counsel immediately objected and moved to strike this testimony. The district court denied this motion. Foley contends that the district court abused its discretion in failing to strike this testimony as unfairly prejudicial under Fed. R. Evid. 403.9 More specifically, Foley argues that [i]t was not for Sean Robbins to inform [the jury] that Mr. Foley was guilty of mortgage fraud based on the facts as 9 Rule 403 provides: The court may exclude relevant evidence if its probative value is substantially outweighed by a danger of one or more of the following: unfair prejudice, confusing the issues, misleading the jury, undue delay, wasting time, or needlessly presenting cumulative evidence. -18- he knew them, and that Robbins's testimony was particularly problematic because Robbins, an attorney, would be in a better position than the average person to know whether mortgage fraud had been committed. We have made clear that the fact of [a witness's] guilty plea and the plea agreement properly may be elicited to dampen the effect of an anticipated attack on the witness's credibility. United States v. Dworken, 855 F.2d 12, 30 (1st Cir. 1988); see also United States v. Richardson, 421 F.3d 17, 40-41 (1st Cir. 2005). We have accordingly upheld the admission of evidence concerning a co-conspirator's guilty plea, even though it similarly invites an inference of the defendant's guilt, when such evidence is accompanied by appropriate limiting instructions. See Dworken, 855 F.2d at 29-30; see also United States v. Gaev, 24 F.3d 473, 479 (3d Cir. 1994) (Conspiracy by definition requires the participation of more than one party, and the jury may take a guilty plea by a coconspirator as evidence of the defendant's guilt, an impermissible inference. Yet the testimony of a co-conspirator often cannot be properly evaluated without knowledge of the plea agreement.). Here, as in Richardson, Dworken, and Gaev, the district court provided an appropriate limiting instruction in its final charge to the jury: Both [Reed and Robbins] testified that they have previously pled guilty to committing crimes related to the criminal activity charged in the indictment. The fact that -19- these witnesses entered a guilty plea is not a factor that you may consider in assessing the guilt or innocence of Mr. Foley. Each of these witnesses may be presumed to have acted after an assessment of his or her own best interests, for reasons that are personal to the witness, but that fact has no bearing on guilt in this case. The guilty plea may only be considered by you in assessing the credibility of these witnesses' testimony. Foley avers that this instruction was inadequate because it did not specifically inform the jury that they were to disregard Mr. Robbins's personal and professional belief, as an attorney, that Marc Foley had committed mortgage fraud. But Foley never requested such an alternative instruction, and in any event we think that the challenged testimony fell within the instruction's general prohibition on considering Robbins's guilty plea as evidence of Foley's guilt. Robbins did not testify outright that he knew or believed that Foley committed mortgage fraud; rather, he testified to pleading guilty to misprision of a felony, which, in his words, meant that [he] had knowledge of crimes committed by Mr. Foley at the Law Office of Marc Foley; namely, mortgage fraud. As we have suggested supra, this testimony is akin to the testimony of a co-conspirator concerning the fact of his guilty plea, which raises similar concerns as to the jury's assessment of the defendant's guilt. See Gaev, 24 F.3d at 479. Given the limiting instruction, we find no abuse of discretion in the admission of Robbins's testimony regarding his guilty plea. -20-