Opinion ID: 3170402
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Admission of Testimony on Credibility

Text: Defendant challenges the admission of Wilson’s testimony opining on the credibility of Defendant during his interview. Early in his direct examination, Wilson testified to his expertise in interviewing witnesses through training and experience: Q. Do you -- do you engage in specialized training every year? A. Yes. Q. Is that part of your POST -- POST training, POST-certified training? A. Yes, it is, a minimum of 20 hours a year. Q. Have you been trained in interview techniques? A. Yes, I have. Q. Have you conducted interviews of potential witnesses to crimes? A. Yes. Q. Have you conducted interviews with potential defendants? A. Yes. Q. How many interviews have you conducted, approximately, over your 22 years with the SO? A. Hundreds. I -- a lot. Q. Do you feel pretty comfortable interviewing individuals who are suspects or witnesses to crimes? A. Yes, I do. Aplt. App., Vol. I at 292–93. He also testified that he had known Defendant for 10 to 12 years. 12 Later Wilson was asked to evaluate Defendant’s statement to him: Q. You testified that you’ve participated in hundreds of interviews; is that correct? A. Yes. Q. Was there any point during your conversation with Mr. Beierle when he appeared nervous to you? A. No. Q. Any point when he appeared frightened? A. No. Q. Was there any indication to you during the time of your interview with him that he was misleading you or being untruthful? A. No. Id. at 307–08 (emphasis added). Defense counsel did not object to this testimony. Defendant now challenges the prosecutor’s last quoted question. He claims that Wilson’s testimony “violated the well-settled rule that an expert may not opine about another witness’s credibility.” Aplt. Br. at 24. Because Defendant did not contemporaneously object to Wilson’s testimony, we review for plain error. See United States v. Hill, 749 F.3d 1250, 1257 (10th Cir. 2014). “Plain error occurs when there is (1) error, (2) that is plain, which (3) affects substantial rights, and which (4) seriously affects the fairness, integrity, or public reputation of judicial proceedings.” Id. at 1257–58 (internal quotation marks omitted). We need not decide whether admission of the evidence was error or whether any error was plain. Defendant has the burden to prove that each of the four requirements is satisfied; failure on any one requires affirmance. See United States v. Vazquez, 555 F.3d 923, 930 (10th Cir. 2009). And here Defendant fails on the third requirement. To show that admission of the challenged evidence affected his substantial rights, Defendant must establish “a 13 reasonable probability that but for the error claimed, the result of the proceeding would have been different.” Hill, 749 F.3d at 1263 (internal quotation marks omitted). He has not met that burden. The evidence in favor of conviction was extremely strong. Two officers testified about three interactions with Defendant in which he admitted to possessing the rifle. The jury also received a recording of the interview with Wilson and two written statements by Defendant admitting to firearm possession. True, the mere repetition of Defendant’s account, even to law-enforcement officers, hardly ensures its truthfulness. For instance, one could have serious doubts about his assertion that he never aimed his gun at Redfern. But his attempt in his trial testimony to discredit his admissions that he had (and used) the gun stretches credulity too far. It is apparent that when he was speaking to the officers, his sole concern was an assault charge, which he thought he had deflected (he “had gotten rid of the knots in his belly,” Aplt. App., Vol. II at 366) by asserting that he never aimed at Redfern or his daughter. He was not fearing a firearms charge, thinking that the incident would be resolved “between the two parties and the sheriff’s department,” id. at 450. But the “knots . . . returned” when he realized that the officers were looking into a felon-inpossession charge, so he had to concoct a different story. Id. at 366. We mention some of the more serious problems with the story Defendant provided at trial. To begin with, Defendant’s description to the officers of where he fired his gun (first a few shots near the shop and then two shots from about 30 feet away) was 14 corroborated by the physical evidence. But if his trial testimony is correct, he could not have seen from where Santos fired the gun. Also striking is the nonsensical excuse he gave at trial for giving false statements to the officers. He said that he was trying to protect Santos by taking the blame himself. But what was his motive for doing so? His explanation—“Well, I don’t know anybody’s situation. I have made boo-boos in my life. I don't know what anybody else has or has not done and I wasn’t going to point the finger until I could talk with my employees,” id. at 440—has no ring of truth, hollow or otherwise. And how would it help Santos for him to state falsely (1) that he had used his wife’s social security number to buy the gun for himself, (2) that the visitors had not threatened him before the incident, and (3) that he personally put the gun in the safe? And why would he delay telling the truth while he tried to track Santos down? Delaying to look for Santos would make more sense if his motive was not to protect Santos but to be sure that Santos could not be found before Defendant falsely put the blame on him. As icing on the cake, we note the tape (offered by Defendant into evidence) of Redfern’s post-incident call accusing Defendant of firing at him. Defendant offers no reason for Redfern to accuse him if Santos was the true assailant. Defendant relies on United States v. Hill, 749 F.3d 1250 (10th Cir. 2014), in which we reversed a conviction on plain-error review. But this case bears little resemblance to Hill. True, our reversal in that case was based on the improper admission of expert testimony by a law-enforcement officer regarding the defendant’s credibility when 15 interviewed by the officer. But in this case the evidence of guilt was much stronger; the allegedly improper opinion testimony was a single, unelaborated sentence, not the extensive analysis presented in Hill; and, unlike in Hill, where the defendant did not testify, the jury had more than ample opportunity to assess Defendant’s credibility during his trial testimony. In our view, Defendant has not shown that his substantial rights were prejudiced by the admission of Wilson’s testimony.