Opinion ID: 153891
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Tribal Court Pleas

Text: 7 Mr. Denetclaw contends that the trial court erred in allowing the tribal court pleas to be admitted as impeachment evidence. A trial court's decision to admit or exclude evidence is reviewed for an abuse of discretion. United States v. Harmon, 918 F.2d 115, 117 (10th Cir.1990). The issue of whether tribal court pleas may be admitted in federal court is a question of law which we review de novo. United States v. Ant, 882 F.2d 1389, 1395-96 (9th Cir.1989). 8 The trial court permitted the prosecution to impeach Mr. Denetclaw with the tribal court pleas under the rationale of Harris v. New York, 401 U.S. 222, 91 S.Ct. 643, 28 L.Ed.2d 1 (1971). 4 R. at 246. In Harris, the Supreme Court held that statements elicited in violation of Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966), may be admitted to impeach the credibility of a defendant who testifies on his own behalf, even if such statements are not admissible in the prosecution's case-in-chief. Harris, 401 U.S. at 224-26, 91 S.Ct. at 645-46. The Court stated, Every criminal defendant is privileged to testify in his own defense, or to refuse to do so. But that privilege cannot be construed to include the right to commit perjury. Id. at 225, 91 S.Ct. at 645. 9 Mr. Denetclaw challenges the trustworthiness of his tribal convictions, pointing to the lack of constitutional protections in tribal court, specifically the right to counsel. He claims that he did not realize that his tribal pleas could be used against him in federal court. 4 R. at 264; Aplt. Br. at 22-23. However, this is beside the point. Even assuming that Mr. Denetclaw was not afforded a Sixth Amendment right to counsel at his tribal court hearing, his tribal court pleas still remain admissible for the purpose of impeachment. Michigan v. Harvey, 494 U.S. 344, 345-46, 110 S.Ct. 1176, 1177-78, 108 L.Ed.2d 293 (1990). In Harvey, the Supreme Court held that a statement taken in violation of the right to counsel could be used to impeach a defendant's false or inconsistent testimony. Id. at 346, 110 S.Ct. at 1178. 10 The fact that Mr. Denetclaw may not have had full constitutional protections at his tribal hearing, nor understood the consequences of his statements, does not alter the fact that he made such statements at that hearing. The fact remains that Mr. Denetclaw's pleas at the hearing were inconsistent with his story at trial, and the district court properly allowed the prosecution to explore this during its cross-examination of Mr. Denetclaw. Mr. Denetclaw's tribal pleas were only allowed for the limited purpose of impeachment, not as substantive evidence, and thus we focus not on the truthfulness of his pleas but rather on the fact that his pleas differ from his later testimony. The pleas are no different from any other inconsistent statements made by Mr. Denetclaw to a third person which could be used to impeach him. See Harris, 401 U.S. at 225-26, 91 S.Ct. at 645-46. 11 Our holding is entirely consistent with the Ninth Circuit's opinion in United States v. Ant, 882 F.2d 1389 (9th Cir.1989), on which defendant relies. In Ant, the Ninth Circuit held that the government could not use a defendant's tribal court guilty plea as substantive evidence of guilt in his federal trial arising from the same incident because his tribal plea lacked constitutional protections. Id. at 1395-96. However, in this case, the district court did not allow the use of the tribal pleas as substantive evidence, but only for impeachment purposes. Thus, the constitutional concerns underlying Ant are not present in this case. 12 Mr. Denetclaw's claim that his pleas were used against him as a confession distorts the issue. So too does Mr. Denetclaw's argument regarding the requirements for a guilty plea in federal court. These arguments ignore the fact that the tribal pleas were only admitted for the limited purpose of impeachment. Regardless of how Mr. Denetclaw attempts to characterize the facts, the pleas were not construed as guilty pleas in federal court, nor as a confession. The fact that the pleas might fail to meet constitutional requirements for a federal guilty plea or a confession is irrelevant. 13 Mr. Denetclaw contends that his tribal court pleas were not statements nor were they inconsistent with his trial testimony. We disagree. A tribal court plea clearly qualifies as a statement; indeed, silence may qualify as a statement in certain circumstances. United States v. Strother, 49 F.3d 869, 874 (2d Cir.1995). Mr. Denetclaw claims that he did not expressly admit guilt in the tribal court proceeding. However,  'statements need not be diametrically opposed to be inconsistent.'  Id. (quoting United States v. Agajanian, 852 F.2d 56, 58 (2d Cir.1988)). During Mr. Denetclaw's testimony at trial, he claimed self-defense and that he lost his knife early in the struggle. 3 R. at 232-33. These statements could be understood as a denial of culpability as well as a denial that he inflicted the knife wounds on Hernandez and thus fair game for impeachment. Accord United States v. Havens, 446 U.S. 620, 628, 100 S.Ct. 1912, 1917, 64 L.Ed.2d 559 (1980). The inconsistency between no contest or guilty pleas to aggravated battery charges and Mr. Denetclaw's later claim of innocence is apparent; moreover, we note that Mr. Denetclaw was given the opportunity to explain his prior inconsistent statements, 4 R. at 262-65. 14 Mr. Denetclaw claims that the tribal court convictions were inadmissible to impeach him under Federal Rule of Evidence 609(a). This position is without merit because the convictions were not introduced under Rule 609(a). Rule 609(a) pertains to the use of a conviction for the purpose of character impeachment--the conviction itself as an indication of lack of trustworthiness. See Fed.R.Evid. 609(a) advisory committee notes (There is little dissent from the general proposition that at least some crimes are relevant to credibility). However, as we have previously indicated, the tribal court pleas were introduced for direct impeachment as statements inconsistent with Mr. Denetclaw's trial testimony, not as prior convictions under Rule 609(a). For this reason, Loper v. Beto, 405 U.S. 473, 92 S.Ct. 1014, 31 L.Ed.2d 374 (1972), cited by Mr. Denetclaw, is inapposite. In Loper, a Supreme Court plurality held that the use of a constitutionally invalid conviction to impeach a defendant's general character and credibility deprives him of due process of law but expressly distinguished this situation: 15 [Loper ] is not a case where the record of a prior conviction was used for the purpose of directly rebutting a specific false statement made from the witness stand. The previous convictions were used, rather, simply in an effort to convict [the defendant] by blackening his character and thus damaging his general credibility in the eyes of the jury. 16 Id. at 482 n. 11, 92 S.Ct. at 1019 n. 11 (citations omitted). Unlike in Loper, the tribal court pleas in this case were used to directly rebut statements made from the witness stand.