Opinion ID: 537726
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Admission of Government Pleadings

Text: 106 Defendants object to the admission at trial of certain pretrial government motions to unseal and reseal tape recordings. To understand the defendants' objection, it is necessary first to review the underlying factual context. 107 In his opening statement to the jury, counsel for Francesco Angiulo challenged the government's handling of the wiretap tapes, suggesting that the procedures by which the tapes were handled did not adequately ensure their protection from tampering, and insinuating that the tapes very well may have been tampered with by the government. He acknowledged that the government had taken steps to seal the original recordings, but then noted that the tapes had been unsealed and resealed for various reasons, thereby creating the opportunity for alteration. Defense counsel even went so far as to suggest that government attorneys had misled the court on certain occasions when requesting that particular tapes be unsealed and resealed. The purpose of these statements obviously was to cast doubt on the integrity of the tape recordings that formed the heart of the government's case. 108 To respond to these assertions, the government elaborately laid out, through testimony and documentation, the procedures by which the tapes were handled. Included in the documentation were certain pretrial motions that had been filed by the government to unseal and reseal tape recordings. The motions were introduced and allowed in evidence not for the truth of the matters asserted, but rather to establish the reasons the government had articulated to the court in its requests for unsealing and resealing, and when these reasons had been stated. Put another way, the government was not offering the motions to prove that it had been truthful in the reasons it had given to the court for unsealing and resealing the tape recordings; rather, it was seeking only to show what the motions had stated and when they had been filed. The jury was explicitly instructed to this effect--that it was not to consider the motions for the truth of the matters asserted. 109 Defendants objected to the admission of the motions at trial, and they reiterate their objections on appeal. They argue that because the motions contained factual assertions made by government attorneys under oath, the admission of the motions at trial caused the government attorneys effectively to become witnesses on disputed factual issues. In particular, defendants object to the assertion made in one motion by the lead prosecutor that the integrity of the tapes had been maintained. Invoking the prohibition against an attorney's serving as both advocate and witness, defendants contend that once the motions were admitted, the lead prosecutor should either have been disqualified or subjected to cross-examination on his sworn statements contained in the admitted motions. The trial court's failure to require either, according to defendants, is reversible error. 110 Defendants' arguments can be dispensed with fairly quickly. We acknowledge the existence of the advocate-witness rule, which generally bars an attorney from appearing as both an advocate and a witness in the same litigation. United States v. LaRouche Campaign, 695 F.Supp. 1290, 1315 (D.Mass.1988). We are also aware that where an attorney improperly appears as both an advocate and a witness in the same litigation, the sanction of reversal and a new trial may be justified. See United States v. Birdman, 602 F.2d 547, 556-60 (3d Cir.1979), cert. denied, 444 U.S. 1032, 100 S.Ct. 703, 62 L.Ed.2d 668 (1980). 9 111 That situation, however, does not confront us here. We find it highly significant that the motions to unseal and reseal were not admitted for the truth of the matters asserted, and that the jury explicitly was instructed to this effect. It follows that if the assertions made by government attorneys were not introduced for their truth, then the attorneys cannot be considered to have become witnesses, and there was no violation of the advocate-witness rule. Because defendants have articulated no other compelling need to justify calling the lead prosecutor as a witness, see United States v. Prantil, 764 F.2d 548, 551-54 (9th Cir.1985); United States v. Schwartzbaum, 527 F.2d 249, 253 (2d Cir.1975), cert. denied, 424 U.S. 942, 96 S.Ct. 1410, 47 L.Ed.2d 348 (1976), we find no error in the trial court's failure either to disqualify the lead prosecutor or require him to submit to cross-examination.