Opinion ID: 197213
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Admission of Evidence Claim

Text: 21 Defendant-appellant next alleges that the district court erred in admitting into evidence the prior testimony of Louis Padova. Padova had testified in October 1992, under a compulsion and immunity order, at the trial of Arthur Marder, who was accused of illegal gambling. At Marder's trial, Padova testified that Marder had told him that he was paying everyone--the implication being that Marder paid off local Revere politicians in order to protect his illegal video poker business. It was alleged that these payments were made via Sposito. 22 At Sposito's trial, Padova refused to testify, even with immunity, and was found in contempt. The government moved to admit Padova's testimony from the prior Marder trial. The district court found Padova to be unavailable within the meaning of Federal Rule of Evidence 804(a)(2) and found the previous testimony to be admissible under Federal Rule of Evidence 804(b)(5). Appellant contests the Rule 804(b)(5) ruling. 23 The proper interpretation of the Federal Rules of Evidence is a question of law and is reviewed de novo, see Texaco Puerto Rico v. Department of Consumer Affairs, 60 F.3d 867, 874-75 (1st Cir.1995); Hathaway v. Coughlin, 99 F.3d 550, 555 (2d Cir.1996); United States v. Medina-Estrada, 81 F.3d 981, 986 (10th Cir.1996), but the application of Rule 804(b)(5) is reviewed under an abuse-of-discretion standard. See Cook v. United States, 904 F.2d 107, 111 (1st Cir.1990). 24 In ruling on the question, the district court found that the testimony relates to a material fact whether Arthur Marder was indeed paying off politicians to obtain protection for his video poker machine business in Revere. If that fact is proven, it increases the likelihood that he was paying off those politicians through Mr. Sposito. 2/7 Tr. 15. The court also found that the testimony of Padova is more probative on the point of what Arthur Marder said to Padova than any other testimony the Government can procure. 2/7 Tr. 16. Rule 804(b)(5) requires that: 25 (A) the statement is offered as evidence of a material fact; 26 (B) the statement is more probative on the point for which it is offered than any other evidence which the proponent can procure through reasonable efforts; and 27 (C) the general purposes of these rules and the interests of justice will best be served by admission of the statement into evidence. 28 Fed.R.Evid. 804(b)(5)(A), (B), (C). 4 Reading the first two subparagraphs together, defendant argues, requires that (B) be read as if it included the words of material fact after the word point. Thus, the defendant alleges that the district court erred by not directing its inquiry to the question of whether Marder's statement to Padova was more probative on the issue of whether Marder was paying off politicians than any other available testimony. Appellant's Brief at 35. 29 Before proceeding, we note that defendant's argument rests on the assumption that the question of what Marder said to Padova is not a material fact. If it is a material fact, Padova's testimony would be admissible, even under defendant's preferred interpretation of the rule. To conclude, as defendant does, that the question of whether Marder was paying politicians is material fact and yet the fact that he stated as much to Padova is not a material fact is an exceedingly fine distinction, and not one upon which the question of admissibility should turn. 30 The relationship between subparagraphs (A) and (B) of Rule 804(b)(5) appears to be a matter of first impression within the circuit. We begin, as always, with an examination of the plain language of the rule. Subsection (B) requires only that the statement be more probative on the point for which it is offered. The subparagraph does not include the words of material fact as advocated by defendant. The drafters of Rule 804(b)(5) separated the material fact element of the test found in subparagraph (A) from the more probative element of subparagraph (B). Were the rule intended to have the meaning advocated by defendant, it could have been written with much greater clarity. Had the drafters wanted to include the words of material fact following the word point in subparagraph (B) they obviously could have done so. Furthermore, by doing so, they would have eliminated the need for subparagraph (A) because the necessity of a material fact would be explicit in the revised subparagraph (B). As written, however, the plain language of the rule does not require that the issue on which the statement is most probative be a material fact; it requires only that it be probative on the point for which it is offered. Fed.R.Evid. 804(b)(5)(B). 31 Furthermore, subparagraph (A) requires only that the statement be offered as evidence of a material fact. It need not itself be a material fact. If we were to import language from subparagraph (A) to subparagraph (B), it would be more natural to add the words of evidence after the word point, such that (B) read, the statement is more probative on the point of evidence for which it is offered than any other evidence. Under this interpretation, appellant's claim would fail. The district court established that the statement was offered as evidence of the fact that Marder was paying off politicians and that the latter was a point of material fact. The statement is more probative on that point of evidence--what Marder told Padova--than any other evidence that the government could procure through reasonable efforts. 32 Defendant, perhaps recognizing that the language of the rule is not favorable to his argument, turns to legislative history. He points to language in the Senate Report to the effect that the residual hearsay exception should be used rarely. S.Rep. No. 1277, 93d Cong., 2nd Sess. (1974), U.S.Code Cong. & Admin.News 1974, p.7051. Our own examination of the legislative history, however, reveals that the inclusion of the residual hearsay exception was intended for cases, such as the one before us, that have guarantees of trustworthiness equivalent to or exceeding the guarantees reflected by the [other Rule 804(b) ] exceptions, and to have a high degree of prolativeness [sic]. Id. 33 In order to illustrate the type of evidence that the Senate Committee felt should be admitted but that may not fall within one of the other hearsay exceptions, the Senate Report cited Dallas County v. Commercial Union Assurance Company, 286 F.2d 388 (5th Cir.1961). S.Rep. No. 1277. At issue in that case was the cause of the collapse of the Dallas County Courtroom clock tower. Insurance investigators believed that it collapsed due to structural defects. Dallas County believed that the tower collapsed as a result of being struck by a bolt of lightning. In support of its position, the County introduced into evidence, among other things, charcoal and charred timbers found in the tower debris. Id. at 390. In order to rebut this evidence, the insurers sought to introduce a newspaper article from 1901 describing a fire that had occurred in the courtroom in that year. The court admitted the evidence despite the fact that it was not characterized as a 'business record', nor as an 'ancient document', nor as any other readily identifiable and happily tagged species of hearsay exception. Id. at 398. 34 The Senate Report stated that [b]ecause exceptional cases like the Dallas County case may arise in the future, the committee has decided to reinstate a residual exception for rules 803 and 804(b). S.Rep. No. 1277, U.S.Code Cong. & Admin.News 1974, p.7066. 35 Under defendant's construction of the residual hearsay exception, however, the newspaper article in Dallas County would not be admissible. The newspaper article was introduced as evidence of the material fact that the charred timbers were the result of a fire that took place more than fifty years prior to the case. The newspaper story did not, however, go directly to the question of why the charred timbers were in the tower, it only went to the fact that there had been a fire in 1901. The story was not more probative on the point of why the timbers were charred than any other evidence. It was, however, more probative than any other evidence that the insurers could provide on the question of whether there had been a fire. 36 Just as in the case at bar, therefore, a requirement that the statement be more probative on the point of material fact than other available evidence would exclude the evidence in question. This is certainly not what the Senate Committee, which used the Dallas County case as an example of evidence that was correctly admitted, intended. 37 Finally, we turn to the policies served by the residual hearsay exception. These can be summarized as follows: 38 1. To provide sufficient flexibility to permit the courts to deal with new and unanticipated situations. 39 2. To preserve the integrity of the specifically enumerated exceptions. 40 3. To facilitate the basic purpose of the Federal Rules of Evidence: truth ascertainment and fair adjudication of controversies. 41 11 Moore's Federal Practice § 803(24) (2d ed. 1994 & Supp.1996-97). It is our view that these objectives are best served by rejecting defendant's proposed construction of 804(b)(5). The defendant's proposed interpretation would needlessly reduce the flexibility available to courts dealing with new and unanticipated situations. By excluding evidence that has, as required by 804(b)(5), equivalent circumstantial guarantees of trustworthiness, defendant's proposed interpretation would also make truth ascertainment and the fair adjudication of justice unnecessarily difficult. 42 For the above reasons, we decline to adopt the defendant's reading of subparagraphs (A) and (B), and we conclude that the district court did not err, as a matter of law, in its interpretation of Rule 804(b)(5)(B). 43 We examine the district court's application of the rule. Defendant-appellant claims that the admission of Padova's testimony was erroneous because the district court failed to analyze each part of the testimony in order to determine each part's reliability. In support of his claim, defendant cites Williamson v. United States, 512 U.S. 594, 114 S.Ct. 2431, 129 L.Ed.2d 476 (1994), in which the Supreme Court ruled that, for the purposes of Rule 804(b)(3), which governs statements against interest, the word statement refers to a single remark. The district court may not just assume for purposes of Rule 804(b)(3) that a statement is self-inculpatory because it is part of a fuller confession. Williamson, 512 U.S. at 601, 114 S.Ct. at 2435. Defendant would have us apply the same definition of statement to Rule 804(b)(5) and, under such a definition, he argues that the district court failed to analyze each part of the testimony. 44 We note initially that defendant failed to raise this issue at trial. Arguments raised for the first time on appeal are forfeited and reversible only upon a demonstration of plain error. United States v. Sullivan, 98 F.3d 686, 687 (1st Cir.1996). Under this standard, an appellant bears the burden of establishing: (1) 'error,' i.e., a '[d]eviation from a legal rule'; (2) that the error is 'plain' or 'obvious'; and (3) that the plain error affected 'substantial rights.'  United States v. Winter, 70 F.3d 655 (1st Cir.1995) (quoting United States v. Olano, 507 U.S. 725, 732, 113 S.Ct. 1770, 1776-77, 123 L.Ed.2d 508 (1993)), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 116 S.Ct. 1366, 134 L.Ed.2d 532 (1996); Fed.R.Crim.Proc. 52(b). 45 This circuit has not yet determined whether the definition of statement adopted for Rule 804(b)(3) in Williamson also applies to Rule 804(b)(5). 5 We need not make this determination in the instant case, because defendant's claim fails regardless. If Williamson 's definition of statement does not apply, defendant's claim is without merit because we find no plain error in the district court's review of the testimony as a whole--viewing it as a single statement--and its determination that the requirements of Rule 804(b)(5) were satisfied. The district court concluded that the testimony included adequate guarantees of trustworthiness because it was given under oath, because Padova was immunized, because he testified upon personal knowledge, and because he was vigorously cross-examined by defense counsel in the Marder trial. 6 These indicia of reliability are sufficient to establish that the district court's conclusion that the testimony was reliable was not plain error. The district court also found subparagraphs (A) through (C) satisfied, and we find no plain error in its analysis. 7 46 If Williamson applies, our analysis becomes more complicated. The district court does not appear to have engaged in a sentence-by-sentence analysis of the testimony, as would be required by Williamson. The indicators of reliability that the district court used, however, are not specific to any portion of the testimony and would apply to every statement therein, implying that there is no error with respect to the reliability of the testimony. Specifically, the district court stated that Mr. Padova testified at the Marder trial under oath, he was immunized and, therefore, had an incentive to tell the truth in order to avoid prosecution for perjury. He testified based upon personal knowledge. The judge also noted that he was vigorously cross-examined by Mr. Duggan, the defense counsel. Tr. 2/7 14-15. 47 Had the trial court conducted a sentence-by-sentence analysis, therefore, it would have applied these same criteria to every sentence and would have concluded that each one had sufficient indicators of reliability. There was, therefore, no plain error in the assessment of the reliability of the testimony. 48 With respect to subparagraphs (A)-(C) of Rule 804(b)(5), however, not every sentence of the testimony is admissible. For example, not every sentence in that testimony can be said to have been offered as evidence of a material fact. For this reason, assuming, arguendo, that Williamson applies, the district court's ruling was erroneous. The error was not, however, plain, as required by Winter. In order to be considered plain, the error must be so 'plain' that the trial judge and prosecutor were derelict in countenancing it, even absent the defendant's timely assistance in detecting it. United States v. Frady, 456 U.S. 152, 163, 102 S.Ct. 1584, 1592, 71 L.Ed.2d 816 (1982). The error in this case was not sufficiently clear as to rise to the level of a plain error. The error, if it existed at all, turns on the interpretation and application of Williamson to a case dealing with a hearsay exception that was not implicated in Williamson. No cases are on point in this circuit, and the issue was not raised at trial. 49 Furthermore, even if we concluded that there was plain error, the defendant still must show that the error affected substantial rights. In order to affect substantial rights, the error must have affected the outcome of the district court proceedings. Olano, 507 U.S. at 734, 113 S.Ct. at 1778. The analysis is the same as a harmless error analysis, except that [i]t is the defendant rather than the Government who bears the burden of persuasion with respect to prejudice. Id. Defendant in the instant case has failed to demonstrate that the error affected the outcome of the proceedings. Indeed, defendant-appellant's brief pursues only a harmful error argument and concludes that Padova's testimony ... very well could have tipped the scales. Appellant's Brief at 44 (emphasis added). Even if we were to agree with this assertion, it is not enough, under the plain error standard, that the error could have changed the outcome. We can find plain error only if the error must have done so. 50 Finally, we address defendant's claim that Sposito's counsel would have undertaken a more vigorous and extensive cross-examination of Padova than did Marder's counsel. We do not dispute that it would have been better to have Padova testify and be subject to cross-examination. Given that he was not available, a fact defendant does not dispute, the question is whether his previous testimony should have been admitted. This matter goes to the question of whether there were sufficient guarantees of trustworthiness. As we have already discussed, defendant has failed to persuade this court that the district court's conclusion that such guarantees existed was plain error.