Opinion ID: 719370
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: right to cross-examine

Text: 48 Gonzalez argues that his constitutional right to cross-examine witnesses was impaired because the government failed to timely turn over impeachment evidence against Robert Smith, a co-conspirator and prosecution witness against Gonzalez. 49 Robert Smith had been arrested in March 1993 in Evansville, Indiana, driving back to Arizona with the $116,215 in cash he had received from Jerry Parker. The Evansville police seized the money. After Smith was released on bail, he filed a claim for the money the Evansville police had confiscated. While the forfeiture claim was still pending, Smith answered interrogatories in which he stated, under penalty of perjury, that the money seized belonged to Jerry Parker, to be used as capital for Parker's glass block business. Further, Smith stated on interrogatory that he was unaware that Gonzalez was involved in the distribution of drugs and that his trip to the hotel on March 10 and 11 was for business purposes. 50 As described earlier, Robert Smith, plead guilty on the morning of trial, August 22. On August 24, the government decided that it would call Smith to testify against the defendant. During his direct examination, Smith admitted that he was involved in Gonzalez's drug transactions, that the money seized was the proceeds from the marijuana sales, and that he was present at the hotel for the purpose of engaging in the drug transactions. Smith's testimony was in direct contradiction to the interrogatory answers he gave to the government in 1993. After Smith had completed his direct, cross and re-direct examination, the government turned over to Gonzalez Smith's answers to interrogatories submitted to the government as part of the prior forfeiture action. Defense counsel conducted a re-cross examination and used the interrogatories to impeach Smith's trial testimony. 51 Gonzalez asserts that the government's tender of the interrogatories was untimely and thus violated his Sixth Amendment right to cross-examination and his Fourteenth Amendment right to due process and fundamental fairness. He maintains that if his attorney had had the answers earlier, his counsel could have used them to impeach Smith during his initial cross-examination, rather than in re-cross, and thus his attorney's impeachment of Smith would have been substantially more effective and therefore there was a reasonable probability that he would have been acquitted. 52 Brady v. Maryland held that the prosecution may not suppress evidence favorable to an accused where the defendant moves for its production and the evidence is material to either guilt or punishment. 373 U.S. 83, 87 (1963). This rule applies to impeachment evidence as well as to exculpatory evidence. United States v. Ashley, 54 F.3d 311, 313 (7th Cir.), cert. denied, 116 S.Ct. 232 (1995) (citing United States v. Bagley, 473 U.S. 667, 676 (1985)). 8 This is so because impeachment evidence is evidence favorable to an accused [because] if disclosed and used effectively, it may make the difference between conviction and acquittal. Bagley, 473 U.S. at 676. A Brady violation only requires reversal of a conviction only if the evidence is material in the sense that its suppression undermines confidence in the outcome of the trial. Id. at 678; see also, Ashley, 54 F.3d at 313 (citing Bagley, 473 U.S. at 682) (evidence withheld by the government is material only if there is a reasonable probability that its disclosure to the defense would have changed the result of the proceeding.); Jones v. Washington, 15 F.3d 671, 676 (7th Cir.), cert. denied, 114 S.Ct. 2753 (1994). 53 In its appellate brief, the government concedes that: [w]ithout question, the disclosure [of the interrogatories] should have occurred as soon as the decision was made on August 24, 1994, to have Smith be a witness in the trial. That is so, because there is no dispute whatsoever that the interrogatory answers made by Smith were valuable material for impeachment by Gonzalez. Recognizing that, the United States made the document available to counsel as soon as the oversight was discovered. 54 The prosecution maintains however that the oversight and untimely disclosure of the interrogatories was cured because Gonzalez's counsel received the documents and was able to confront Smith with their existence on the stand. 55 At the time Gonzalez's counsel received the interrogatories, at the completion of his cross-examination, instead of requesting a recess or continuation so that he might study the answers and prepare his next examination, he proceeded directly to re-cross examine Smith, using Smith's answers to the interrogatories. He asked if Smith answered the questions under the penalty of perjury, and after Smith responded that he had, defense counsel elicited that Smith had fabricated his source for the money, and had answered falsely concerning his criminal history record, his reason for being at the hotel on March 10 and 11, and his knowledge of Gonzalez's involvement in the drug trade. Only after Gonzalez's attorney made an attempt to ensure that the jury was aware of each and every one of Smith's falsehoods on the interrogatories, the defendant's attorney concluded his examination. 56 Because the defendant failed to request extra time to examine and review the interrogatories before proceeding with cross-examination, we can only assume that at the time he and his counsel were apparently satisfied that his re-cross examination was sufficiently effective in its impeachment of the witness Smith. Now, after trial, Gonzalez attempts for the first time to persuade us that had his attorney been able to impeach Smith with his answers in his initial cross-examination, it would have been vastly more effective, to the extent that Gonzalez might have been acquitted. 57 In United States v. Nelson, 39 F.3d 705, 708 (7th Cir.1994), we held that once a witness's motive to lie is exposed on cross-examination, it is of peripheral concern to the Sixth Amendment how much opportunity defense counsel gets to hammer that point home to the jury. The same reasoning applies to impeachment: once Gonzalez's attorney had the opportunity and did in fact thoroughly expose Smith's perjury on the interrogatories, the defendant's Sixth Amendment right to confront and cross-examine the witnesses against him was satisfied. The fact that Gonzalez now speculates his attorney's cross-examination might have been more artful or forceful had he been provided with the interrogatories sooner, is a fact of peripheral concern to the exercise of Gonzalez's right, and does not require the reversal of his conviction on appeal. We wish to make clear that we do not countenance the government's carelessness in failing to deliver the impeachment evidence to the defendant. We restate that the government is expected to follow each and every mandate of the law to the highest standard. See United States v. Xheca, 704 F.2d 974, 981 (7th Cir.1983); United States v. Krebs, 788 F.2d 1166, 1176 (6th Cir.1986) (United States Attorneys are held to a higher standard of behavior than other attorneys.). However, the government's oversight was cured because Gonzalez had the opportunity and did in fact confront the witness Smith with his perjury; thus we hold that Gonzalez suffered no impairment of his right to effectively confront the witnesses against him.