Opinion ID: 3036352
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Pretrial Agreement

Text: Bear also argues that the government breached a pretrial agreement by calling Deputy Hager as a witness in its rebuttal case. She contends the government stipulated that it would not call Hager at trial. The government, however, maintains that it only agreed not to call Hager in its case-in-chief, and therefore acted properly by using him exclusively in rebuttal. Because in the event of a retrial the government will be bound by whatever agreement it made, see United States v. Shapiro, 879 F.2d 468, 472 (9th Cir. 1989) (“It is also apparent that the government must abide by its agreement if it chooses to retry [defendant].”), we will resolve the question of the scope of the government’s agreement. [8] Interpreting the agreement is a question of law we review de novo. See United States v. Lawton, 193 F.3d 1087, 1094 (9th Cir. 1999) (“The interpretation of stipulations is, like the interpretation of contracts, an issue of law reviewed de novo.” (citing Braxton v. United States, 500 U.S. 344, 350 (1991))). To effectively limit an agreement to its case-inchief, the government must communicate that limitation unambiguously. See Shapiro, 879 F.2d at 472 (“If the government intended to condition its stipulation . . . the government was obligated to do so unambiguously.”). Prior to trial, government counsel sent a letter to six codefendants, including Bear, stating that the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department had terminated Deputy Hager’s employment as explained in a nine-volume internal affairs investigative report. The letter also stated that “the government does not intend on calling him as a witness at trial.” At a pretrial conference one week later, Bear’s counsel requested a two-month continuance to obtain the internal affairs files for impeachment purposes. Government counsel stated that “[t]he government does not plan on calling [Hager] as a witness in our case, so I’m not sure what impeachment counsel is talking about because he’s not going to be called as a witness.” Gov2006 UNITED STATES v. BEAR ernment counsel also said that the files were wholly unrelated to Bear’s case according to internal affairs, and that they might be difficult to obtain from the state. Nonetheless, government counsel offered to help Bear obtain the files, and stated that the government had no objection to a severalmonth continuance. The district court granted a one-week continuance, and scheduled another pretrial conference to discuss Bear’s progress in obtaining the files and the possibility of a further continuance. At that follow-up pretrial conference, Bear’s counsel made the following statement: I spoke with the U.S. Attorney Miss Wright today, and since we received the memo from the U.S. Attorney’s office that the government is not going to be calling Deputy Hager as a witness, and if this is put on the record, we would not be needing to pursue this avenue of investigating the reasons of taking a look at those nine volumes of records at the sheriff’s department pertaining to Deputy Hager’s termination. This statement refers to an off-record conversation between counsel regarding the agreement limiting Hager’s testimony, but does not reveal the details of that discussion or the agreement’s scope. Because the agreement-defining conversation appears to have occurred off the record, and neither party clarified the record prior to trial, it is unclear whether, pretrial, the government had expressly limited the agreement to its case-in-chief. This ambiguity, however, evaporates upon consideration of counsels’ discourse at trial. On the first day of trial, the prosecutor stated that she had “previously discussed with defense counsel the fact that the Government does not intend to call Deputy Hager in its case-in-chief,” and that “[p]erhaps something in Defendant’s cross-examination, as I have already disUNITED STATES v. BEAR 2007 cussed with defense counsel, may raise an issue in the Government’s rebuttal case.” Defense counsel did not object to this representation of the agreement’s limited scope, despite its clarity and despite its reference to a prior conversation during which the government had expressly communicated the limitation. Upon learning of Hager’s presence in court on the third day of trial, defense counsel objected, stating that there was an “agreement between Government counsel and Defense that Deputy Hager is not going to testify.” The prosecutor insisted that the government had clearly communicated the case-inchief limitation, and had expressly reserved the right to call Hager in rebuttal, both prior to and during trial without objection. The district judge agreed with the prosecutor, and allowed Hager to testify. [9] We affirm the district court’s determination that the agreement not to call Hager was limited to the government’s case-in-chief. Defense counsel failed to object on the first day of trial to the government’s explicit description of the limited agreement—including a right to call Hager on rebuttal—and references to prior, consistent, scope-defining discussions. This indicates that the government had unambiguously communicated the agreement’s case-in-chief limitation. Consequently, in any retrial of this case against Bear, while Hager may not testify in the government’s case-in-chief, he may testify as a rebuttal witness.