Opinion ID: 447056
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Missing Witnesses.

Text: 8 Shortly after arraignment, at the request of defense counsel, the government was ordered to provide the names and whereabouts of each of the passengers who had been aboard the JESULA. The majority of the passengers were in detention centers in the United States or Puerto Rico, but approximately 15 of them had returned to Haiti. At trial, both appellants testified that they were not in charge of the ship; that two other individuals, Lineus Joseph and Virsius Silius, were in control. Joseph was one of the persons who had returned to Haiti, and Silius could not be located in INS records. Appellants claim that the testimony of these two unavailable witnesses was essential to their defense, and that the government, having deported these witnesses, violated their fifth amendment right to due process and their sixth amendment right to compulsory process. 9 To prove a violation of a defendant's constitutional rights resulting from the government's deportation of a witness, a defendant must show some reasonable basis to believe that the deported witness would testify to material and favorable facts. United States v. Schaefer, 709 F.2d 1383, 1386 (11th Cir.1983); see United States v. Valenzuela-Bernal, 458 U.S. 858, 867-72, 102 S.Ct. 3440, 3446-49, 73 L.Ed.2d 1193 (1982). The appellants have not satisfied this burden. First, the record does not show that the government actually deported or sent away the witnesses claimed to be material. 3 Second, there has not been the slightest indication that the testimony of Joseph and Silius would be either material or favorable to the appellants. Testimony indicated that Joseph and Silius had steered the vessel, but only pursuant to appellants' orders. It is true that the appellants sought to charge the missing witnesses with the commission of the crime, but there is nothing to indicate that these witnesses would, as if in a Perry Mason rerun, confess on the witness stand that they were, indeed, the criminals. It is highly likely that the testimony of these witnesses would merely be repetitive with the other testimony in the case indicating that the appellants were in control of the vessel. We find no error in the district court's refusal to dismiss the charges against appellants due to the unavailability of these witnesses. 10