Opinion ID: 430531
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Prior Testimony of Raymond Ferritto Was Properly Admitted at Trial

Text: 40 Ferritto had testified at the state murder trials 9 of the six defendants. He refused to testify at the federal RICO trial, however, claiming that the government had breached its plea agreement with him, and consequently he had to serve more time than he had been promised. Also, he asked for immunity from prosecution for perjury as a condition of his testifying. The government granted him use immunity, that is immunity from the use of his testimony in the RICO case to prove that his prior testimony was perjurious, but granted him no immunity for any perjury he might commit in the RICO trial itself. Ferritto still refused to testify and the court held him in contempt. 41 The court then granted the government's motion to read Ferritto's testimony from the three state trials into the record, finding that Ferritto was unavailable within the meaning of Fed.Rule Evid. 804(a). The court instructed the jury that Ferritto's testimony in the state trial of Licavoli, Cisternino and Carabbia was admissible only against those three defendants; Ferritto's testimony from the trial of Calandra and Ciarcia was admissible only as to those two, and Ferritto's testimony in Liberatore's trial was admissible only against Liberatore. Ferritto's testimony in the first two trials was substantially the same. Upon the request of Liberatore's attorney the prosecution did not read Ferritto's full testimony from Liberatore's trial, but only the few lines that related specifically to Liberatore. 42 Defendants make several arguments regarding Ferritto's testimony. First they claim that the government was responsible for Ferritto's failure to testify. He was therefore not unavailable under Fed.Rule Evid. 804(a), and his testimony was inadmissible. Rule 804(a) states, in part, [a] declarant is not unavailable as a witness if his ... absence is due to the procurement or wrongdoing of the proponent of his statement for the purpose of preventing the witness from attending or testifying  (emphasis added). The law is clear that Ferritto's prior testimony, if otherwise admissible, was not made inadmissible by the government's actions unless the government actually sought to prevent the witness from testifying. Steele v. Taylor, 684 F.2d 1193, 1202 (6th Cir.1982), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 103 S.Ct. 1501, 75 L.Ed.2d 932 (1983); United States v. Seijo, 595 F.2d 116, 119-20 (2d Cir.1979). This was hardly the case. Ferritto was the government's star witness. The government even offered him immunity from possible perjury prosecution to induce him to testify. There is no suggestion in the record that the government breached its plea agreement in order to prevent Ferritto from testifying at the RICO trial. 43 Defendants further argue that Ferritto's testimony should not have been admitted because 1) defendants did not have an adequate motive and opportunity to cross-examine Ferritto in the state proceedings, and 2) admission of the prior testimony violated the confrontation clause of the sixth amendment. 44 Federal Rule of Evidence 804(b)(1) allows admission of prior testimony if the issues in both cases are sufficiently similar so as to give the party against whom the testimony is offered an opportunity and similar motive to develop the testimony. Here the issues in the cases were nearly identical, since in the state cases the defendants were charged with murder and conspiracy to commit murder, and in the RICO prosecution these two acts constituted the predicate acts for the RICO conviction. Defendants argue that because of the additional enterprise element that must be shown in a RICO prosecution their motive to cross-examine was not the same here as in the state prosecutions. However, defendants have failed to point to any matter that they would have raised in cross-examination with respect to the enterprise element that they did not raise in the prior proceedings. 45 Each defendant certainly had adequate motive to cross-examine Ferritto with respect to testimony given in his own trial. The jury was carefully instructed to consider against each defendant only the testimony that Ferritto had given at the defendant's own trial. We agree with defendants that it may be humanly impossible for a juror completely to compartmentalize multiple versions of an event and apply each version only against a certain defendant. However, this is not to say that evidence implicating more than one defendant in a joint prosecution may never be admitted with an instruction that it applies only to a single defendant. In this case the testimony in the state trials was substantially the same, so it is hard to see how any of the defendants was prejudiced by admission of more than one version of the events. To the extent that there are discrepancies in Ferritto's testimony the jury was made aware of these by virtue of having heard the different versions. The jury heard both Ferritto's direct testimony and cross-examinations. We cannot say that Ferritto's testimony was improperly admitted. 46 The above analysis applies as well with respect to defendants' confrontation clause argument. The Supreme Court long ago held that admitting testimony of an unavailable witness does not violate the confrontation clause. Mattox v. United States, 156 U.S. 237, 242-44, 15 S.Ct. 337, 339-40, 39 L.Ed. 409 (1895). The confrontation clause requires that a hearsay declarant be unavailable, and that his statements bear some indicia of reliability. Ohio v. Roberts, 448 U.S. 56, 65, 100 S.Ct. 2531, 2538, 65 L.Ed.2d 597 (1980); Mancusi v. Stubbs, 408 U.S. 204, 213, 92 S.Ct. 2308, 2313, 33 L.Ed.2d 293 (1974); California v. Green, 399 U.S. 149, 161, 90 S.Ct. 1930, 1936, 26 L.Ed.2d 489 (1970); Pointer v. Texas, 380 U.S. 400, 407, 85 S.Ct. 1065, 1069, 13 L.Ed.2d 923 (1965). We have concluded that Ferritto was unavailable. Ferritto has been cross-examined at length by one or more of the defendants on all of the testimony that was read to the jury and those cross-examinations were also read to the jury. All of the defendants have cross-examined Ferritto about the same set of facts. The defendants' motives for cross-examination at the state trials and the RICO trial were substantially identical. We find that the indicia of reliability necessary to satisfy the confrontation clause are present here and hold that Ferritto's testimony in the state prosecutions was properly admitted. 47 Defendants also claim that they were prejudiced by the fact that the District Court had Ferritto's testimony re-read to the jury, upon the jury's request, during jury deliberations. It is within the judge's discretion to re-read testimony for a deliberating jury. Indeed, the cases in this area generally challenge the judge's decision not to have the testimony re-read to the jury. See, e.g., United States v. Toney, 440 F.2d 590, 591-92 (6th Cir.1971); United States v. Almonte, 594 F.2d 261, 265 (1st Cir.1979). The transcripts of Ferritto's testimony are lengthy and comprised a large portion of the state's case, and it is understandable that the jury felt a need to hear them a second time during deliberations. Defendants have failed to show that the District Court abused its discretion in allowing the transcripts to be read a second time. 48