Opinion ID: 3149145
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: the false evidence issue

Text: The lead investigator inaccurately testified that a key document—a digital scan of a handwritten patient register—was found on Kallen-Zury’s office computer. (Doc 346 at 2985-86). The document was important for two reasons. 4 Case: 13-14144 Date Filed: 10/23/2015 Page: 5 of 42 First, it was among a group of documents that HP failed to produce in response to an administrative subpoena. Second, the register memorialized HP’s methodology for tracking referrals. Beginning in July 2005, when Kallen-Zury became head of HP after the death of her father, the register included a column that documented which recruiter referred each patient to HP. In her testimony Kallen-Zury denied maintaining or possessing the register. (Doc. 348 at 3295-96, 3311-13). The government in closing arguments used this contradiction to attack Kallen-Zury’s credibility. The prosecutor sarcastically called her “unlucky” for having such an important document on her computer without even knowing it. (Doc 385 at 4039-41). After trial, the government realized that the disc containing the register had been mislabeled by someone from the Department of Health and Human Services. Although the prosecutors and the lead investigator did not know it, agents had found the document on the computer of another HP employee. (Doc 449 Ex. 1). Kallen-Zury moved for a new trial, but the district court denied the motion. (Docs. 533-34). Kallen-Zury argues that the lead investigator’s inaccurate testimony violated her due-process right against the use of false evidence. Because the inaccurate testimony undermined her credibility, she argues, it unfairly crippled her sole 5 Case: 13-14144 Date Filed: 10/23/2015 Page: 6 of 42 defense, which was good faith. Coloma and Miller argue that the spillover effect of this trial error unfairly contributed to the verdicts against them. “[A] conviction obtained through use of false evidence, known to be such by representatives of the State, must fall under the Fourteenth Amendment.” Napue v. Illinois, 360 U.S. 264, 269 (1959). This principle—“that a State may not knowingly use false evidence, including false testimony, to obtain a tainted conviction”—applies even when “the false testimony goes only to the credibility of the witness.” Id. Kallen-Zury claims that the lead investigator’s testimony was conceptually similar to a Giglio error. “To prevail on a Giglio claim, a petitioner must establish that (1) the prosecutor knowingly used perjured testimony or failed to correct what he subsequently learned was false testimony; and (2) such use was material.” Smith v. Sec’y, Dep’t of Corr., 572 F.3d 1327, 1334 (11th Cir. 2009) (quoting Ford v. Hall, 546 F.3d 1326, 1331-32 (11th Cir. 2008)). “Pursuant to Giglio, false testimony is material if the false testimony could in any reasonable likelihood have affected the judgment of the jury.” Occhicone v. Crosby, 455 F.3d 1306, 1309 (11th Cir. 2006) (quoting Giglio v. United States, 405 U.S. 150, 154 (1972)) (internal quotation marks and alterations omitted). When a Giglio error occurs, we must vacate the conviction unless the government proves beyond a reasonable doubt that the error did not affect the verdict. Id. (citing Chapman v. California, 6 Case: 13-14144 Date Filed: 10/23/2015 Page: 7 of 42 386 U.S. 18, 24 (1967)). The materiality element of a Giglio claim is a question of law subject to de novo review. Guzman v. Sec’y, Dep’t of Corr., 663 F.3d 1336, 1339 (11th Cir. 2011). 1 At oral argument, Kallen-Zury’s attorney conceded that the case agent’s testimony was not a true Giglio error because neither the case agent nor the prosecutors knew the information was false. The error was accidental, not intentional or perjurious. And the government alerted Kallen-Zury as soon as it discovered the error after trial. Furthermore, Kallen-Zury possessed the computer in question during her trial and could conceivably have discovered that the patient register was not on her hard drive. In any event, Kallen-Zury’s claim fails because the inaccurate testimony concerning the location of the patient register was not material to Kallen-Zury’s case. The mistake was not reasonably likely to affect the jury’s judgment. First, in the context of this massive five-week trial, the disagreement over the location of the patient register was picayune. On redirect, Kallen-Zury 1 The government asks us to scrutinize this false evidence issue using “the requirements for a new trial based on newly discovered evidence.” See United States v. Scrushy, 721 F.3d 1288, 1304-05 (11th Cir. 2013) (listing the four elements of a newly-discovered-evidence claim), cert. denied, 134 S. Ct. 1041 (2014). But Giglio claims often involve testimony that was not discovered to be false until after trial. In such cases, the claims need not clear the additional hurdle of the newly-discovered-evidence test. See, e.g., Giglio, 405 U.S. at 150-51 (“While appeal was pending . . . defense counsel discovered new evidence indicating that the Government had failed to disclose an alleged promise made to its key witness.”); United States v. Antone, 603 F.2d 566, 567 (5th Cir. 1979) (“While appeals . . . were pending, . . . defendants were made aware of false testimony.”); Arnold v. McNeil, 622 F. Supp. 2d 1294, 1297-98 (M.D. Fla. 2009) (testifying officer’s corruption not known to parties during trial). 7 Case: 13-14144 Date Filed: 10/23/2015 Page: 8 of 42 acknowledged that she knew about the patient register. She recalled it was kept in bound physical volumes dating back decades. (Doc. 348 at 3311-13). The only discrepancy between the lead investigator’s testimony and Kallen-Zury’s testimony was whether she kept the scanned electronic version of the register on her computer. This was a trivial point when Kallen-Zury clearly knew the location of the physical register and had the authority to control its content. Second, any harm to Kallen-Zury’s credibility over the location of the patient register was cumulative. The lead investigator’s inadvertent false testimony was not some lone torpedo that singlehandedly sunk Kallen-Zury’s good-faith defense. Kallen-Zury’s testimony contradicted the testimony of several government witnesses on a number of points. Had the error never occurred, diverse other discrepancies between Kallen-Zury’s testimony and the testimony of other witnesses (including three patient recruiters and two of Kallen-Zury’s own employees) were sufficient to abnegate her credibility in the jurors’ eyes. Because the misstatement was not material, there was no harmful error and no harmful spillover effect to Coloma and Miller.