Opinion ID: 748874
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: District Court's Questioning of Messina

Text: 9 Messina claims that, although [f]or the vast majority of this trial, the district judge presided with an evenhanded decorum with which no one should find fault, the court on three occasions questioned Messina in ways that evidenc[ed] a startling lack of restraint and culminat[ed] in an inquisitorial and baseless attack on [Messina's] credibility. Messina raised no objection to the court's behavior at the time, however, so the issue before us is whether the judge's actions constituted plain error. 1 10 The first occasion to which Messina points involves his trial testimony about contacts he had with one of the kidnappers, Anthony Persichetti. On the first day of direct examination, Messina testified that he had not met Persichetti. The next day, however, Messina admitted that he had met Tony. The district court then questioned Messina about the apparent contradiction. In response, Messina explained that he had made a mistake about Persichetti's surname, but that the two of them had, in fact, met. 11 The second line of questioning that Messina challenges concerned testimony he gave about his having served as chairman of the Federal Bar Council (Council). At the end of Messina's re-cross examination, the district judge returned to this issue, and said that the Council did not have a chairman, but instead had a posted chairman, which was a combination of president and chairman. He then showed Messina a listing of past Council presidents printed in the Second Circuit Redbook (a resource published by the Council). Messina conceded that his name was not on the list, but nonetheless maintained that he had been chairman (and not president). The court then recessed for lunch, and, since the evidence was by then closed, the jury was excused for the weekend. 12 After lunch, the district court asked counsel to return for a charge conference. When they did, the court informed them that it had received a fax confirming that Messina had indeed been the Council chairman during 1975-76. The court then said that it would inform the jury of its mistake. Accordingly, when the jurors returned on Monday morning, the district judge made an abject apology to them. He admitted that he was wrong about the organizational structure of the Council, stated that Messina had been its chairman, and told the jurors that his error demonstrated that judges are not infallible. At no time did Messina raise objection to any of this. He was silent both when the district court was questioning him and when it made its correction and apology. 13 The third series of questions about which Messina complains dealt with Messina's earlier testimony that he had discarded some six pages of potentially incriminating handwritten notes that he had taken during the period when Clooney was being held captive. The district court asked Messina whether he had thrown away the notes on advice of counsel, and whether it is normally appropriate for a lawyer to destroy documents. Again, no objection was raised to the questioning either then, or later in the trial. 14 A trial court may ask questions for such purposes as clarifying ambiguities, correcting misstatements, or obtaining information needed to make rulings. United States v. Filani, 74 F.3d 378, 386 (2d Cir.1996) (quoting United States v. Pisani, 773 F.2d 397, 403 (2d Cir.1985)) (quotation marks omitted). And, it may actively participate and give its own impressions of the evidence or question witnesses, as an aid to the jury, so long as it does not step across the line and become an advocate for one side. Id. at 385. This court, moreover, must review the entire record and attempt to determine whether the conduct of the trial has been such that the jurors have been impressed with the trial judge's partiality to one side to the point that this became a factor in the determination of the jury. United States v. Valenti, 60 F.3d 941, 946 (2d Cir.1995) (quoting United States v. Guglielmini, 384 F.2d 602, 605 (2d Cir.1967)) (quotation marks omitted). 15 After reviewing the transcript, we conclude that the challenged questioning did not amount to plain error. 16 The first series of questions was merely an attempt to clarify an ambiguity in Messina's testimony. Such questioning is permissible. See, e.g., United States v. Leslie, 103 F.3d 1093, 1104 (2d Cir.) (holding that the judge's questioning of witnesses did not deprive the defendant of a fair trial where it was even-handed and amounted to nothing more than an expansion and clarification of the witnesses' testimony), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 117 S.Ct. 1713, 137 L.Ed.2d 837 (1997). 17 The second intervention by the trial judge cannot be justified as an attempt at clarification. But the judge's explanation to the jurors that he had erred with respect to Messina's position as Council chairman went a long way toward eliminating any damage to Messina's credibility that his questioning might have caused. To be sure, we have held that [c]urative instructions to the jury, to the effect that they can decide what version to believe as sole judges of credibility, do not remove [an impression of judicial partisanship] once it is created. Filani, 74 F.3d at 386. The district court here did not, however, simply instruct the jurors that they should make their own decisions about Messina's credibility. Rather, the court specifically informed them that it had made a mistake, and expressly confirmed the veracity of the portion of Messina's testimony that it had originally called into doubt. Under the circumstances, we cannot say that the court's behavior amounted to reversible plain error. 18 The final incident is more troubling, but it lasted no more than a few minutes in the course of a full week of testimony by the defendant during a five-week trial. Cf. Filani, 74 F.3d at 378 (reversing on plain error standard where the district court engaged in persistent questioning of the defendant, challenging the defendant's credibility or the theory of the defense on 16 of the 60 pages of trial transcript where the defendant's testimony appeared). There is, moreover, nothing in the record to indicate that the district court displayed any antipathy toward Messina's testimony that went beyond judicial skepticism, Santa Maria v. Metro-North Commuter R.R., 81 F.3d 265, 273 (2d Cir.1996), or that the court conveyed to the jury the impression that it held a fixed and unfavorable opinion of defendant[ ], [his] counsel, and [his] position, Rivas v. Brattesani, 94 F.3d 802, 807 (2d Cir.1996). 19 For these reasons, and taking into account the overwhelming evidence of Messina's guilt on the extortion charge and the obvious care the jury took when it decided to convict him on that count but to acquit him on the kidnapping charge, we conclude that the district court's conduct did not affect[ ] [Messina's] substantial rights as required by Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 52(b), and hence, that it did not constitute plain error. See also, e.g., United States v. Robinson, 635 F.2d 981, 986 (2d Cir.1980) (holding in a similar case that any prejudice to appellants from the trial judge's statements, comments, and questioning of witnesses, was minimal and rendered harmless by the overwhelming proof of the defendants' guilt. (citations omitted)).