Opinion ID: 196785
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Admission of Computer Summaries

Text: 111 Sawyer assigns reversible error to the district court's admission of five charts, Exhibits 1, 1Q, 1R, 1S and 1T, proffered by the government. Exhibit 1 was a forty-nine page computer printout summarizing 612 expenditures, occurring between January 1, 1986 and March 31, 1993, that were recorded in Sawyer's appointment calendars, expense records and other admitted documents. Exhibits 1Q, 1R and 1S are extracts of Exhibit 1 that isolate the expenditures for Representatives Woodward, Howarth and Emilio. Exhibit 1T contrasts the amount spent on those three Representatives while they were members of the Legislature with the amount spent on them after they left that office. Sawyer contends that these charts were admitted on an insufficient foundation and that they were misleading, argumentative and prejudicial. 112 Federal Rule of Evidence 1006 provides, in pertinent part: 113 The contents of voluminous writings ... which cannot conveniently be examined in court may be presented in the form of a chart, summary, or calculation. The originals or duplicates shall be made available for examination or copying, or both, by [the other party]. 114 Before admitting such evidentiary presentations, the court must first ensure that each is grounded upon a sufficient factual basis, i.e., upon independently established evidence in the record, and that possible prejudice or confusion does not outweigh their usefulness in clarifying the evidence. United States v. Drougas, 748 F.2d 8, 25 (1st Cir.1984) (citing J. Weinstein & M. Berger, Weinstein's Evidence § 1006 (1983)); see United States v. Nivica, 887 F.2d 1110, 1125 (1st Cir.1989), cert. denied, 494 U.S. 1005, 110 S.Ct. 1300, 108 L.Ed.2d 477 (1990); United States v. Sorrentino, 726 F.2d 876, 884 (1st Cir.1984). When a court admits such summaries, 115 [c]are must be taken to insure that summaries accurately reflect the contents of the underlying documents and do not function as pedagogical devices that unfairly emphasize part of the proponent's proof or create the impression that disputed facts have been conclusively established or that inferences have been directly proved. 116 Drougas, 748 F.2d at 25 (citing Weinstein's Evidence, supra § 1006). We review the admission of summaries for abuse of discretion. Nivica, 887 F.2d at 1126. 117 Sawyer contends that the district court improperly admitted the summaries because they did not include evidence of his expenditures on legislators before and after the time period covered in the summaries, or his expenditures of personal funds. He argues that this was unduly misleading because it created a false impression as to the date the alleged conspiracy began, and falsely implied that the expenditures ended after the three named representatives left office. We disagree. 118 The summaries were based on evidence that was already independently admitted and that was relevant to Sawyer's questionable expenditures during the indictment period. Sawyer had the opportunity, on cross-examination, to place the summaries in context with his total financial activity. See Nivica, 887 F.2d at 1125 (concluding that argument that summaries failed to, inter alia, reflect total financial activity affect[s] weight rather than the admissibility). On the matters to which Sawyer assigns undue prejudice, he had ample opportunity to explore them on cross-examination, which he did. He also could have offered his own contrary evidence, including his own summary (which he did not do). As we stated in Nivica, 887 F.2d at 1126: 119 So long as the government, exercising due diligence, collects whatever records are reasonably available and succeeds in introducing them, it may be permitted (subject, of course, to relevancy and perscrutation under Fed.R.Evid. 403) to summarize the data it has managed to obtain. If defendants possessed exculpatory records not in the government's files, they could have offered them at trial or prepared their own summary. By the same token, if there were gaps in the charts, the defense ... had every opportunity to exploit them. In the last analysis, completeness of the underlying records was for the jury. 120 We conclude that the summaries were based on a sufficient foundation and that the court did not abuse its discretion in admitting them.D. Protective Instruction 121 Having rejected all of Sawyer's arguments, we think there is one flaw in the proceedings that does have to be addressed in the interests of justice and especially in light of the possibility of future prosecutions of this kind. Our concern arises from the close relationship between lobbying activities that are lawful from the standpoint of federal law, even if deplorable, and associated or slightly more extreme versions of such conduct that can constitute federal violations. The problem is, in some respects, novel; the reason for its novelty is that it appears that prosecutions on facts like these have not generally been brought. 122 A review of pre-McNally theft of honest services cases and of bribery and gratuity cases under the counterpart federal statute, 18 U.S.C. § 201, indicates, as we have already noted, that most involved straightforward corruption--most often, quid pro quo bribery or blatant conflict of interest. While the issue in those cases was typically whether or not the conduct actually occurred, in most of them the alleged conduct was blatantly illegal. This case is distinct in that the conduct itself may not be very different, except possibly in degree, from the kind of routine cultivation of friendship in a lobbying context that, while arguably very unattractive, is not bribery within the meaning of the Travel Act. 123 The practice of using hospitality, including lavish hospitality, to cultivate business or political relationships is longstanding and pervasive. The government does not argue, and we do not believe, that payments for entertainment, lodging, golf, sports events, and the like would constitute violations of the Travel Act (or the mail and wire fraud statutes) if the aim of the lobbyist were simply to cultivate a business or political friendship with the legislator. It may well be that all such hospitality should be flatly prohibited by law, but if Sawyer had this limited intent--to cultivate friendship rather than to influence an official act--the federal statutes here involved would not be violated. 27 124 The charge to the jury in this case followed the conventional formula for prosecutions involving political corruption. But where the difference between lawful and unlawful turns primarily on intent, and the lawful conduct is itself most unattractive, we think the jury needs to be told specifically that the defendant has not violated the bribery component of the Travel Act (or committed honest services fraud) if his intent was limited to the cultivation of business or political friendship. Only if instead or in addition, there is an intent to cause the recipient to alter her official acts may the jury find a theft of honest services or the bribery predicate of the Travel Act. Absent some explicit explanation of this kind, the conventional charge will be slanted in favor of conviction. 28 125 In reaching this conclusion, we intend no criticism of the able district judge who was coping with a somewhat novel foray by the government. But where, as here, the line between the merely unattractive and actually criminal conduct is blurred, the court must take pains to explain the difference to the jury. The Second Circuit took this same view in a closely related context, saying: When an elected official who has received campaign contributions is charged with extortion and with receiving bribes, the charge must carefully focus the jury's attention on the difference between lawful political contributions and unlawful extortionate payments and bribes. United States v. Biaggi, 909 F.2d 662, 695-96 (2d Cir.1990), cert. denied, 499 U.S. 904, 111 S.Ct. 1102, 113 L.Ed.2d 213 (1991). 126 Having concluded that the jury charge was mistaken, we must consider whether Sawyer should get the benefit of the error. This is a close call. On the one hand, Sawyer did not explicitly ask for the sort of language we think appropriate. Ordinarily, the failure to make an explicit objection requires the defendant to satisfy the plain error test of United States v. Olano, 507 U.S. 725, 732-34, 113 S.Ct. 1770, 1777, 123 L.Ed.2d 508 (1993). On the other hand, a number of Sawyer's objections were closely related in that they sought in several different ways--which we do not accept--to protect one engaged in good faith lobbying from prosecution. 127 On balance, we think that the Travel Act counts, as well as the mail and wire fraud convictions, ought to be reversed and retried under proper instructions. Although the evidence here would be adequate to infer improper intent, the issue is close and an explanatory instruction could well affect the outcome. Also, the fact that the prosecution was novel makes us look more tolerantly on Sawyer's failure to articulate precisely the shape of the necessary protective instruction. 128 Apart from the expense of retrial, the government has very little to complain about in this result. We have agreed that the Massachusetts gratuity statute does not require the government to link the gratuity to a specific official act. We have also found that the evidence here is sufficient to convict (although we can imagine reasonable people thinking otherwise). And while we are somewhat concerned about the lack of fair warning of a prosecution such as this one, we see no legal basis for precluding the government from embarking on what is in practical terms an expansive reading of the federal statutes. Against this backdrop, we think it even more important that Sawyer get the benefit of the few protections that remain.