Opinion ID: 199698
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Preservation of the Issues for Review

Text: 67 The government devoted a great deal of space in its brief and time at oral argument to defending the untenable position that the issues raised by Meserve on appeal were not preserved for review because the defense failed to make both contemporaneous objections and motions to strike and because Kevin did not answer many of the government's questions, or provided answers arguably favorable to the defense. Because of the vehemence with which the government argues a position with no seeming support in the law, this court pauses to discuss the obligations placed on each of the parties to a trial by the Federal Rules of Evidence. 68 It is a basic tenet of our law that in order to preserve an evidentiary issue for review, the party opposing the admission of the evidence must make a timely objection. Fed. R. Evid. 103(a)(1); United States v. Auch, 187 F.3d 125, 130 (1st Cir. 1999); United States v. Barone, 114 F.3d 1284, 1293 (1st Cir. 1997); United States v. Wihbey, 75 F.3d 761, 770 & n.4 (1st Cir. 1996); Willco Kuwait (Trading) S.A.K. v. deSavary, 843 F.2d 618, 625 (1st Cir. 1988); see also United States v. Taylor, 54 F.3d 967, 972 (1st Cir. 1995) (In general, the law ministers to the vigilant, not to those who sleep upon perceptible rights.). Thus, the government argues that the defense's failure immediately to object when Kevin was asked about convictions in addition to his unlawful sexual contact convictions constrains this court from considering the matter on appeal absent plain error. Fed. R. Crim. P. 52(b); Olano, 507 U.S. at 732-37. Examination of the transcript, however, reveals that Meserve's attorney objected as soon as it became obvious that the government's line of questioning was in violation of Rule 609, i.e., when the government indicated that the conviction about which it was asking was a twenty-year-old disorderly conduct conviction. To be timely, an objection must be made as soon as the ground of it is known, or reasonably should have been known to the objector. United States v. Check, 582 F.2d 668, 676 (2d Cir. 1978) (quoting 21 Charles Alan Wright & Kenneth W. Graham, Jr., Federal Practice and Procedure § 5037 (1977) (quoting John Henry Wigmore, Code of Evidence 25 (3d ed. 1942)). The general principle that an objection should be made after a question has been asked but before an answer has been given, Hutchinson v. Groskin, 927 F.2d 722, 725 (2d Cir. 1991), is flexible in deference to the heat of a hotly contested criminal trial, Check, 582 F.2d at 676. Thus, the defense was not required to anticipate the government's line of questioning in order for the objection to be timely. Compare Hutchinson, 927 F.2d at 725 (holding that objection was timely, even though objection was not made until after question was answered), and Inge v. United States, 356 F.2d 345, 350 n.17 (D.C. Cir. 1966) (holding that defense counsel's failure to object until after he learned the nature of the document being used to refresh the defendant's recollection did not render objection nugatory), with United States v. Benavente Gomez, 921 F.2d 378, 385 (1st Cir. 1990) (holding that because at least three pages of transcript were recorded before the defendant objected, the objection came too late to preserve the objection for appeal), and W. Fire Ins. Co. v. Word, 131 F.2d 541, 543-44 (5th Cir. 1942) (It is a rule of law so old that the memory of man runneth not to the contrary that one may not sit by without objection to rulings or instructions, and then after verdict and judgment, and when it is too late for the court to change its rulings or charge, come forward with objections on appeal and seek to put the court in error.), cited with approval in Putnam Res. v. Pateman, 958 F.2d 448, 457 n.6 (1st Cir. 1992). Meserve's objection, although delayed, was sufficiently contemporaneous to comport with the Federal Rules of Evidence. 69 The government attempts to place an additional onus on parties opposing the admission of such evidence, however, by arguing that the defense was further obligated to move to strike Kevin's answers to the government's questions in order to preserve Meserve's right to review. According to the government, once a question has been answered, even if that answer was provided pursuant to a district court's evidentiary ruling, the proper procedural vehicle to preserve rights for appeal is the motion to strike. The government was able to cite no authority for this proposition during oral argument and the court has found none. 2 70 The rule governing objections to evidence states that error may not be predicated upon a ruling which admits or excludes evidence unless a substantial right of the party is affected, and . . . [i]n case the ruling is one admitting evidence, a timely objection or motion to strike appears of record. Fed. R. Evid. 103(a)(1) (emphasis added). Because Rule 103 is written in the disjunctive, the right to review may be preserved either by objecting or by moving to strike and offering specific grounds in support of that motion. The rule is intended to ensure that the nature of an error was called to the attention of the trial judge, so as to alert him to the proper course of action and enable opposing counsel to take proper corrective measures. Fed. R. Evid. 103(a) advisory committee's note. Thus, both the plain language and underlying goals of Rule 103(a) indicate that a party opposing the admission of evidence may do so through either a timely objection or motion to strike. 3 71 Moreover, the position espoused by the government is contrary to logic. According to the government, even if a witness's answer was given pursuant to a district court's order overruling an objection, the party opposing admission of the evidence must move to strike the witness's answer to escape plain error review. Modern trial practice is unreceptive to such procedural redundancies, and were this court to adopt the government's view, it would take several steps back from the streamlining that the Judicial Conference, the Supreme Court, and the Congress attempted to accomplish through the enactment of the Federal Rules of Evidence in 1975. Because the law imposes no obligation on a party opposing the admission of evidence both to object and to move to strike, Meserve's timely objections were sufficient to preserve his rights for review. 72 In its final effort to prevent this court from reaching the merits of Meserve's claims, the government asserts that where Kevin did not answer the question posed, or where the answer elicited was arguably favorable to the defense, review is not warranted. According to the government, [n]o answer to the challenged question having been given, no evidence was admitted, and thus there is no error to correct. This position is without support in the law. 73 No court has ever held that review is forestalled if a witness does not answer a question posed or answers that question with a response favorable to the objecting party. Although the government cites two cases to support this proposition, United States v. Innamorati, 996 F.2d 456 (1st Cir. 1993) and United States v. Zaccaria, 240 F.3d 75 (1st Cir. 2001), these cases simply stand for the proposition that under such circumstances, the harmless error analysis is likely to weigh in favor of the appellee. See Innamorati, 996 F.2d at 485 (noting that because the challenged questions were not answered, the prejudicial effect of the questions was lessened); see also Zaccaria, 240 F.3d at 82-83 (holding that even if the district court erred in sustaining the objection, the error was harmless because the witness answered the question in the negative and the court did not strike his answer). 74 Even when a question elicits no answer or an answer arguably favorable to the defense, the question itself may nevertheless prejudice a defendant because of the weight a jury gives to the questions asked by a prosecutor. E.g., United States v. Simonelli, 237 F.3d 19, 23 (1st Cir. 2001) (That [the witness] denied these acts does not, of course, render the questioning harmless. There is a lingering odor left by such questions . . . .); United States v. Cudlitz, 72 F.3d 992, 999 (1st Cir. 1996) (Under these circumstances, it would have been easy -- if not strictly fair -- for the jury to have given great weight to the [government's] suggestion . . . .); see also 1 John Henry Wigmore, Wigmore on Evidence § 17 (Peter Tillers ed., 1983) [hereinafter Wigmore] ([F]acts of discreditable conduct [may be] groundlessly asked about in the hope that though denied they will be assumed by the jury to be well founded.). The law provides protection against illegitimately posed questions even where they produce no answer. 75 Furthermore, the district court's instruction to the jury here that the lawyers' questions were not evidence may not eliminate the potential taint of the government's questions. Cudlitz, 72 F.3d at 999. The instruction did not occur during the course of the challenged cross-examination, but rather as part of the court's final jury charge several hours later. The court's instruction was therefore unlikely to eradicate the impression left on the jury by the government's line of questioning. Id. ([T]he sting [of objectionable questions] survives such instructions, which is why lawyers ask impeaching questions that they know will produce denials.). 76 The government's various arguments that Meserve failed to preserve his challenges to Kevin's cross-examination for review are therefore without merit. Because timely objections to the government's cross-examination of Kevin were raised at trial and because objectionable questions may be reviewed even where they produced no answer or an arguably favorable answer, the court considers Meserve's arguments under the harmless error standard of review, not the more demanding plain error standard. United States v. Joyner, 191 F.3d 47, 53 (1st Cir. 1999).