Opinion ID: 415577
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: admissibility of prior testimony of john steel

Text: 6 The government's first witness at appellants' second trial was John Steel. Although Steel had testified at appellants' first trial, he had indicated prior to the second trial that he was unwilling to testify again. See 1st Supp. Record on Appeal, vol. 1, at 4, 8. Nevertheless, when Steel was called to the stand he began to answer questions about his personal background and his involvement in marijuana smuggling. 2 Steel indicated that in late 1975 and early 1976 he was a major organizer in the smuggling and distribution of marijuana from South America into the United States. Specifically, Steel arranged the transportation of marijuana on large ocean-going vessels and the offloading of marijuana onto smaller boats to bring the drugs ashore. One of the vessels under Steel's supervision at this time was the CINA IV or GINA IV. 3 Steel testified that in mid-February of 1976, this vessel was bringing a load of marijuana from Columbia to an offloading point somewhere near the Bahamas. 7 After eliciting these facts from Steel, the prosecutor began a line of questions designed to tie appellants to Steel's smuggling activities. However, Steel refused to testify any further. Record on Appeal, vol. 9, at 43-44; id., vol. 10, at 37-39. At first, Steel stated that he would not testify because he feared reprisals in jail. 4 A public defender then was appointed to represent Steel and advised him that he had a right not to testify under the Fifth Amendment, despite the fact that the government had granted him use immunity. 5 In any event, Steel persisted in his refusal to testify even though the court ordered him to testify and held him in contempt for failing to do so. 8 At this point in the proceedings, the government sought to read the transcript of Steel's testimony at the first trial into the record. The defense objected to the admission of this prior testimony, pointing out that Steel was one of the witnesses who had violated the court's witness sequestration order at the first trial. According to the defense, the opportunity to cross-examine Steel at the first trial had not been adequate because the sequestration violation had not been revealed until after the trial was over. In addition, the defense argued, the fact that the sequestration violation took place made Steel's first-trial testimony inherently unreliable. The district court rejected these contentions, ruling that Steel's refusal to testify rendered him unavailable within the meaning of Fed.R.Evid. 804(a)(2) and, therefore, that Steel's prior testimony was admissible as an exception to the hearsay rule under Fed.R.Evid. 804(b)(1). Consequently, the court permitted the government to read into the record the entire transcript of Steel's direct examination at the first trial. 9 The most important aspects of Steel's direct examination testimony from the first trial can be summarized as follows: Steel indicated that he had difficulty procuring boats to handle the offloading of 50,000 pounds of marijuana from the CINA IV in early February of 1976. Steel discussed this problem with John Boyd, 6 and Boyd stated that he knew a person who had the ability and the boats to take the marijuana off the CINA IV. Record on Appeal, vol. 10, at 105. Subsequently, on February 10 or 12, 1976, Boyd brought appellant Monaco to a meeting at Steel's home. At the meeting, Boyd and Monaco agreed to offload the CINA IV and smuggle the marijuana into the United States. Steel gave Boyd a secret signal code and one-half of a 50-peso note that the captain of the CINA IV would use to identify the persons who had been hired to unload the marijuana. Boyd later told Steel that he had given the signal code and the half of the 50-peso note to Monaco. A day or two later, Steel's partner in Columbia informed Steel that approximately 1,200 pounds of marijuana had been removed from the CINA IV. When Steel asked Boyd to ascertain who had taken the marijuana from the CINA IV, Boyd arranged a meeting with a person named Hickey who supposedly was working with Monaco. Steel later identified Hickey as appellant Hicks. Hicks denied any responsibility for the 1,200 pounds of marijuana, but stated that he thought he knew who had taken the marijuana off the CINA IV. Steel then contacted Monaco, but Monaco also denied any knowledge of the offloading of 1,200 pounds from the CINA IV. Subsequently, however, Monaco told Steel that he would pay for 600 pounds of the marijuana. When Steel refused this offer, additional negotiations took place between the parties, and Boyd finally agreed to pay Steel for 1,000 pounds of the marijuana. No payment on this settlement was ever made. 10 After the government finished reading this direct testimony from the prior trial into the record, the district court allowed the defendants to attempt a cross-examination of Steel. Once again, Steel refused to testify about matters dealt with at the first trial. However, Steel agreed to answer questions regarding matters not covered at the first trial. 11 During this live cross-examination, Steel denied that he had violated the court's sequestration order during the first trial. Steel also denied that he had ever met or roomed with Lamar Fitzpatrick, one of the persons who had previously revealed that Steel had violated the sequestration order. Steel admitted that before he agreed to testify at the first trial, the government had promised to send a representative to his parole board hearing to recommend early parole. Steel also admitted that while he was still at a federal half-way house immediately after his parole hearing, he attempted to negotiate the sale of 200,000 quaaludes to a person who turned out to be an undercover narcotics agent. Throughout the cross-examination, however, Steel was hostile, evasive and contentious, repeatedly stating that he was quitting and that he would not testify further. Moreover, the cross-examination was interrupted by several profane outbursts by Steel in front of the jury. Eventually, in response to a proposal from the prosecutor after another outburst, the defendants agreed to conclude their cross-examination by reading into evidence the transcript of the cross-examination from the first trial. At the same time, the defendants expressly preserved their objections to the court's decision to admit any of Steel's prior testimony. 12 Later in the trial, the defendants called Lamar Fitzpatrick as a witness. Fitzpatrick testified that he had been Steel's roommate at the Federal Correctional Institution in Miami during the first trial. He stated that Steel had violated the court's sequestration order on numerous occasions, spending a considerable amount of time with two other witnesses in the case, Sam Sclafani and Ron Whitaker. Further, although Fitzpatrick was not privy to the substance of most of these conversations, he testified that he believed that these conversations concerned the case in which Steel and the others were witnesses. In addition, Fitzpatrick stated that on one occasion he overheard Steel ask Sclafani, Why did you tell them that? or something to that effect. When cross-examined on this latter allegation, Fitzpatrick stated that Steel already had finished testifying when he asked Sclafani the above question.
13 Appellants' first argument on appeal is that the trial court should not have permitted the government to read Steel's testimony from the first trial into the record at the second trial. The trial court relied on two provisions of Fed.R.Evid. 804 when admitting this prior testimony, finding that Steel was unavailable under Rule 804(a)(2) 7 and that the prior testimony met the requirements of Rule 804(b)(1). 8 Appellants admit that Steel's refusal to testify at the second trial rendered him unavailable. Appellants contend, however, that Steel's prior testimony did not meet the requirements of Rule 804(b)(1) because there had not been an adequate opportunity for cross-examination at the first trial. 14 Appellants base their contention on the fact that Steel violated the court's sequestration order at the first trial. Appellants argue that they did not have an adequate opportunity to cross-examine Steel at the prior trial, as required by Fed.R.Evid. 804(b)(1), because they were unaware of the sequestration violation. Appellant Hicks argues, for example, that had defense counsel known that Steel was intentionally violating the Sequestration Rule and coaching other witnesses, then that fact would obviously have been the subject of a probing cross-examination. Brief of Appellant Hicks at 22. Appellants also contend that the fact that the sequestration violation took place, coupled with their inability to cross-examine Steel about the sequestration violation, made Steel's prior testimony inherently unreliable and, therefore, inadmissible. 15 We recognize that appellants were unable to cross-examine Steel about the sequestration violation at the first trial. A careful examination of the record in this case, however, does not indicate that this fact deprived appellants of an adequate opportunity to develop Steel's prior testimony. Thus, we cannot agree that Steel's prior testimony was inadmissible on this ground. 16 At the first trial, Steel was cross-examined extensively by all five of the attorneys who represented the original five defendants, including the attorneys representing appellants. These five cross-examiners spent the vast majority of their time attempting to impeach Steel's credibility. In the process, the cross-examiners elicited, inter alia, the following information: that Steel had been disbarred for forging false notes in an attempt to defraud a client; that Steel had participated in another scheme in which a couple lost a yacht and that, after the couple brought a lawsuit which resulted in a settlement, Steel failed to abide by the settlement agreement; that the referee who considered Steel's petition for reinstatement to the Florida Bar expressly found that Steel had lied when he stated that he had repaid the client he had previously defrauded; that the Florida Supreme Court had denied Steel's petition for reinstatement to the Bar; that Steel had jumped bail after being arrested in North Carolina on drug charges; that when Steel was recaptured in Florida several months later, he possessed several passports, driver's licenses from three states, three guns, including a .32 calibre automatic with an illegal silencer, and clerical clothing which Steel admitted he used to disguise himself; that Steel had pled guilty to conspiracy to import marijuana in 1976; that Steel subsequently had continued to participate extensively in narcotics smuggling; that Steel had pled guilty to another charge of conspiracy to import marijuana in 1977; that Steel was testifying under a grant of immunity; that Steel had a motion for reduction of his sentence pending in federal court and that Steel believed that the judge was waiting to learn whether Steel cooperated with the government before ruling on that motion; that the government had promised to send a representative to recommend a reduction in Steel's sentence if Steel testified; and that Steel hoped that his cooperation with the government would benefit his son, who also was in federal prison. 17 Obviously, if the defense attorneys at the first trial had known that Steel was having improper conversations with two witnesses who were scheduled to testify later in the case, they could have cross-examined Steel about this violation of the court's sequestration order. However, because the sequestration violation did not relate to the substance of Steel's testimony against appellants, the only effect of such cross-examination would have been to impeach Steel's credibility. In light of the other information about Steel already elicited on cross, such impeachment would have been merely cumulative. 18 Appellants suggest that the sequestration violation did not relate merely to the collateral matter of credibility, but tainted the substance of Steel's prior testimony. Appellants argue, for example, that Steel conspired with two other witnesses, Sclafani and Whitaker, to fabricate or tailor his testimony. A careful review of the record, however, satisfies us that there is no evidence that the sequestration violation affected the substance of Steel's prior testimony. 19 At the first trial, Steel testified before either Sclafani or Whitaker was called to the stand. 9 Thus, the sequestration violation did not give Steel an opportunity to tailor his testimony to fit the story given by earlier witnesses or permit Steel to obtain advance knowledge of questions the defense might ask on cross-examination. Moreover, nothing else in the record suggests that the sequestration violation influenced the substance of Steel's testimony at the first trial. Appellants have not pointed out any inconsistencies between Steel's testimony and the testimony of the other witnesses at the first trial, including those witnesses who did not take part in the sequestration violation. More importantly, Steel's testimony at the first trial apparently corresponds with a number of statements Steel made before the sequestration violation took place; the government gave appellants copies of Steel's grand jury testimony and Steel's statements to investigating officers, but appellants have not identified any variations between these pre-trial statements and Steel's testimony at the first trial. In fact, in a memorandum filed before the trial court granted the new trial, appellant Hicks admitted that Steel's grand jury testimony was consistent with his testimony at the first trial. See Reply of the Defendant Hicks to the Government's Response to Defendant's Motion for New Trial, Record on Appeal, vol. 2, at 412-13. 20 Despite the lack of any evidence suggesting that the sequestration violation affected the substance of Steel's testimony at the first trial, appellants maintain that the testimony should not have been admissible at the second trial because the trial judge had necessarily determined that there had been inadequate cross-examination and that Steel's prior testimony was unreliable when he granted their motion for a new trial. Appellant Hicks argues, for example, that [t]he very reason for conducting a second trial was the fact that the testimony given by Steel and others at the first trial was rendered unreliable and untrustworthy by virtue of their violation of the [sequestration order]. Brief of Appellant Hicks at 20. Appellant Monaco makes the same argument, asserting that [t]he trial court ... found that Mr. Steel's intentional 'rule' violation had a great potential for distorting the truth of Mr. Steel's answers in the prior trial. Brief of Appellant Monaco at 40. Both appellants emphasize that in granting the new trial, the trial judge stated: 21 Had [the sequestration] violations been disclosed at trial, the Court, at the very least, would have instructed the jury to consider that factor in determining the credibility of each of the witnesses who testified. 22 That prejudice can result from sequestration violations is obvious. Cross-examination of a schooled witness may be rendered virtually useless. For this court to conclude that these defendants were not in any way prejudiced by nonobservance of the rule would on this record be improper. 23 Record on Appeal, vol. 2, at 436. 24 Careful analysis of the context of the new trial order, however, reveals that appellants' contention is not supported by the record. The motions for a new trial focused almost exclusively on the testimony given by Sclafani at the first trial. The motions alleged that the government, in violation of the Jencks Act, had failed to give the defendants a tape recording of a conversation between Sclafani and Monaco which contradicted portions of Sclafani's testimony at trial. The motions also alleged that Sclafani's testimony had been tainted by the sequestration violation. None of the new trial motions contended that Steel's testimony had been tainted by the sequestration violation. 10 Thus, it is disingenuous for appellants to argue that the trial judge's statements in the new trial order indicated that Steel's testimony was tainted. 25 The accuracy of our reading of the record is confirmed by a motion that appellant Monaco filed in an effort to prevent Steel, Sclafani and Whitaker from testifying at the second trial. 11 In the motion, appellant contended that it would be virtually useless to cross-examine the three witnesses at the second trial because of their previous violation of the sequestration order. While making that argument, however, appellant expressly admitted that Steel's prior testimony had not been significantly affected by the sequestration violation. Appellant stated: 26 The facts reflect that the presently existing prejudice is not only as to Sclafani's testimony (which would have been the case in the original trial ) but now exists as to Steele [sic] and Whitaker's testimony as well since each of the witnesses discussed the other witnesses' testimony after each of them testified. In the first trial, the prejudice would have resulted in Sclafani's testimony primarily since he was the one who would have had the benefit of Steele's [sic] testimony. Now, ... the prejudice flows to each of the witnesses. 27 Record on Appeal, vol. 2, at 506-07 (emphasis added). 12 28 We conclude that the sequestration violation related only to the collateral matter of Steel's credibility and that there is no evidence that the substance of Steel's testimony at the first trial was affected. Since there was extensive and searching cross-examination at the first trial, including significant impeachment of Steel's credibility, we believe that additional cross-examination concerning the sequestration violation would have been merely cumulative. 29 Our conclusion that there was an adequate opportunity for cross-examination at the first trial, as required by Fed.R.Evid. 804(b)(1), is supported by precedent. Several cases have addressed factual situations very close to the instant facts and concluded that prior testimony was admissible. In both Ohio v. Roberts, 448 U.S. 56, 100 S.Ct. 2531, 65 L.Ed.2d 597 (1980), and California v. Green, 399 U.S. 149, 165-68, 90 S.Ct. 1930, 1938-40, 26 L.Ed.2d 489 (1970), two important cases dealing with the admissibility of prior testimony under the Confrontation Clause, the Supreme Court sanctioned the use at trial of preliminary hearing testimony, at least where the prior testimony had been subject to the equivalent of significant cross-examination. Ohio v. Roberts, 448 U.S. at 70, 100 S.Ct. at 2541. In so holding, the Court was aware that a preliminary hearing is ordinarily a less searching exploration into the merits of a case. California v. Green, 399 U.S. at 166, 90 S.Ct. at 1939; id. at 195, 90 S.Ct. at 1954 (Brennan, dissenting). We conclude that the opportunity here for cross-examination of Steel at the first trial was at least as adequate as that at the preliminary hearings in Ohio v. Roberts and California v. Green. 30 Cases from other circuit courts of appeals also support our conclusion that Steel's prior testimony was admissible. For example, in Thomas v. Cardwell, 626 F.2d 1375 (9th Cir.1980), cert. denied, 449 U.S. 1089, 101 S.Ct. 881, 66 L.Ed.2d 816 (1981), the Ninth Circuit, under circumstances strikingly similar to this case, held that an unavailable witness's prior testimony could be used at a subsequent trial even though appellant's attorney had not known that the witness was schizophrenic at the time of the prior trial. The court noted that when an alleged deficiency in prior cross-examination relates to impeachment evidence, the test is whether the jury had sufficient information to appraise the bias, motives and credibility of the witness. 626 F.2d at 1386 n. 34. See also United States ex. rel. Haywood v. Wolff, 658 F.2d 455 (7th Cir.), cert. denied, 454 U.S. 1088, 102 S.Ct. 649, 70 L.Ed.2d 625 (1981). 31 In addition to being consistent with other prior testimony cases, our conclusion accords with the general rule that the testimony of a witness is admissible, even though the witness invoked the privilege against self-incrimination on cross-examination or the trial court unduly restricted cross-examination, so long as the cross-examination went only to collateral matters which bear on the credibility of the witness. Coil v. United States, 343 F.2d 573 (8th Cir.), cert. denied, 382 U.S. 821, 86 S.Ct. 48, 15 L.Ed.2d 67 (1965). See, e.g., United States v. Phillips, 664 F.2d 971, 1028 (5th Cir.1981) (noting that trial court's refusal to strike direct testimony when witness refuses to answer questions on cross is not erroneous if the responses elicited would have been mere cumulative evidence concerning the witness' credibility), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 102 S.Ct. 2965, 73 L.Ed.2d 1354, --- U.S. ----, 103 S.Ct. 208, 74 L.Ed.2d 166 (1982); United States v. Diecidue, 603 F.2d 535, 551-52 (5th Cir.1979), cert. denied, 445 U.S. 946, 100 S.Ct. 1345, 63 L.Ed.2d 781 & 446 U.S. 912, 100 S.Ct. 1842, 64 L.Ed.2d 266 (1980); Fountain v. United States, 384 F.2d 624, 628 (5th Cir.1967) (direct testimony must be struck only if defendant's inability to cross created a substantial danger of prejudice by depriving him of the ability to test the truth of the witness' direct testimony; a distinction is generally drawn between invoking the privilege as to 'collateral matters,' not requiring the striking of direct testimony, and invoking it as to 'direct' matters), cert. denied, 390 U.S. 1005, 88 S.Ct. 1246, 20 L.Ed.2d 105 (1968); Smith v. United States, 331 F.2d 265 (8th Cir.), cert. denied, 379 U.S. 824, 85 S.Ct. 49, 13 L.Ed.2d 34 (1964). 32 Our conclusion also is consistent with the general rule that a witness's violation of a sequestration order does not automatically require exclusion of that witness's testimony. Holder v. United States, 150 U.S. 91, 92, 14 S.Ct. 10, 11, 37 L.Ed. 1010 (1893); United States v. Warren, 578 F.2d 1058, 1076 (5th Cir.1978), cert. denied, 446 U.S. 956, 100 S.Ct. 2928, 64 L.Ed.2d 815 (1980). Failure of a witness to comply with the sequestration rule does not of itself render his testimony inadmissible, although it may affect the weight of the testimony; whether such a witness is to be permitted to testify is generally left to the sound discretion of the trial court. United States v. Suarez, 487 F.2d 236, 238 (5th Cir.1973), cert. denied, 415 U.S. 981, 94 S.Ct. 1572, 39 L.Ed.2d 878 (1974). See generally C. Wright, Federal Practice & Procedure: Criminal 2d Sec. 415 (1982). 33 Finally, we note that appellants had an adequate opportunity to inform the jury at the second trial about the violation of the sequestration order at the first trial. Although Steel refused to repeat his testimony from the first trial when he was called to the stand at the second trial, he did testify about other matters on both direct and cross-examination. Thus, appellants actually had an opportunity to cross-examine Steel regarding the sequestration violation. 13 When Steel denied that the violation had taken place, 14 appellants had an opportunity to present witnesses, and did present one witness, who contradicted Steel's statement and described the extent of the sequestration violation, thus further impeaching Steel's credibility. However, appellants did not vigorously pursue their opportunity to cross-examine Steel about the sequestration violation at the second trial. Further, the evidence that appellants introduced to demonstrate the violation to the jury (i.e., through the witness Fitzpatrick) merely established that Steel had talked to other witnesses during the first trial; there was no evidence to indicate that the violation affected the substance of Steel's testimony. These aspects of the second trial tend to confirm our conclusion that the inability to cross-examine Steel about the sequestration violation at the first trial did not make the prior cross-examination inadequate. 15 34 In summary, the record does not support appellants' assertion that they had an inadequate opportunity to cross-examine Steel at the prior trial. Thus, when Steel became unavailable as a witness at the second trial, the trial judge did not err when he determined that Steel's prior testimony was admissible as an exception to the hearsay rule pursuant to Rule 804(b)(1). 16 35
36 In addition to contending that Steel's prior testimony was inadmissible hearsay, appellants argue that the admission of Steel's prior testimony violated their right to confront the witnesses against them as required by the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments. 17 We disagree. As the foregoing discussion of appellants' hearsay challenge demonstrates, Ohio v. Roberts, supra, and California v. Green, supra, compel the conclusion that there has been no Confrontation Clause violation in this case. 37 Moreover, in evaluating appellants' Confrontation Clause challenge, we can consider fully the fact that Steel was present at the second trial and was cross-examined with respect to the sequestration violation. 18 California v. Green, 399 U.S. at 153-164, 90 S.Ct. at 1932-38. Similarly, we can consider the fact that the jury at the second trial was made aware of the sequestration violation through the testimony of a witness, Fitzpatrick. These considerations add strength to our conclusion that there is no merit in appellants' Confrontation Clause challenge. 38