Opinion ID: 775224
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Interference with the Right to Present a Defense

Text: 62 Defendant raises on appeal several claims of prosecutorial misconduct. First, he alleges that the government interfered with his right to call his brother, Jeff Emuegbunem, to testify at his trial. For his role in the instant offense, Jeff Emuegbunem received a sentence of forty-six months' imprisonment pursuant to the terms of a plea agreement. Shortly after his trial had commenced, Defendant informed the district court that his brother, whom the marshals had transported from the federal prison in North Carolina where he was serving his sentence, to the Wayne County jail for the pendency of the trial, was being held in a cell without water so that he could neither bathe nor brush his teeth. Furthermore, Defendant, who was also housed at the Wayne County jail, represented that his brother wants to go back, that he has noticed some harassment that he will not be able to testify again because he is scared of his life. In response to these allegations, the district court directed Jeff Emuegbunem's attorneyto investigate the conditions at the Wayne County jail. 63 When Defendant's trial resumed on September 20, 1999, Jeff Emuegbunem's attorney appeared and reported the results of his investigation: 64 His life was never threatened. He admitted to me that one of the sheriffs over there, one of the turn keys, so to speak, had told him that the sheriff deputies thought that he was a snitch, and that he had brought drugs into the country, and that he was here to lie for his brother, and that there would be new charges brought if he did that.... 65 [M]y understanding of what he told me that's what he was complaining about was that he felt that was a threat, when the sheriff told him he was bringing drugs into the country, and that he would--and that he was here to lie for his brother.... 66 Looking at my notes, he also was put into a segregation unit. I could not find out why he was put into segregation. He was there for about a week. He didn't like that. He didn't get a shower. I guess the cold water wasn't running, the hot water wasn't running, and they didn't give him a toothbrush. And, that is--what I can put on the record, what I learned from this fellow is that, it was his perception that he was threatened; there was nobody threatening him. And, most importantly, there was no other inmate threatening him. 67 (Emphasis added.) During this investigation Jeff Emuegbunem's attorney assured him that sheriffs do not bring perjury charges. As a result of his investigation, Jeff Emuegbunem's attorney formed the opinion that the treatment of his client in the Wayne County jail was not responsible for his refusal to testify. 68 When Defendant called his brother to testify on his behalf, Jeff Emuegbunem declined to do so. As reasons for not testifying, he explained that he feared for his life and worried about being charged with additional drug offenses if he testified. Otherwise Jeff Emuegbunem corroborated his attorney's account of his conditions of confinement and treatment in detention. Both Defendant and the prosecution informed the court of their intention to question Jeff Emuegbunem about his dealings with Player in other drug transactions. For this reason the district court concluded that Jeff Emuegbunem had properly asserted his Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination and discharged him from testifying. With respect to his treatment at the Wayne County jail, the district court found that although officers may have mistreated Jeff Emuegbunem nothing rose to the level of a threat to his life. During these proceedings, Jeff Emuegbunem's attorney made comments that indicated that Jeff had unsuccessfully requested immunity to testify on behalf of his brother. 69 Following his conviction Defendant included the government's intimidation of his brother as a ground for relief in his motion for judgment of acquittal or, in the alternative, for a new trial. This intimidation, Defendant asserted, deprived him of his Fifth Amendment due process right and his Sixth Amendment rights to compulsory process and a fair trial. In doing so Defendant summarized the matters as to which his brother would have testified: 70 He volunteered to testify to the fact that Player had lied about the source of the heroin which was seized from him and that he did not solicit Player to pick-up heroin from Defendant in Canada . . . . Jeff's testimony would have corroborated Player's regarding the fact that Defendant was not the individual whom Player referred to as CHUCK in the tape recorded conversation between Jeff, Player, and [the undercover customs agent] . . . . It would have also revealed that the $12,000 which Uche (phonetic Oochie) CHUCK had instructed him to collect from Player, did not involve Defendant. 71 Although for the reasons already discussed, the district court found that Defendant had filed this motion in an untimely fashion, the court nonetheless denied the motion on the merits because Jeff Emuegbunem properly took the Fifth Amendment and he was not threatened and harassed by the Government. 72 On appeal the United States argues that Defendant must present this claim to the district court through a Rule 29 or Rule 33 post-trial motion to preserve it for appeal, but has cited no authority for this proposition. Our leading case on governmental intimidation of a defense witness, United States v. Thomas, 488 F.2d 334 (6th Cir. 1973) (per curiam), does not require such a step to preserve the issue for appellate review so long as the defendant has sufficiently raised and presented the matter to the district court in the first instance. Accordingly, because Emuegbunem argued to the district court that the government's conduct interfered with his ability to present his defense, we conclude that Defendant has preserved this issue for appellate review. 73 A defendant's right to present his own witnesses to establish a defense constitutes a fundamental element of due process and is protected by the Compulsory Process Clause of the Sixth Amendment. Washington v. Texas, 388 U.S. 14, 19 (1967). Various prosecutorial and judicial actions aimed at discouraging defense witnesses from testifying deprive a defendant of this right. See, e.g., Webb v. Texas, 409 U.S. 95, 98 (1972) (per curiam) (reversing a conviction when the trial judge severely admonished the sole witness proffered by the defense who declined to testify as a result); Thomas, 488 F.2d at 336 (reversing a conviction obtained after a Secret Service agent in an ex parte communication advised a defense witness of possible prosecution if he testified). Neither Webb nor Thomas, however, stand[s] for the proposition that merely warning a witness of the consequences of perjury demands reversal. United States v. Pierce, 62 F.3d 818, 832 (6th Cir. 1995) (citing United States v. Smith, 997 F.2d 674, 679-80 (10th Cir. 1993)). For this reason governmental conduct must amount to a substantial interference with a witness's free and unhampered determination to testify before we will find a violation of due process or the Sixth Amendment. Id. at 833 (citing Smith, 997 F.2d at 680). Even when such interference occurs, a violation of a defendant's right to call witnesses in his defense is subject to harmless error analysis. United States v. Foster, 128 F.3d 949, 953 & n.4 (6th Cir. 1997). 74 As a threshold matter the parties dispute whether any agent of the United States interfered with Defendant's rights. Defendant contends that the United States bears responsibility for the actions of the officers at the Wayne County jail who discussed Jeff Emuegbunem's testimony with him, while the United States maintains that jail officials are independent contractors who make their own decisions about conditions of confinement. We express no opinion whether on the facts of this case the actions of the Wayne County turnkeys are attributable to the United States. Even if they are, the record shows no substantial interference with Defendant's right to call his brother as a witness in his defense; at most this record shows some ill-advised and inconsequential interference with that right. Any interference is insubstantial on these facts because Jeff Emuegbunem's attorney informed him that the Wayne County jailers could not initiate further criminal proceedings against him. Additionally, the district court judge herself reinforced the explanation given by Jeff Emuegbunem's attorney and sought further assurances from the proffered witness himself that his decision not to testify derived from concerns about his exposure to potential criminal liability based upon questions that the prosecution and defense wished to pose, rather than from the idle threats of his jailers. These assurances allowed the district court to conclude that I did not have the impression at the trial stage that Mr. Jeff Emuegbunam was being forced or threatened to get him not to testify. 75 To the extent that Defendant challenges the decision of the prosecution not to give his brother immunity in exchange for his testimony, such a claim is not cognizable. No court has authority to immunize a witness. Pillsbury Co. v. Conboy, 459 U.S. 248, 261 (1983). See also United States v. Talley, 164 F.3d 989, 997 (6th Cir.) (We have consistently held that a district court is without authority to either grant immunity to a witness who asserts his Fifth Amendment privilege against self incrimination or to force the government to do so.) (citations omitted), cert. denied, 526 U.S. 1137 (1999). Only two limited circumstances present possible exceptions to this rule. First, under the effective defense theory, immunity may be available when a witness possesses exculpatory testimony that is essential to an effective defense and that strongly outweighs the government's interests in declining to offer immunity. Talley, 164 F.3d at 997. Subject to one narrow exception not relevant here, 5 we have rejected the effective defense exception. United States v. Mohney, 949 F.2d 1397, 1401 (6th Cir. 1991). 76 Second, immunity might be warranted to remedy prosecutorial misconduct. Under this theory, due process requires an immunity grant where the prosecution abuses its discretion by intentionally attempting to distort the fact-finding process. Id. at 1402. Accordingly, the defendant must establish that the prosecution has deliberately distorted the judicial fact-finding process. Id. (citations omitted). We have yet to decide whether immunity represents a valid remedy for such conduct, Talley, 164 F.3d at 998, and we need not do so in this case because as was the case in Talley, even assuming that the prosecutorial misconduct theory is cognizable in the Sixth Circuit, we are confident that [Defendant] has made no showing of such misconduct in this case. Id. Defendant cannot meet the high threshold required showing the availability of this exception. Furthermore, this theory allows the prosecution to refuse to grant immunity to a defense witness when it does not wish to hinder a future criminal prosecution of the witness. Mohney, 949 F.2d at 1402. Here, the prosecutor informed the district court that he intended to leave open the possibility of criminal liability in the event that Jeff Emuegbunem perjured himself or implicated himself in additional drug transactions. 77 Therefore, we conclude that the prosecution neither substantially interfered with the Defendant's fundamental right to call witnesses in his defense nor improperly declined to offer Jeff Emuegbunem immunity to allow him to testify for the defense.