Opinion ID: 760928
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Whoever Means Whoever

Text: 63 The government argues that construing the word whoever to include the government is semantically anomalous because whoever connotes a being. As a textual and contextual matter, this is wrong. Textually, whoever clearly connotes more than a being and in fact denotes inanimate entities. The Dictionary Act, 1 U.S.C. § 1, definition of whoever includes, but is not limited to, corporations, companies, associations, firms, partnerships, societies, and joint stock companies--all inanimate entities. Contextually, the government concedes that whoever in § 201(b) applies to the government and it acknowledges that § 201(c) applies to the government if the government pays an informant money to testify. It makes absolutely no sense to give whoever one meaning in § 201(b) (and in § 201(c) when the inducement offered by the government is money) and to give the very same word a completely different meaning in § 201(c) when the inducement offered is leniency or some other promise to improve the informant's position. After all, § 201(c) is a prophylactic rule to enforce § 201(b). The interrelationship and close proximity of these provisions of the statute presents a classic case for application of the normal rule of statutory construction that identical words used in different parts of the same act are intended to have the same meaning.'  Commissioner v. Lundy, 516 U.S. 235, 250, 116 S.Ct. 647, 133 L.Ed.2d 611 (1996) (internal quotations and citations omitted). Bought testimony is so fraught with the potential for perjury that Congress imposed a blanket prohibition that also applies to the government, just as hearsay testimony is so fraught with the potential for unreliability that the Federal Rules of Evidence generally prohibit its admission, whether offered by the government or private litigants. 64 The court suggests that the prosecutor and the sovereign are inseparable, and therefore the word whoever cannot apply because the United States cannot be prosecuted for providing leniency in exchange for testimony. First and foremost, the law in this social order is not self-executing--the necessary instrument is the lawyer. Matter of Doe, 801 F.Supp. 478, 479 (D.N.M.1992). To suggest that government attorneys performing prosecutorial functions are beyond scrutiny because of who they represent is anomalous because it merges attorney and client. No one would suggest that an accused and his attorney are one in the same for purposes of compliance with constitutional, statutory and ethical norms. As discussed below, constraints on government prosecutors are not unusual, notwithstanding that the sovereign is the client. Merely because the government cannot be prosecuted if its agents violate a rule does not mean that the rule may be disregarded; to the contrary, the rule may be enforced by means other than prosecution, here by exclusion of evidence. See Nardone v. United States, 302 U.S. 379, 384-85, 58 S.Ct. 275, 82 L.Ed. 314 (1937). The remedy of exclusion serves as a deterrent, protects a court's integrity and allows a federal court the only means it has to enforce federal law. 65 Recently, Congress enacted a statute that explicitly subjects government attorneys, including federal prosecutors, to State laws and rules governing attorneys. See Omnibus Appropriations Act, Pub.L. No. 105-277, tit. VIII, § 801, 112 Stat. 2681, ---- (1998) (to be codified at 28 U.S.C. § 530B(a) & (c)) (eff. April 1999); 28 C.F.R. § 77.2(a) (1998). This statute strongly suggests that the Congress does not view government attorneys as one with the sovereign, beyond regulation. It is indeed odd that federal prosecutors will soon be expressly subject to State laws and rules regarding professional conduct, yet may continue to ignore the federal prohibition contained in § 201(c)(2). 66 Beyond the government's sui generis definition of whoever, the government's argument rests upon the predicate that the government has the sovereign authority to prosecute criminal conduct, and applying § 201(c) to the government would impermissibly curtail that prerogative. However, applying § 201(c) to the government does not affect the core prerogative to prosecute or to withhold prosecution. The government erroneously conflates two distinct concepts: the vested sovereign prerogative of the government to prosecute and the obvious non-prerogative of how to prosecute. Prohibiting the government from granting witnesses leniency in exchange for testimony leaves the right to prosecute unfettered; the government can still prosecute anybody it wants and charge any way it wants. The anti-gratuity statute only limits how the government may prosecute its case and the government clearly has no vested sovereign prerogative to prove a case in any way it wishes. How the government proves its case is frequently restricted. Federal prosecutors must follow the Constitution, state codes of conduct, the rules of the individual courts, and the rules of evidence. See 28 U.S.C. § 530B(a); United States v. Mitcheltree, 940 F.2d 1329, 1341 & n. 13 (10th Cir.1991). Even the statute at issue in Nardone banned prosecutors from using evidence (including vital evidence) in a criminal trial that was obtained by a federal officer tapping telephone wires, notwithstanding that suppression was not a statutory remedy. 67 Thus, the anti-gratuity statute leaves unfettered the sovereign's established prerogative to charge; it merely places a restriction on one method of gathering admissible evidence, here testimony, for or against an accused. A federal prosecutor is not above the law and is not free to prove a case by any process he or she wants. See Matter of Doe, 801 F.Supp. at 484-87; In re Howes, 123 N.M. 311, 940 P.2d 159, 164-65 (N.M.1997). Once the government falls into the crucible of the trial, the government, like the defendant, must follow the generally applicable rules governing the process. The government's argument that discontinuing the pervasive practice of buying testimony for leniency would jeopardize law enforcement is just another way of saying that the end justifies the means; not only is such a premise unsound policy, it also serves to demean the profession and all who strive to continue our system of justice as the fairest in the world.