Opinion ID: 702369
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Readback of Testimony Outside the Presence of the Defendant and Counsel

Text: 21 Turner alleges that the trial court allowed the court reporter to read back testimony to the jury outside the presence of Turner and his counsel, in violation of Turner's rights under the Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment. The government argues that the record is too ambiguous to support Turner's claim. We disagree. 22 Although the government correctly notes the discrepancies between the reporter's transcript and the clerk's transcript, the record indicates that on March 20, 1990, the reporter read back testimony to the jury in the jury room outside the presence of counsel and the defendant. The government attempts to refute this evidence with the clerk's transcript, which indicates that Turner's counsel was notified of a readback on March 19, that the readback continued on March 20, and that the defendant and counsel were present in court on March 20. Because presence in court does not prove presence in the jury room, this notation does not rebut the record evidence that a readback occurred outside Turner's presence. We have held that failure to allow the defendant to be present at the readback of testimony is constitutional trial error. See Hegler v. Borg, 50 F.3d 1472, 1477 (9th Cir.1995); United States v. Brown, 832 F.2d 128, 130 (9th Cir.1987). 23 The government argues that even if Turner and his counsel were not present during the readback on March 20, they had waived their right to be present. We disagree. Although on March 16, Turner and his counsel both agreed to allow the jury to listen to a tape recording of testimony outside their presence, that waiver did not apply to the March 20 live readback of testimony. First, the parties had agreed in advance to a general policy that counsel should be present for readbacks. Any waiver, therefore, should be construed as a limited exception to this rule. Second, Turner's lawyer had carefully reviewed the tape and transcript to be presented to the jury on March 16. Since the waiver undoubtedly was based in part on the attorney's assessment that the playback of that tape would not unfairly prejudice his client, we should not construe the March 16 waiver to constitute a waiver of the right to be present at future readbacks, absent the opportunity to review the specific testimony to be read back in those instances. Third, a waiver of presence during the playing of a tape recording should not be construed to apply to a live readback of testimony, because the potential for prejudice is greater during a live readback. 24 Moreover, the notation that counsel was notified, on March 19, of the March 20 readback does not constitute a waiver of Turner's right to be present. Even if the notification of counsel could be construed as a waiver of the right to have counsel present at the readback, the defendant must personally waive his right to be present. See United States v. Kupau, 781 F.2d 740, 743 (9th Cir.), cert. denied, 479 U.S. 823, 107 S.Ct. 93, 93 L.Ed.2d 45 (1986). Because there is no indication that Turner waived this right in relation to the March 20 readback, we find that the readback outside his presence amounted to constitutional trial error. See Hegler, 50 F.3d at 1477. 25 Under Hegler, such error is subject to harmless error analysis. In the habeas context, an error is not harmless only if it had a substantial and injurious effect or influence in determining the jury's verdict. Brecht v. Abrahamson, --- U.S. ----, ----, 113 S.Ct. 1710, 1722, 123 L.Ed.2d 353 (1993). Although several analogous cases have found harmless error, they have done so after an evidentiary hearing at which the relevant parties, such as the court reporter or the jurors, were questioned. See id. at 1478; Lee v. Marshall, 42 F.3d 1296, 1298 (9th Cir.1994) (finding after an evidentiary hearing that allowing the presence of a government agent in the jury room during a playback of testimony constituted harmless error); Bustamante v. Eyman, 456 F.2d 269, 274 (9th Cir.1972) (requiring an evidentiary hearing to determine if a replay of jury instructions outside defendant's presence constituted harmless error). We would only dispense with an evidentiary hearing if the record clearly indicated that there was no prejudice. Kupau, 781 F.2d at 742 (finding harmless error when the record revealed that the judge explicitly warned the jury to ignore the presence of an FBI agent in the jury room during playback of testimony). 26 However, in the present case, the record provides no indication of any attempts to dispel possible prejudice, or of any analysis into the circumstances surrounding the readback. An evidentiary hearing on a habeas corpus petition is required whenever a petitioner's allegations, if proved, would entitle him to relief, and no state court trier of fact has, after a full and fair hearing, reliably found the relevant facts. Tinsley v. Borg, 895 F.2d 520, 530 (9th Cir.1990), cert. denied, 498 U.S. 1091, 111 S.Ct. 974, 112 L.Ed.2d 1059 (1991). Moreover, the danger of prejudice was particularly high because the readback in question dealt with the testimony on the critical blood tests. Because this case, in which all the evidence was circumstantial, turned on the credibility of the defendant and the reliability of laboratory tests on very minute samples of blood and saliva, we cannot conclude based on this record that the error was harmless. See Christian v. Rhode, 41 F.3d 461, 468-69 (9th Cir.1994) (considering the totality of the evidence in assessing harmless error). Accordingly, we remand to the district court for an evidentiary hearing in order to determine whether the readback outside the presence of Turner and his counsel was harmless error. See Hegler, 50 F.3d at 1478; Brown, 832 F.2d at 130; Bustamante, 456 F.2d at 275.