Opinion ID: 751138
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Rejected Surrebuttal Testimony

Text: 43 At trial, the Government presented evidence that placed Wilson in El Paso, Texas, on June 27 and 28, 1994. As the prosecution indicated in its closing argument to the jury, it was a bad thing for a defendant in the case to be tied to El Paso: The Engineer was in El Paso, Garcia said, Luna was from El Paso. The conspirators talked about the cocaine coming from El Paso. El Paso is across the river from Juarez, where Arroyo and Garcia were. Wilson asserts that he could have presented surrebuttal evidence that would have mitigated the Government's evidence placing him in El Paso, and he argues that the district court's refusal to allow the surrebuttal testimony denied him a fair trial. 44 The Government introduced in its case-in-chief a business record from the Traveler's Inn in El Paso. This record listed Bernard Wilson from Rockford, Illinois, as a guest at the hotel the night of June 27. The record did not include the license plate of Wilson's car or his driver's license number. When Wilson testified in his own defense, he claimed that he had never been to El Paso. In rebuttal the Government presented the testimony of an employee from the Traveler's Inn who identified a registration card indicating that Bernard Wilson stayed at the Inn on June 27. Unlike the business record introduced in the Government's case-in-chief, the registration card included Wilson's driver's license and license plate numbers. The employee testified that a desk clerk would not write down a driver's license number on a registration card or allow a guest to write it down himself without verifying it against an actual license. 45 Wilson wanted to introduce evidence on surrebuttal establishing that he did not possess a driver's license at the time in question. He argues that this evidence would have discredited the employee's testimony that Wilson's driver's license number could have been written on the registration card only if Wilson had presented the license to the desk clerk. Wilson believes that the fact that he did not possess a driver's license at the time he was alleged to have been in El Paso makes it more likely that the Bernard Wilson who stayed at the Traveler's Inn was an imposter. 46 We review a district court's decision to bar surrebuttal testimony for an abuse of discretion. See United States v. Mitan, 966 F.2d 1165, 1176 (7th Cir.1992), cert. denied, 506 U.S. 1059, 113 S.Ct. 994, 122 L.Ed.2d 145 (1993). Federal Rule of Evidence 611(a) confers authority upon district courts to exercise control over the mode and order of the presentation of evidence in the interests of ascertaining the truth and avoiding needless consumption of time. Given this authority, great deference is accorded to the discretion and judgment of the trial court when granting and/or denying a party's motion for rebuttal or surrebuttal testimony. United States v. Gaertner, 705 F.2d 210, 217 (7th Cir.1983), cert. denied, 464 U.S. 1071, 104 S.Ct. 979, 79 L.Ed.2d 216 (1984). 47 The Government argues that the proffered surrebuttal testimony would have been irrelevant. We cannot agree with this point. In its case-in-chief the Government did not present any evidence regarding Wilson's driver's license. It was only in its rebuttal testimony that the Government raised the new issue of the license and allowed the jury to infer that the picture on the license would have been verified against the registrant. Accordingly, Wilson's surrebuttal testimony that he did not possess his license would have answered the Government's rebuttal evidence and would not have been cumulative. See Gaertner, 705 F.2d at 217. Under these circumstances, we believe that surrebuttal was appropriate and that the district court abused its discretion in this regard. See United States v. Moody, 903 F.2d 321, 331 (5th Cir.1990) (finding surrebuttal merited when the rebuttal testimony raised a new issue that broadened the scope of the Government's case, and the surrebuttal could have discredited the essence of the rebuttal testimony). 48 Nonetheless, this error was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. 5 See Delaware v. Van Arsdall, 475 U.S. 673, 681, 106 S.Ct. 1431, 1436, 89 L.Ed.2d 674 (1986); Chapman v. California, 386 U.S. 18, 24, 87 S.Ct. 824, 828, 17 L.Ed.2d 705 (1967). As the Supreme Court asserted in Van Arsdall, the Constitution entitles a criminal defendant to a fair trial, not a perfect one. 475 U.S. at 681, 106 S.Ct. at 1436. Accordingly, when reviewing errors implicating the Confrontation Clause, the harmless error doctrine recognizes the principle that the central purpose of a criminal trial is to decide the factual question of the defendant's guilt or innocence, and promotes public respect for the criminal process by focusing on the underlying fairness of the trial rather than on the virtually inevitable presence of immaterial error. Id. (citation omitted). 49 First, we note that Wilson's surrebuttal would not necessarily have established the proposition that he asserts, even if the jury believed that he did not have his driver's license on June 27. While the jury could have inferred that an imposter had a picture license in the name of Bernard Wilson, a jury also could have inferred that--despite the hotel employee's testimony--someone, quite possibly Wilson, had been allowed to write a driver's license number on a registration card without presenting a driver's license for verification. It is equally likely, if not more so, that the jury would have drawn this second inference from the proffered testimony. Because the surrebuttal would not have resolved conclusively the question of whether Wilson was in El Paso, much less the question of his guilt, the testimony was not important in the context of the Government's entire case against Wilson. See Ortega v. O'Leary, 843 F.2d 258, 262 (7th Cir.) (recognizing that the importance of the testimony to the case is a factor to consider in harmless error analysis under Chapman), cert. denied, 488 U.S. 841, 109 S.Ct. 110, 102 L.Ed.2d 85(1988). 50 More significantly, the Government presented an overwhelming amount of evidence against Wilson at trial. See Van Arsdall, 475 U.S. at 684, 106 S.Ct. at 1438 (recognizing that, of course, an important factor to consider is the overall strength of the prosecution's case). Wilson drove a car in the July 18th cocaine delivery to Southgate Plaza. After his arrest, Wilson confessed his complicity in the conspiracy. He told the agents that he had loaded the cocaine into the van, and he led the agents to two locations where he knew that more cocaine was hidden. Three agents testified at trial regarding Wilson's post-arrest statements. Thus, even if Wilson never had been to El Paso, an inference that the surrebuttal would not have established conclusively in any event, we believe beyond a reasonable doubt that the trial court's error was harmless. 51