Opinion ID: 172566
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Prior Opening Argument

Text: Mr. Pursley argues that the district court erred by allowing the government to introduce two paragraphs of his opening argument in the tax-fraud case as an exhibit (the exhibit or the jury-argument exhibit). In this exhibit, Mr. Pursley's attorney described Mr. Cluff as the government's star witness, but she implied that the government's case was weak because Mr. Cluff would not be able to link Mr. Pursley to the crimes. The district court admitted this evidence into trial in the instant case as an admission of a party opponent by an agent, pursuant to Fed. R.Evid. 801(d)(2), and found it to be relevant apparently on the issue of motive, pursuant to Fed.R.Evid. 401. Mr. Pursley argues that this exhibit did not meet the requirements of Rule 801(d)(2). He also argues that its introduction was unduly prejudicial, in that it forced him into the Hobson's choice between waiving his right to [the] attorney-client privilege in the tax fraud case, which was still on appeal, and forgoing his right to present a defense in the current case. Aplt. Opening Br. at 32-33. To resolve these challenges, Mr. Pursley asks us to adopt the prophylactic procedures announced in United States v. McKeon, 738 F.2d 26 (2d Cir.1984). Due to various practical and constitutional concerns, the Second Circuit in McKeon proposed a rigorous series of steps that district courts must follow to determine when prior jury argument may be admitted in a subsequent criminal trial as an admission of a party opponent under Rule 801(d)(2). [13] McKeon, 738 F.2d at 31-33. Had the Court done the McKeon analysis, argues Mr. Pursley, it would have been clear that the prior opening argument should not have been admitted. Aplt. Opening Br. at 34. We express some doubt as to the legal value of McKeon 's procedural safeguards. Indeed, we note that the Federal Rules of Evidence seem to provide ample protection to guard against the prejudice that may accompany the admission of a prior jury argument. Fed.R.Evid. 401 (defining relevant evidence); Fed.R.Evid. 403 (noting that relevant evidence may be excluded if its probative value is substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice). [14] We also express doubt as to the factual applicability of McKeon to the instant appeal. In McKeon, the government introduced the defendant's opening statement from his second prosecution for conspiracy to export firearms, which ended in a mistrial, in the government's third prosecution of the defendant for the same crime. McKeon, 738 F.2d at 28-29. The government asserted that a factual inconsistency between the defendant's opening argument in the second trial and his opening argument in the third trialan inconsistency concerning the source of various documents suggesting ownership of an illegal firearms shipmentwas relevant to prove the defendant's consciousness of guilt. Id. at 29. By contrast, in the instant case, Mr. Pursley was not prosecuted a second time for the same charge. The government introduced Mr. Pursley's prior jury argument in a prosecution for charges unrelated to his tax-fraud conviction. More importantly, the government never used the jury-argument exhibit to demonstrate consciousness of guilt or to prove an element of the instant crimes. In fact, the government never introduced it for the truth of the matter asserted. See Fed.R.Evid. 801(c) (defining hearsay as any out-of-court statement offered in evidence to prove the truth of the matter asserted). Instead, as Mr. Pursley concedes, his opening statement in the tax-fraud case was used to show a motive for the assault. Aplt. Opening Br. at 34. These factual distinctions, at least in this case, weaken any need for McKeon 's prophylactic standards and procedures. Ultimately, however, we need not decide whether to adopt the Second Circuit's approach in McKeon. We also need not decide whether the jury-argument exhibit was inadmissible under a traditional Rule 801(d)(2) or Rule 401(b) analysis. Instead, assuming arguendo that there was some error in admitting this exhibit, the government has established that this nonconstitutional error was harmless by a preponderance of the evidence. Cf. Stiger, 413 F.3d at 1190-91 (finding error was harmless by a preponderance of the evidence when district court used defective verdict form to convict defendant). Several reasons leave us with no doubt that the admission of the prior jury argument did not have a substantial influence on the outcome of Mr. Pursley's prosecution. See Kotteakos v. United States, 328 U.S. 750, 765, 66 S.Ct. 1239, 90 L.Ed. 1557 (1946). The challenged portion of the exhibitthe characterization of Mr. Cluff as the government's star witnesswas cumulative of the other evidence in the record. The jury received undisputed evidence that Mr. Cluff testified against Mr. Pursley during the tax-fraud trial, that Mr. Cluff's testimony implicated Mr. Pursley to some extent, and that Mr. Pursley cryptically threatened Mr. Cluff after his testimony. Moreover, we are unable to see how the admission of the jury-argument exhibit, as a whole, prejudiced Mr. Pursley. Although Mr. Pursley's attorney described Mr. Cluff as the government's star witness, she did so only to emphasize the weakness in the government's tax-fraud case: Even the government's star witness, Jessie Cluff, even he won't be able to link my client to these crimes. Gov't Ex. 5, supra, at 4 (emphasis added). She then argued that Mr. Cluff is not going to have anything to say about Mr. Pursley's involvement in these alleged crimes. Id. at 4-5. Thus, to the extent this exhibit provided a window into Mr. Pursley's psychology around the time of the assault, it primarily exposed his belief that Mr. Cluff's testimony, on its face, was largely innocuous, despite the government's representations to the contrary. It, therefore, offered little probative evidence of Mr. Pursley's motive to assault Mr. Cluff.