Opinion ID: 590931
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Disclosure of Defendant's Statements to Government

Text: 43 Defendant next contends that his conviction must be overturned because it could not have been obtained absent the government's failure to provide the defense with statements to which it was entitled in discovery. Specifically, he contends that the government should have turned over, prior to trial, oral statements which, according to the trial testimony of a government agent, defendant made concerning his continuous possession of the .38 caliber firearm that formed the basis for his conviction under 18 U.S.C. § 924(b). Defendant argues that the fact that these statements were not included within the report provided to him by the government raises the possibility that the government agent invented them to fill a gap in its case-in-chief. 44 Rule 16 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure requires only that any written record of oral statements made by a defendant in response to interrogation and in the government's possession be turned over to a defendant who so requests. Fed.R.Crim.P. 16(a)(1)(A). As the government had no written record of the statements at issue, the government was under no duty to provide them to the defense.