Court Opinion

ID: 9465407
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 00:45:43.523642+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:39:09.986597
License: Public Domain

BUTZNER, Circuit Judge,
concurring:
I concur in Judge Winter’s opinion. I write briefly, however, to amplify my reasons for concluding that the judgment of the district court must be reversed.
In its opinion, the district court acknowledged the defendant’s claim that the government’s informant had questioned him in jail about the bank robbery. Nevertheless, the court denied an evidentiary hearing on this issue. Instead, it wrote:
Here, the Court accepts the statements of the FBI agents that they did not request Nichols' [the informant] to question Henry [the defendant] or engage him in conversation, but only to listen to any statements Henry might make within their [sic] hearing and report it to them. Nichols confirms this.
The informant denied questioning the defendant. He did not, however, fully comply with the instructions that he was not to “engage him in conversation, but only to listen.” He admitted that he had “some conversations” with the defendant, but he did not divulge what he said to the defendant.
As Brewer v. Williams, 430 U.S. 387, 97 S.Ct. 1232, 51 L.Ed.2d 424 (1977), demonstrates, the informant’s conclusory statement that he did not question the defendant is not determinative. The critical issue is whether, after judicial proceedings had been initiated against the defendant, an informant — acting as an agent of the government — elicited information from him in the absence of defense counsel. Proof of *548formal interrogation is unnecessary to invoke the protection of the sixth amendment. A conversation that is tantamount to interrogation is sufficient. 430 U.S. at 397-401, 97 S.Ct. 1232.
It would have been prudent for the district court to have conducted an evidentiary hearing to dispel the ambiguity of the documentary evidence, especially since the government did not reveal the substance of its paid informant’s conversation. Nevertheless, absent testimony by the informant about what he said to the defendant, the judgment must be reversed because of the informant’s admission that he had conversed with the defendant and because of the defendant’s assertion that the conversation was a form of questioning. See Massiah v. United States, 377 U.S. 201, 84 S.Ct. 1199, 12 L.Ed.2d 246 (1964); Brewer v. Williams, 430 U.S. 387, 97 S.Ct. 1232, 51 L.Ed.2d 424 (1977).
The district court ruled alternatively that the admission of the informant’s testimony was harmless error because the defendant “was clearly identified by eyewitnesses as one of the bank robbers.” On this score, the district judge’s recollection of the evidence was inaccurate. The defendant was not identified by any witness to the robbery. Indeed, the government’s brief acknowledges that its case against the defendant was founded solely on statements of informants and circumstantial evidence. I therefore join in Judge Winter’s conclusion that the error was not harmless.