Court Opinion

ID: 9496596
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 16:30:27.525226+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:57:40.491912
License: Public Domain

BYE, Circuit Judge,
concurring.
I join in the majority opinion, however, I write separately to emphasize joining in this opinion does not modify or compromise my original dissent in the first opinion, United States v. Angela Jane Johnson, 338 F.3d 918 (8th Cir.2003) (Bye, dissenting). I intend for that dissent to remain intact there. I dissented from the original panel decision as I disagreed with the majority’s holding Robert McNeese as not being a government agent before September 11, 2000. It is, I believe, entirely consistent with such position to now join in the present majority opinion which addresses the separate and distinct issue of whether all evidence obtained by McNeese is admissible as to the second indictment because the charge therein does not allege the same offense as did the first indictment. This is so because if Angela Jane Johnson’s Sixth Amendment right to counsel as to the second indictment had not attached at any time during her conversations with McNeese, as the majority concludes, then the government could not have violated this right by having him act as a government agent before or after September 11, 2000, simply because no such right had attached.
I further note the majority opinion states “[o]ur previous holding, that Mr. McNeese was not a government agent before September 11, 2000, remains in effect,” thereby acknowledging the distinction between the issues resolved in the two panel opinions.