Court Opinion

ID: 9465158
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 00:37:38.552353+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:39:00.479935
License: Public Domain

OAKES, Circuit Judge
(concurring):
I wish to concur in Judge Van Graafei-land’s opinion. I do so only because there was evidence the witness had been threatened and had refused to testify out of fear. Moreover, as Judge Van Graafeiland points out, the subsequent trial was before a different judge, thus mitigating the impact of Justice Goldstein’s strong language. And I want to make it clear that if the judge had admonished the witness against perjurious testimony in the presence of the jury his conduct would clearly have amounted to a violation of due process.
I reach the result with some doubt, having in mind, e. g., Webb v. Texas, 409 U.S. 95, 93 S.Ct. 351, 34 L.Ed.2d 330 (1972) (threats of perjury charges and intimidation by trial judge against defendant’s only witness deprived defendant of right to call witnesses in his own behalf); United States v. Reed, 421 F.2d 190 (5th Cir.) (en banc) (court’s admonitions to defendant and his witness regarding perjury deprived him of fair trial), reversing United States v. Reed, 414 F.2d 435 (5th Cir. 1969). And, obviously, if the judge had made the remarks before the jury, they would have been prejudicial. See Starr v. United States, 153 U.S. 614, 626, 14 S.Ct. 919, 38 L.Ed. 841 (1894). But here they were made after the witness had been threatened so that they had a measure of justification. And while the judge making them also exposed — improperly, I feel — his view of the defendants’ guilt, this alone could hardly have been determinative of the witness’s ultimate testimony: either he could identify the robbers or he could not.