Court Opinion

ID: 9493204
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 15:01:10.104082+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:55:42.661018
License: Public Domain

LUTTIG, Circuit Judge,
concurring:
I fully agree with Judge King that the order entered by the district court cannot possibly be read to reach the lawyer’s conduct in this case and I concur in those portions of his opinion in which he so holds. I believe Judge King is also unquestionably correct in his interpretation of Federal Rule of Evidence 615. However, I do not believe it is even necessary to reach the question of the proper interpretation of that rule, given that counsel’s conduct so plainly did not violate the district court’s order. Only if counsel’s conduct had violated the terms of the order might we be confronted with the questions of the proper interpretation of Rule 615 and whether the district court exceeded its authority under that rule in entering its sequestration order, or with the larger constitutional questions impheating the Sixth Amendment.
Neither of our colleagues in dissent addresses the text of the district court’s order. The sole issue in this case, however, is whether counsel violated the terms of the district court’s order. And . it is the language of that order that must dictate our conclusion, not our general sense as to whether the “spirit” of the order was violated. The order, which the district court held counsel violated, reads as fohows:
Well, I do grant the usual sequestration rule and that is that the witnesses shall not discuss one with the other their testimony and particularly that would apply to those witnesses who have completed testimony not to discuss testimony with prospective witnesses, and I direct the Marshal’s Service, as much as can be done, to keep those witnesses separate from the — those witnesses who have testified separate and apart from the witnesses who have not yet given testimony who might be in the custody of the marshal.
Under no legitimate method of interpretation could this order be interpreted to extend to counsel.. By its plain terms, the order prohibits “witnesses” from discussing their testimony “one with the other.” That the order’s reach is limited to witnesses, and specifically discussions between or among witnesses, is also apparent from the order’s conforming instruction to the Marshal’s Service to ensure that “those witnesses who have testified [are kept] separate and apart from the witnesses who have not yet given testimony.” Not even the government was willing to argue that the terms of the district court’s order were violated by counsel’s conduct; when pressed, the government would say at most only that “the spirit” of the order might have been violated.
We sit to determine whether laws have been violated, not to assess whether “the spirit” of a law has somehow been offended. In my view, for a judicial body either to punish or to deprive based upon perceived offense to a “spirit” of an enactment or a judicial order is nothing short of the denial óf due process.
While this case might be dismissed as relatively insignificant in the grand scheme of things, I actually believe that it is quite significant for the insight that it offers as to how one views the law. I believe that there is nothing more important than that the courts themselves be bound by the language of their own orders and opinions. For if we are unwilling ourselves to be bound by what we write, then we' forfeit our authority to insist that others be bound by our writing. If we are to insist upon obedience to the language of law, then we must likewise be obedient — always, but especially when such obedience yields a result with which we disagree. *328Obedience to the language of law is not to engage in “clever wordplay” or to indulge in “literalistic construction,” and it must never be mistaken as such. It could not be further from these. It is, rather, the very essence of law.