Court Opinion

ID: 9451021
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 17:03:46.573542+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:32:32.315410
License: Public Domain

KAUFMAN, Circuit Judge
(concurring) :
I fully agree with my brother Hays that the prosecution’s summation, especially when viewed together with defense counsel’s provocatory statements, did not render Castillo’s trial fundamentally unfair in Fourteenth Amendment Due Process terms. I am also in complete accord with the conclusion that the error, if any, committed in referring to the impermissible search was too technical to rise to constitutional proportions, particularly when considered in light of the objective which the exclusionary rule seeks to achieve. My concurrence, however, rests on a broader consideration of the dynamics of the trial we are reviewing and, therefore, I deem it appropriate to set forth briefly my interpretation of what occurred.
At the conclusion of the direct examination of the arresting detective, he was asked if he searched Castillo’s furnished apartment and if he found anything, responding affirmatively to both questions. Defense counsel immediately began his cross-examination, failing to request the trial judge to admonish the jury not to draw any inferences from this testimony or to speculate about what was found. Moreover, he did not move for a mistrial or to strike the detective’s answers.1 *404Rather, after extended general cross-examination dealing with the post-arrest events, he asked the detective whether narcotics were found. The answer was negative.
Subsequently, on re-direct examination, the Assistant District Attorney inquired, “Did you find anything relating to narcotics in that apartment?” The detective responded affirmatively and, in answer to a further query, said, “I found an instrument which I know to b.e used * * * in the cutting of narcotics.” It was only at this late stage that the defense saw fit to exercise an objection, moving to strike the last answer — and not, I emphasize, the whole series of questions and answers. The trial judge denied the motion, explaining “You opened the door. You asked him about narcotics. And I think anything relating to it is now admissible. If you hadn’t asked the question, I would have sustained the objection.” Significantly, defense counsel did not rejoin that the prosecutor had opened the door, as he now claims; rather, by stating that “I only asked whether he had found any narcotics in the apartment,” he revealed that his course was part of a carefully planned tactical maneuver to bring before the jury evidence which he considered favorable to his client and then to seek refuge from anything which would bring before that jury the balance of the circumstances.
This strategy was pursued still further when Castillo took the stand in his own defense, stating clearly and succinctly that he had never used, never sold and “never had need to help anybody else sell narcotics.” This precipitated further cross-examination by the State to which the defendant now objects.2 It is interesting that only at this belated juncture in the trial did the defense ask, unsuccessfully, that a juror be withdrawn. Finally, it is noted that the summation for the defense alluded, in accordance with the well-laid trial tactics, to the testimony that “no narcotics were found after a search of the furnished room where Castillo actually lived.”
This appeal, like others which receive the attention of this court, seems to be largely devoted to salvaging strategic blunders committed in the trial court through indecision, inadvertence, or, as in this instance, as an aspect of the principle of party autonomy. According to this latter view, the party, because of his interest in the conduct of his case, has a right to decide the technique to be employed in the exposition of his defense and must assume the initiative, indeed, the responsibility, of assuring that his contentions are advanced at the appropriate time and in the appropriate manner. The practical impact of this rule is to preclude the parties from burdening the appellate system with their second thoughts when their calculated judgments at the trial have proven to be unwise. In short, the misguided efforts or deliberate tactics of counsel cannot on appeal be converted, and attributed, to blunders of the trial judge. See Hazard, “After the Trial Court — The Realities of Appellate Review,” in “The Courts, The Public and The Law Explosion” (The American Assembly, Columbia University, Jones ed., 1965). Here, as the foregoing discussion demonstrates, we have a clear case of counsel’s judgment to gamble on the prosecutor’s actions back*405firing. This miscalculation, without more, does not justify the remedy sought.
Under these circumstances, to grant federal relief upsetting the conviction would in my opinion mischievously abuse the Great Writ and improperly tamper with the finality of a state court judgment upon non-constitutional grounds. The Fourth Amendment contentions are, on the record before us, extremely tenuous and concern only a minor aspect of trial strategy that does not approach the constitutional line necessary to justify federal interference. Only in the most unusual, extraordinary situation, which we do not have here, can such alleged evidentiary errors rise to constitutional dimension. Otherwise, the rulings made by state court trial judges would be open to second-guessing not only by the state appellate systems but by the federal courts as well. In habeas corpus proceedings, the federal court
“does not possess a residuum of power to search the record for procedural errors not involving constitutional rights and issue a writ of habeas corpus for the purpose of providing a new trial in the state court.
A federal court acting in this fashion would constitute a super appellate tribunal and encroach upon state appellate court prerogatives; such action would affront the principles of federalism upon which our federal-state juridic system operates.” United States ex rel. Townsend v. Ogilvie, 334 F.2d 837, 843-844 (7 Cir. 1964), cert. denied, 379 U.S. 984, 85 S.Ct. 683, 13 L.Ed.2d 574 (1965).
Accordingly, I concur in affirming the order denying Castillo’s petition for a write of habeas corpus.

. Surprise cannot excuse the omissions because Oastillo’s prior trial for the same offense, in which he was represented by the same counsel, was aborted when the trial judge declared a mistrial because the testimony concerning what the search uncovered was “irrelevant, inflammatory, and prejudicial.”

. As in Walder v. United States, 347 U.S. 62, 74 S.Ct. 354, 98 L.Ed. 503 (1954), the testimony elicited by Castillo’s own counsel permitted the prosecution to show, solely for the purpose of impeaching the defendant’s credibility, that tools of the narcotics trade were found in the apartment, albeit during an unlawful search. Mr. Justice Frankfurter’s words are precisely in point: “The defendant went beyond a mere denial of complicity in tbe crimes of which he was charged and made the sweeping claim that he had never dealt in or possessed any narcotics. * * * There is hardly any justification for letting the defendant affirmatively resort to perjurious testimony in reliance on the Government’s disability to challenge his credibility.” 347 U.S. at 65, 74 S.Ct. at 356. See also United States v. Rivera, 346 F.2d 942 (2d Cir. June 11, 1965).