Court Opinion

ID: 9465055
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 00:34:27.348859+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:38:57.080263
License: Public Domain

HUFSTEDLER, Circuit Judge, concurring:
I agree with my Brothers that double jeopardy does not bar Dipp’s prosecution for perjury following his acquittal of conspiracy because the question whether Dipp met Finefrock more than once was not necessarily decided by the jury when it acquitted him.1 I also agree that Dipp’s testimo*1329ny at his prior trial was sufficiently material to support a perjury charge. Finally, I agree with the conclusion that the record on direct appeal is insufficient to establish that governmental misconduct foreclosed the perjury trial. I do not join the majority opinion, however, because it implies that there may not be substance in Dipp’s claims that governmental misconduct tainted the perjury trial and that an appearance of vindictiveness also infected the second trial.
Finefrock’s meeting with Dipp on December 15, 1975, and Finefrock’s debriefing statement to DEA agents in El Paso were both taped. In the first trial, the prosecuting attorney represented to the court that no writings existed with respect to Dipp, other than the prosecutor’s own notes taken during an interview with him.2 Throughout the conspiracy trial, DEA Agent Cameron sat with the prosecuting attorney at the counsel table. The record does not reveal any audible response by Cameron, when the prosecuting attorney asked him about the existence of any written statements regarding Dipp. Defense counsel has asserted that Cameron nodded his head affirmatively when the prosecuting attorney asked him if the only material relating to Dipp’s statements was the prosecutor’s own notes.
In response to defense counsel’s motion to dismiss the perjury prosecution, both on the grounds of prosecutorial misconduct and on the grounds of vindictiveness, based upon Blackledge v. Perry (1974) 417 U.S. 21, 94 S.Ct. 2098, 40 L.Ed.2d 628, and its progeny, Agent Cameron filed an affidavit stating that he first learned of the existence of the tape recordings after the conspiracy trial, on September 2, 1976, and that he received the tapes from the El Paso DEA Office on September 24, 1976. When Cameron testified at the perjury trial, he said that he received the El Paso tapes on July 16,1976, one month after the ending of the conspiracy trial, and not in September as he had earlier stated in his affidavit. In addition to the inconsistencies in Cameron’s own testimony, other facts in the record cast serious doubt upon Cameron’s truthfulness in denying his knowledge of the tapes during the first trial and raise at least an inference that Cameron was not candid with the court when he testified both by way of affidavit and by way of oral testimony in the perjury trial.
Finefrock testified that he met Cameron and his partner, Jones, in Reno, Nevada, on November 20, 1975. Cameron arranged that meeting about four or five days earlier when he called Finefrock at his home in Oklahoma and asked him to come to Reno to respond to questions about Dipp. Acting in cooperation with several DEA offices, Finefrock was sent to El Paso in December, 1975, to meet with Dipp. This was the meeting that was tape recorded. From the sequence of events, an inference arises that Cameron was one of the DEA agents par*1330ticipating in setting up Finefrock’s December meeting. However, neither the fact of his participation nor the extent of it is revealed by the record. Of course, if Cameron was an active participant in arranging Finefrock’s December meeting with Dipp, it would be highly unlikely that Cameron would not have been fully aware of the tape recordings well before Dipp was tried for conspiracy.
In his affidavit filed in the perjury trial, Cameron testified that he learned of the tape recordings from Finefrock at the time of the conspiracy trial. He stated: “With respect to the tape recording of a meeting between Finefrock and Dipp in a motel room in El Paso, Texas, at the time of [the conspiracy] trial Finefrock did state to your affiant that there had been a tape recording of such a meeting, and your affiant instructed DEA Agent Dick Brazill, here from Lubbock, Texas, to inquire of the El Paso office as to the existence of this tape recording. Your affiant was told by this Agent that there was no such tape recording. However, on September 2, 1976, in speaking with Agent Hal Kent of the El Paso DEA office, your affiant learned that the tape recording, did, in fact, exist and at your affiant’s request, Kent sent this tape recording to the DEA Reno Task Force, and it was received by your affiant on September 24, 1976.”
Cameron did not disclose to the court in the conspiracy trial his knowledge of the existence of the tape recordings, nor did he reveal that he had tried unsuccessfully to obtain the recordings. He never offered any explanation for the inconsistencies between the statements that he made in his affidavit and his testimony at the perjury trial, concerning the time that he learned the tape recordings still existed. Cameron was not cross-examined upon the statements in his affidavit. The record is barren of any evidence from which we could determine whether Cameron told the prosecuting attorney about the tape recordings or about any efforts that he may have made to locate them during the conspiracy trial.
Although the record before us on direct appeal reveals that the tape recordings were at all times in the possession of government agents and that Cameron knew that the tape recording of Finefrock’s meeting with Dipp had been taped, the record is inadequate to permit us to decide whether Cameron deliberately withheld his knowledge of the tapes at the conspiracy trial or whether he misled both defense counsel and the court when he was later asked to explain the post-conspiracy trial discovery of the tapes. Under Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure 16(a)(1)(A), the Government was obligated to disclose the statements of the defendant which were “within the possession, custody, or control of the Government, the existence of which is known, or by the exercise of due diligence may become known, to the attorney for the Government.” Thus, even if the prosecuting attorney did not know about the existence of the tapes at the first trial, the Government may be chargeable with suppression of evidence if the prosecutor could have learned of the existence of that evidence by the exercise of reasonable diligence. (Cf. United States v. Alvarado-Sandoval (9th Cir.1977) 557 F.2d 645; United States v. Ruesga-Martinez (9th Cir. 1976) 534 F.2d 1367.)
If, after an evidentiary hearing, it should be established that the Government suppressed knowledge of the existence of the tapes at the first trial, and then used the same evidence for the purpose of obtaining a perjury conviction, the second prosecution would be foreclosed because misconduct on the part of the Government would be a violation of due process. (Cf. Giglio v. United States (1972) 405 U.S. 150, 92 S.Ct. 763, 31 L.Ed.2d 104.) An inquiry into prejudice to the defendant is beside the point. The result follows, not because defendant’s perjury should ever be excused, but because misconduct of the prosecution affects the integrity of the administration of criminal justice. Moreover, the taint under such circumstances does not stop with an acquittal in the first trial. Rather, the stain spreads to the second trial if it appears that the Government took advantage of its own pri- *1331or misconduct and tried to cover up its misdeeds in the course of the second trial.
I join the majority opinion’s conclusion that governmental misconduct did not bar the second trial because, in my view, the record before us on this direct appeal is not sufficiently developed to permit us to determine whether either Cameron, or the prosecuting attorney, or both knew about the tape recordings and failed to reveal that knowledge at the conspiracy trial and whether either or both was a participant in covering up prior misconduct in the perjury trial.

. Dipp’s prior relationship with Finefrock was directly in issue in the first trial because the Government relied upon Finefrock’s testimony to prove Dipp’s intention and knowledge. The *1329issue was also litigated because both Dipp and Finefrock testified to that relationship in the first trial. However, the issue was not necessarily decided by the jury because it could have concluded that the Government’s proof of the charged conspiracy with Johnson and Melan-con was unconvincing without reaching the intent and knowledge issue.

. The transcript of the proceedings of the conspiracy trial relating to this matter in most pertinent part is as follows:
“Pike: There are no written reports with respect to the testimony regarding Mr. Dipp.
The Court: You don’t have any writing at all about it?
Mr. Pike: I have my own notes that I took just talking to him. That is all the material the Government is aware of. Is that correct, Mr. Cameron?
[The record does not reveal any audible response by Camron, but defense counsel has stated that Cameron nodded his head affirmatively.]
The Court: The Government can’t disclose a witness it doesn’t know about.
Claiborne: He did know about it to make this motion? He must have had knowledge of it at some time,' I am sure—
The Court: When did you find out about this witness?
Pike: In response to discovery, the Government indicated to counsel that there was a possibility of another witness that would go to intent, that it stood by the Jencks Act with respect to that witness. Primarily, your Honor, quite frankly because I was in fear for his safety.”