Court Opinion

ID: 9486342
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 11:45:08.228318+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:51:39.713555
License: Public Domain

LUMBARD, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
In my view, the hearsay testimony was not admissible; the government made impermissible use of the hearsay testimony; and the district court did not adequately instruct the jury regarding its consideration of the hearsay testimony.
Officer Johnson testified on direct examination that Fernandez had a handgun in his waistband, gripped the gun with his finger on the trigger, ordered Officer Johnson to ingest cocaine, and began to draw the gun, to the extent that Officer Johnson saw part of the gun barrel above Fernandez’ waistband. Officer Johnson also testified on direct examination that he immediately met with his superior, Lieutenant Kracji, and “told him that I had made a buy and that I had been forced to ingest cocaine at gunpoint.”
*808On cross-examination, defense counsel attacked Officer Johnson’s credibility by questioning his arguably inconsistent statements that the gun remained in Fernandez’ waistband, and that he told Lieutenant Kracji that he was threatened at gunpoint. On redirect, and over objection, Officer Johnson was asked where he told Lieutenant Kracji that Fernandez had the gun. Officer Johnson replied: “I’d tell him that he had the gun to the right of his navel, in his waistband.” Officer Johnson was next asked, over objection, if he “ever [told] Lieutenant Kracji that the gun had been pointed” at him, to which Officer Johnson replied “No, I didn’t.” The government then called Lieutenant Kracji, who stated, over objections, that Officer Johnson
said that after the buy had gone down, he attempted to leave and one man that was standing in back of him had a gun in his waistband. The other man approached him with some cocaine on a playing card and told him to snort the cocaine. When he tried to talk his way out of it, the fellow with the gun started removing it from his waistband and told him that he better snort the cocaine.
The majority holds that this hearsay was properly admitted to rehabilitate Officer Johnson after the defense attacked his credibility by raising the inconsistency between the “at gunpoint” and “in his waistband” versions of events. I disagree.
We held in United States v. Pierre, 781 F.2d 329 (2d Cir.1986), that a prior consistent statement that is not admissible under Fed. R.Evid. 801(d)(1)(B) is nevertheless admissible if it “has probative force bearing on credibility beyond merely showing repetition.” Id. at 333. Admission is proper if the prior consistent statement “tends to east doubt on whether the ... impeaching statement is really inconsistent with the trial testimony,” or if it “will amplify or clarify the allegedly inconsistent statement.” Id. Pierre took pains to distinguish United States v. Quinto, 582 F.2d 224 (2d Cir.1978), on the ground that the prior statement in Quinto “had no probative force beyond showing that the witness had at an earlier time been consistent with his trial testimony.” Pierre, 781 F.2d at 333.
The present case resembles Quinto in that the hearsay testimony had no probative force beyond showing consistency at an earlier time. Officer Johnson’s direct testimony was that Fernandez had a “gun in his waistband” and “drew it enough that I could see like maybe an inch or so of the barrel.” After the defense’s “gunpoint” attack, the government offered Officer Johnson’s prior consistent statements. Officer Johnson testified that he told Lieutenant Kracji that Fernandez had the gun “to the right of his navel, in his waistband.” Lieutenant Kracji testified that Officer Johnson told him that Fernandez “had a gun in his waistband” and that when Officer Johnson tried to leave, “the fellow with the gun started removing it from his waistband.”
The hearsay testimony did not serve to “clarify[] the apparent contradiction.” Officer Johnson’s and Lieutenant Kraeji’s hearsay merely repeated Officer Johnson’s original testimony without any helpful elaboration. “At gunpoint” and “in his waistband” were not reconciled by repeating “in his waistband” a second time; if anything, repetition reinforced the inconsistency. The hearsay had no “rebutting force beyond the mere fact that the witness ha[d] repeated on a prior occasion a statement consistent with his trial testimony.” Pierre, 781 F.2d at 331. Pierre does not justify admission of the hearsay.
The other cases cited by the majority are distinguishable. United States v. Brennan, 798 F.2d 581 (2d Cir.1986), involved a prior consistent statement that significantly fleshed out the alleged inconsistent statement. The prior consistent statement “was not used to show that [the declarant] told the same story twice.” Id. at 589. United States v. Colon, 835 F.2d 27 (2d Cir.1987), cert. denied, 485 U.S. 980, 108 S.Ct. 1279, 99 L.Ed.2d 490 (1988), and United States v. Khan, 821 F.2d 90 (2d Cir.1987), both involved defense contentions that trial allegations were unreliable because they were not previously made, despite opportunities to do so. Prior statements were introduced to *809show that the allegations had in fact been made before.
Here, defense counsel contrasted Officer Johnson’s trial testimony with a prior statement that Officer Johnson himself, during his trial testimony, said he made. This situation is more like Brennan and Quinto than Colon and Khan, and the question is whether the prior consistent statement provided clarification or mere repetition. For the reasons stated earlier, it provided mere repetition and should not have been admitted.
Evidentiary errors require reversal if they have a substantial and injurious effect on the jury’s verdict. United States v. Castillo, 924 F.2d 1227, 1233 (2d Cir.1991). I believe reversal is required in this case, just as it was on the first appeal, where we held that the government misused improperly admitted testimony of a drug enterprise expert. Id. at 1231-35.1
The error in the first trial had a substantial and injurious effect because of the inherent weakness of the government’s case and the correspondingly heightened impact of the error.
The firearm count was perhaps perceived as weak from the case’s inception — no gun had ever been recovered, despite searches of appellants’ persons, the apartment, the area outside the apartment windows and the vicinity of the arrest. The initial arrest report contained no mention of any weapon. Finally, there was only one witness who testified to having seen the gun, Officer Johnson.
Id. at 1234-35 (footnote and internal cross-reference omitted). These observations apply as well to the retrial.
Also significant in the first trial were “[t]he jury’s notes to the Judge during deliberations, manifesting their recognition that, in fact, the firearm count was troubling.” Id. at 1235. A similar observation can be made about the retrial, where the jury sent a note that the.court and counsel alike found confusing, and which suggested the jury might have considered issuing separate verdicts on the drug and firearm elements of the single count.
The government’s use of the hearsay for its truth compounded the substantial and injurious effect its admission had on the jury verdict. The hearsay was admitted for the limited purpose of rebutting the charge of inconsistency. The government, however, repeatedly and over objections referred to the hearsay as proof that a gun was present:
... I ask you to do justice by crediting the testimony of an eyewitness in this case, an eyewitness who was just a foot or two away from the gun in question. An eyewitness who is trained and experienced in identifying handguns. An eyewitness who immediately told his supervisor what he saw after he left the apartment and didn’t hide it at all. * * iff * * *
Well, if Lieutenant Kracji is a liar, then why does he say no gun was found in the apartment? ... It makes no sense for you to believe Lieutenant Kracji was lying when he tells you what Officer Johnson told him.
... In order to accept the argument that Officer Johnson lied, you have to find that from the moment he left the apartment, he made up a story, stuck to it and has been lying ever since.
Not only did he perjure himself yesterday, but he lied to his supervising officer, something that could get him fired, and he lied on his reports. This is not a situation where Officer Johnson comes out of the apartment and has one story and then later on ... he then raises a new story. Yes, there was a gun. This is what he told from the moment he got out of the apartment.
* * * * * * If he hadn’t been threatened with a gun, ladies and gentlemen, wouldn’t he have *810just told the supervisor that, after all, even though he was trained, he had a ten-day training course, and he had been in an apartment before, this was still his second deal. If he had come to Lieutenant Kracji and said to him, I’m not sure whether a gun was there, but they were threatening me with something and he had his hand over here and I’m not sure, I’m not going to take any chances, do you think he would have been fired?
Come on,. ladies and gentlemen, does that make any sense to you? He told Lieutenant Kracji exactly what he saw.
The jury thus was repeatedly exhorted to believe that a gun was present because Officer Johnson said so to Lieutenant Kracji. This was far beyond the purpose for which the hearsay was originally admitted: to repair the alleged inconsistency between the “at gunpoint” and “in his waistband” versions of events. The government improperly used the hearsay to bolster Officer Johnson’s credibility on the ultimate issue in the case — the presence of a gun — rather than to rehabilitate him after the charge of inconsistency.
The similarities between the first trial and the retrial are telling. In both cases, the government “misuse[d] ... what was, in any event, improperly admitted testimony.” Id. at 1234. In both eases, it became “apparent in the government’s summations [that] the purpose of the testimony” — or at least a purpose of the testimony — “was actually to corroborate Johnson’s testimony.” Id. And in both eases, “in the wake of the Government’s summation, [the] testimony could only have had such substantial and injurious effect on the jury’s ... verdict[ ]” that reversal is required. Id. at 1233.
Finally, the district court’s limiting instructions were inadequate. At first, the court gave a limiting instruction after Lieutenant Kracji’s hearsay testimony: “What the witness is recounting is what was told to him. It does not indicate that what is being said is for the truth of the statement.” The court gave a similar limiting instruction with regard to the hearsay testimony of Detective Bailey, who was responsible for the search of the apartment. Detective Bailey testified on direct examination that Lieutenant Kracji told him that “the undercover was forced to ingest, by way of having a gun placed to him, or he was — a gun was used to make — to force the ingestion.”2 The court instructed the jury that
We’re having this testimony as to what this officer was told, and as I told you on the previous occasion, it’s merely an indication that he was told. It’s not being offered for the truth of the statement, merely the fact that this was what he was told. And as I indicated to you in an earlier statement where I gave you that limiting instruction, the same thing applies here.
A final limiting instruction was included in the jury charge:
In this case, some of the evidence was admitted only for a very limited purpose. You may consider such evidence only for the limited purpose for which it was received. In this regard I want to call your attention to certain out-of-court statements of [Officer] Johnson which he made soon after he left the apartment which I instructed that you should only consider for the fact that such statements were made and not for the truth of the statements themselves. I instruct you with all the authority at my command that you must consider such statements only for the limited purpose for which they were received and for no other purpose.
Defense counsel participated in formulating some of these instructions, so I hesitate to question their sufficiency. But the government’s use of the hearsay required effective instructions. The instructions did not sufficiently explain the permissible and impermissible uses of the hearsay in a way that *811a lay juror could appreciate. Cf. United States v. Siegel, 717 F.2d 9, 18 (2d Cir.1983) (upholding admission of evidence where accompanied by a more detailed instruction). The instructions merely stated, with slight variations, that the jury “should only consider [the hearsay] for the fact that such statements were made and not for the truth of the statements themselves.” Indeed, the difficulty of explaining to any jury the proper use of such testimony is in itself a reason for its exclusion.
The sole issue at retrial was whether a gun was used. No gun was ever produced. Officer Johnson’s testimony was the only admissible evidence of the presence of a gun. The hearsay did not rehabilitate Officer Johnson’s credibility in any permissible way. Rather,, it was used improperly to bolster testimony that was at the heart of the case. The admission and use of the hearsay had a substantial and injurious effect on the verdict.
I would reverse the conviction.

. More specifically, we found that the district court improperly admitted expert testimony on easily understandable aspects of drug dealing, including the use of guns to force officers to ingest cocaine; that the government misused the improperly admitted evidence on summation; and that the errors had a substantial and injurious effect on the firearm count verdicts. Castillo, 924 F.2d at 1231-35.

. Detective Bailey's testimony was admitted not for its truth but for the purpose of showing that he knew to look for a gun in the apartment. Lieutenant Kracji's testimony might also have been admissible for that purpose. But the government does not suggest that was the basis for admission. And problems would remain anyway. The prosecutor's use of the testimony on summation went far beyond — indeed, had nothing to do with — showing how the police knew to search for a gun. And the district court's limiting instruction failed to communicate the bounds of the testimony’s proper use.