Court Opinion

ID: 9474851
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 05:10:50.415752+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:44:22.639666
License: Public Domain

NORRIS, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
I dissent. The prosecutor’s allusion to “heroin that kids inject” and the redirect testimony of Agent Dunbar about the dangers of undercover drug dealing were both patently prejudicial. In addition, the district court plainly erred in permitting the government to exploit Makhlouta’s silence on the subject of entrapment following his Miranda warnings.
I
The majority characterizes the prosecutor’s reference to “heroin that kids inject” as “an ill-chosen response to the defense argument.” Majority Opinion at 1403. That puts it charitably. While the United States Attorney “may strike hard blows, he is not at liberty to strike foul ones.” Berger v. United States, 295 U.S. 78, 88, 55 S.Ct. 629, 633, 79 L.Ed. 1314 (1935). Here the prosecutor struck a foul blow. Her reference to “heroin that kids inject” was obviously designed to inflame the jurors’ passions, not appeal to their sense of reason and fairness in deciding the only disputed issue at trial—whether Makhlouta *1406was entrapped into selling heroin to government agents. See B. Gershman, Prosecutorial Misconduct 10-19 (1985) (“One of the most pernicious ways to influence jurors is to appeal to them as parents of young children, suggesting that if the defendant is acquitted those children might be his next victims.”).1
Similarly, Agent Dunbar’s testimony that narcotics transactions are fraught with danger was both irrelevant and prejudicial. On cross-examination, Agent Dunbar was asked by defense counsel whether, on the day before the transaction, Makhlouta and the undercover agents had agreed on a site for the exchange of money and heroin. Agent Dunbar answered that no site was mentioned at that time. Reporter’s Transcript (R.T.) at 172. On redirect, Dunbar was asked, over defense counsel’s objection, why there was no agreement on a location the day before the deal was to go down. He answered that it would have been dangerous to the agents if others knew in advance that a large sum of money would be changing hands at a particular location. R.T. at 172A.
The point of the cross-examination of Agent Dunbar was to establish that the agents, not Makhlouta, were in control of the heroin transaction, a fact relevant to the entrapment defense. Dunbar’s redirect testimony on the dangers of drug dealing was irrelevant to the issue of who controlled the transaction. It may have explained why the agents wanted to control the location, but it did not refute the point that the agents in fact controlled the transaction. In short, the dangers of undercover drug dealing are not germane to the issue whether the agents entrapped Makhlouta into selling them heroin. The prejudicial effect of Dunbar’s testimony is obvious, especially in light of the uncontradicted evidence that Makhlouta possessed heroin and was trying to sell it to the agents. The testimony created the risk that the jury’s assessment of the evidence relevant to entrapment would be colored by the fear that Makhlouta, as a drug dealer, was prone to violence.
II
In my view, the rule of Doyle ¶. Ohio, 426 U.S. 610, 96 S.Ct. 2240, 49 L.Ed.2d 91 (1976)—that the Due Process clause prohibits impeachment on the basis of a defendant’s silence following Miranda warnings—bars prosecution use of Makhlouta’s post-arrest silence on the subject of entrapment. The majority’s reliance upon Anderson v. Charles, 447 U.S. 404, 100 S.Ct. 2180, 65 L.Ed.2d 222 (1980) (per curiam), and United States v. Ochoa-Sanchez, 676 F.2d 1283 (9th Cir.), cert. denied, 459 U.S. 911, 103 S.Ct. 219, 74 L.Ed.2d 174 (1982), is misplaced. Both Anderson v. Charles and Ochoa-Sanchez held that a defendant’s trial testimony could be impeached by reference to prior inconsistent statements volunteered at the time of arrest. Those cases are clearly distinguishable because Makhlouta’s post-arrest silence on the subject of entrapment does not constitute a prior statement that is inconsistent with his trial testimony.
In Anderson v. Charles, an incriminating piece of evidence against Charles, who was on trial for murder, was his possession of the victim’s car at the time of his arrest. Charles testified at trial that he had stolen the car from a parking lot in another part of town. The Supreme Court held that Charles could be impeached on the basis of his contradictory post-arrest statement that he had stolen the car from a street corner. The Court reasoned that “Doyle does not apply to cross-examination that merely inquires into prior inconsistent statements” and that the prosecutor made “no unfair use of silence, because a defendant who *1407voluntarily speaks after receiving Miranda warnings has not been induced to remain silent. As to the subject matter of his statements, the defendant has not remained silent at all.” 447 U.S. at 408, 100 S.Ct. at 2182. The Court observed that the prosecutor’s cross-examination of Charles was “not designed to draw meaning from silence, but to elicit an explanation for a prior inconsistent statement.” Id. at 409, 100 S.Ct. at 2182.
In sharp contrast to Charles, Makhlouta was impeached on the basis of his post-arrest silence on the subject of entrapment. While Charles volunteered a post-arrest statement on the subject of his possession of the murder victim’s car, Makhlouta remained silent on the subject of entrapment. Thus Doyle, not Charles, controls this case. Here there was no prior inconsistent statement, only an impermissible use of silence.
The majority seems to find an inconsistency between raising the defense of entrapment at trial and failure to claim entrapment at the time of arrest. The logic of the majority’s position eludes me. Entrapment is a legal concept, not a fact. A non-lawyer can hardly be expected to know enough about the intricacies of the law of entrapment to realize at the time of arrest that the defense might be available to him. Moreover, facts that form the basis for an entrapment defense might not fully emerge until after defense counsel investigates the case and completes pre-trial discovery. For example, a suspect might not know at the time of his arrest that persons he dealt with earlier in the game were government agents setting him up for a bust. Thus it is fanciful to posit, as the majority implicitly does, that one who was truly entrapped would have professed entrapment at the time of his arrest. Nor do I discern any inconsistency between Makhlouta’s entrapment defense and his post-arrest utterance that he did not expect to get caught. A person may be induced by government agents to commit a crime and think at the same time that he can get away with it. Indeed, it would be strange if someone could be induced into committing a crime while thinking he would be caught.2 In sum, it makes no sense to say that Makhlouta’s post-arrest silence on the subject of entrapment is inconsistent with his defense of entrapment.
The instant case cannot be distinguished from Doyle on any principled basis. In Doyle, the defendants claimed they had been framed by a “street person” who had volunteered to help the police catch drug pushers. 426 U.S. at 611-13, 96 S.Ct. at 2241-42. The prosecutor argued that this defense was inconsistent with the defendants’ silence at the time of their arrest. Essentially, the prosecutor in Doyle made the same argument the prosecutor makes in the instant case, namely, that if the defendant truly believed the defense asserted at trial, he would have asserted it at the time of his arrest. In reversing the Doyle convictions, the Court noted that “post-arrest silence is insolubly ambiguous”, and that it would be fundamentally unfair to penalize a defendant for his silence. Id. at 617-18, 96 S.Ct. at 2244-45. I submit that Makhlouta’s post-arrest silence on entrapment is as “insolubly ambiguous” as the silence of the defendants in Doyle. Makhlouta’s remark about not expecting to be caught changes nothing.
As with its reliance on Anderson v. Charles, the majority’s reliance on Ochoa-Sanchez is misplaced. Ochoa-Sanchez was arrested when heroin was discovered in a car he was driving while attempting to cross the Mexican border. After receiving Miranda warnings, he said he had borrowed the car from a friend who lived in Santa Ana, that he had driven to Tijuana to visit a friend, and that he was returning. *1408He testified at trial that he had hesitatingly accompanied two acquaintances to a bar and had assumed control over the car only a short time before. 676 F.2d at 1286-87. The prosecutor was permitted to cross-examine Ochoa-Sanchez on the discrepancies between the statements on the subject of how he came into possession of the car.
Our court held that Anderson v. Charles controlled rather than Doyle because Ochoa-Sanchez’s statements, “taken as a whole, reveal an inconsistency.” 676 F.2d at 1287 (citing Anderson v. Charles, 447 U.S. at 408-09, 100 S.Ct. at 2182-83).3 Moreover, the Ochoa-Sanchez court did not “believe the prosecutor was attempting to draw meaning from the defendant’s silence. The questioning clearly related specifically to details that defendant offered at trial but failed to reveal at the time of his arrest.” Id.
The crucial inconsistency between post-arrest and trial statements, which the court found to exist in Ochoa-Sanchez, is lacking in the present case. Further, the prosecution in the instant case, unlike the prosecutor in Ochoa-Sanchez, was “attempting to draw meaning from the defendant’s silence.” The prosecutor emphasized Makhlouta’s silence, not the supposed inconsistency between the post-arrest statement and the entrapment defense. For instance, in closing argument, the prosecutor stated in part:
Finally, remember the case — or right after the arrest the defendant confessed and in that confession he did not say that he’d been set up. He did not say he felt he’d been forced to do it. He didn’t say he’d done it out of fear, and he didn’t blame it on a drinking problem.
R.T. at 4-89. The focus of these comments is on what Makhlouta did not say — his silence on the subject of entrapment after he received his Miranda warnings. Earlier in the closing argument, the prosecutor offered the following account:
Elias Khwan testified about a meeting at a restaurant in late August where the defendant said, “tell me, is Jay a narc? Is a cop? Is he FBI?” The testimony was not, “I want to get out of this altogether.” It was, “Tell me if he is a cop.”
And all of this is consistent with his confession when he said, “I knew it was wrong but I didn’t think I’d get caught.”
R.T. at 4-86-86. The prosecutor later argued that Makhlouta “was weighing the risk of getting caught as against the profit he could make. He was calculating all along. He took the risk and he did get caught.” R.T. at 4-87. Here the prosecutor was properly attempting to use trial testimony to shed light on Makhlouta’s post-arrest statement. The prosecutor then addressed several other matters before dealing with Makhlouta’s post-arrest *1409silence. R.T. at 4-89. The point of this reference to Makhlouta’s silence was that it supposedly raised an independent inference that he was predisposed to commit the crime. Thus, the prosecutor was trying to exploit a perceived conflict between Makhlouta’s post-arrest silence and his trial defense of entrapment, not between his post-arrest statement on not getting caught and the entrapment defense.4 Read in context, the prosecutor’s closing argument clearly ran afoul of Doyle.
I believe that the error complained of here is both obvious and substantial. Makhlouta’s right to remain silent was seriously compromised. Our court has held that a prosecutor’s comment on post-arrest silence in contravention of Doyle constitutes plain error that is reviewable on appeal even absent timely objection. United States v. Lopez, 575 F.2d 681, 685 (9th Cir.1978). I would reverse the conviction. Makhlouta is entitled to a new trial.

. United States v. Perez, 491 F.2d 167, 174 (9th Cir.), cert. denied, 419 U.S. 858, 95 S.Ct. 106, 42 L.Ed.2d 92 (1974), is not to the contrary. In that case, the defendant did not object to prosecutorial comments concerning the selling of drugs to minors. Whether or not the prosecutor’s reference to "heroin that kids inject” in the instant case rises to the level of plain error, it surely constitutes prejudicial error, given that Makhlouta’s predisposition to commit the crime was the most hotly contested issue at trial.

. United States v. Reynoso-Ulloa, 548 F.2d 1329 (9th Cir.1977), cert. denied, 436 U.S. 926, 98 S.Ct. 2820, 56 L.Ed.2d 769 (1978), offers no support for the majority’s position. In Reynoso-Ulloa, "lack of reluctance to commit crime” was evidenced by the defendant’s uncontroverted knowledge about drug smuggling and his initiation of heroin transactions. 548 F.2d at 1336. By contrast, Makhlouta’s statement that he thought he would not get caught does not belie his "reluctance to commit crime” absent inducement by law enforcement authorities.

. The majority claims that Ochoa-Sanchez set out the standard of arguable inconsistency, but that language in Ochoa-Sanchez was unnecessary to the holding because the inconsistency between the defendant’s stories was clear. The Ochoa-Sanchez court noted that the defendant’s trial version of his adventures was "quite different from the version he proposed to agent Murray upon his arrest.” 676 F.2d at 1286. The court then noted that there were other portions of defendant’s trial testimony that "arguably are inconsistent with his post-arrest statements, but they need not be described in detail.” 676 F.2d at 1287. This language was unnecessary to the holding. The word "arguable” also cropped up as part of a quote from a First Circuit case, Grieco v. Hall, 641 F.2d 1029, 1034 (1st Cir.1981), a case in which the inconsistency was quite clear. Therefore, I believe that this circuit has not yet determined what level of inconsistency is necessary to bring a case within the exception to the Doyle rule carved out by Anderson v. Charles. In a case involving an error that was objected to at trial, I would favor a rule requiring a clear inconsistency before allowing a prosecutor to impeach the defendant with his post-arrest silence. Such a rule would both protect a defendant’s Fifth and Fourteenth Amendment rights, as well as facilitate judicial administration. See Note, Protecting Doyle Rights After Anderson v. Charles: The Problem of Partial Silence, 69 Va.L.Rev. 155, 176 (1983). I recognize that in the instant case we must review for plain error because no objection was interposed at trial to the government’s use of Makhlouta’s silence. Thus, even if this court required a clear inconsistency to invoke Anderson v. Charles, rather than Doyle, in this case the plain error rule compels us functionally to review for arguable inconsistency. Nevertheless, I emphasize that future cases involving errors objected to at trial should not be bound by the arguable inconsistency test endorsed by the majority in this case.

. The majority alludes to the Supreme Court's admonition against bifurcating questions concerning prior inconsistent statements from questions concerning the defendant’s failure to tell the arresting officers the story recounted at trial. See Charles, 447 U.S. at 408, 100 S.Ct. at 2182. But in Charles, the prosecutor was clearly referring to the defendant’s post-arrest silence to clarify the inconsistency between the post-arrest statement and the trial defense. In the challenged cross-examination, the post-arrest silence was squarely juxtaposed with the post-arrest statement:
Q. Now, this Kelly’s Tire Company, that’s right next to the bus station, isn’t it?
A. That’s correct.
Q. And, the bus station and Kelly’s Tire are right next to the Washtenaw County Jail are they not?
A. They are.
Q. And, when you’re standing in the Washtenaw County Jail looking out the window you can look right out and see the bus station and Kelly’s Tire, can you not?
A. That’s correct.
Q. So, you’ve had plenty of opportunity from —well, first you spent some time in the Washtenaw County Jail, haven’t you?
A. Quite a bit.
Q. And, you have had plenty of opportunity to look out that window and see the bus station and Kelly’s Tire?
A. That’s right.
Q. And, you’ve seen cars being parked there, isn’t that right?
A. That’s correct.
Q. Is this where you got the idea to come up with the story that you took a car from that location?
A. No, the reason I came up with that is because it’s the truth.
Q. It’s the truth?
A. That’s right.
Q. Don’t you think it’s rather odd that if it were the truth that you didn’t come forward and tell anybody at the time you were arrested, where you got that car?
A. No, I don’t.
Q. You don’t think that’s odd?
A. I wasn’t charged with auto theft, I was charged with murder.
Q. Didn’t you think at the time you were arrested that possibly the car would have something to do with the charge of murder?
A. When I tried to talk to my attorney they wouldn’t let me see him and after that he just said to keep quiet.
Q. That is a rather recent fabrication of yours isn’t [sic] it not?
A. No it isn’t.
Q. Well, you told Detective LeVanseler back when you were first arrested, you stole the car back on Washtenaw and Hill Street?
A. Never spoke with Detective LeVanseler.
Q. Never did?
A. Right, except when Detective Hall and
Price were there and then it was on tape. Trial Transcript 302-304. 447 U.S. at 406, 100 S.Ct. at 2181.