Court Opinion

ID: 9457786
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 20:33:01.594236+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:35:30.405291
License: Public Domain

HAYNSWORTH, Chief Judge
(dissenting) :
There is no disagreement between my brothers and me over the general principles of law which should govern our decision. We all agree that a motion to sever is addressed to the sound discretion of the District Judge, though its denial is reviewable by the Court of Appeals, if- denial deprives a trial of essential fairness. We do differ in our appraisal of the practical situation which confronted the District Judge. In my view of the record and the practical problem presented, the District Court’s denial of Shuford’s motion for a severance was in no sense an abuse of the sound discretion lodged in it. I must conclude, therefore, that we overreach our authority in granting a new trial and in directing a severance.
Before the commencement of the trial, Shuford made a motion for a severance. Through counsel, he stated that he intended to take the witness stand, that his testimony would be favorable to Jordan, as well as to himself, that he had expected Jordan to testify in his own defense, and that such testimony would also be favorable to Shuford. He learned, however, from Jordan’s attorneys that Jordan might not testify for fear that the Government would use a prior conviction to impeach him as a witness. At that time he represented that Jordan would be willing to testify as a witness for Shuford if Jordan was not then on trial, but he anticipated some problem if the trial proceeded without a severance.
The motion was denied at that time with leave to renew it later. It was renewed later, after the close of the Government’s case, at which time Shuford’s attorneys had been informed that the decision had been made to withhold Jordan from the witness stand. Shuford’s lawyer then represented to the court that if Jordan were severed from the trial, a mistrial being declared as to him, so that Shuford could call him as a witness in the continuation of the trial as to Shu-ford, Jordan would testify that he knew of no instructions to Long to falsify reports, that Jordan knew of no error or falsity in the Wheat bill until he learned of it as a result of the F.B.I.’s investigation, that he had conspired with no one to falsify reports or claims, and that when he learned that discrepancies existed he had told Mr. Long to correct them all.
There was no representation that Jordan could testify to anything providing direct corroboration for Shuford’s testimony about his conversations with Long. The only representation was that Jordan would offer testimonial exculpation of himself. Such testimony from Jordan might well have provided tangential support for Shuford, but the proffer does not suggest the direct and immediate relevance indicated by the majority opinion.
Jordan and his attorneys participated in this discussion only to the extent of a statement that it was not then anticipated that Jordan would testify for the reasons previously suggested by Shu-ford’s attorney, fear that the Government would use the earlier conviction to *781impeach him and fear that his appearance as a witness might somehow bolster the Government’s case against Jordan.
The District Court thereupon denied Shuford’s motion, but it did so with an extension of substantial protection to Jordan should he decide to testify. The Court stated that if Jordan should testify in the joint trial it would not permit the Government to use his prior conviction as a basis for impeachment of him as a witness.
Thereafter, Jordan made a motion for a directed verdict which was denied. He then moved for a severance on the ground that a joint trial with Shuford was unfair to Jordan. He had not joined in Shuford’s earlier motion to sever, however, and at no time did he indicate a willingness to have a mistrial declared as to him and to testify, without a claim of his Fifth Amendment privilege, as a witness for Shuford in a continuation of the trial as to Shuford. The record contains no disclaimer by Jordan of Shu-ford’s lawyer’s pretrial representation that Jordan would be willing to testify as a witness for Shuford if Jordan were not then on trial, but there is no affirmative representation by Jordan, or his lawyer, with respect to any phase of the matter, and, with respect to him, the situation had materially changed after the joint trial had proceeded to the close of the Government’s case.
At the close of the Government’s case, the only practical course open to the Court, if a severance was to be granted, was the one suggested by Shuford’s counsel — that a mistrial be declared as to Jordan and the trial proceed as to Shuford.1
If Jordan had then been eliminated from the case on Shuford’s motion under circumstances which would permit his subsequent separate trial, it seems to me highly speculative that Jordan would have been available as a witness in Shuford’s defense in any meaningful sense. No longer on trial himself, Jordan would then have been without the protection of the Court’s order preventing the Government’s impeachment use of his prior criminal record. At that time his counsel would have been compelled to advise him that whatever he said as a witness in Shuford’s defense might be used in whole or in part in his subsequent trial. If he had any concern that his testimony as a witness might bolster the Government’s case against him, as was represented in Shu-ford’s second motion for a severance, the inhibiting weight of that concern would be as heavy upon Jordan whether or not he remained jointly on trial with Shuford.
Under all these circumstances, therefore, it seems to me that the District Judge’s assurance that Jordan would not be subject to impeachment by the Government on the basis of his prior record if he testified at the joint trial was the fairest and most practical protection available, and it was equally so in the interest of both Shuford and Jordan. A severance would have given neither one more protection on that score and would not tend to alleviate in any way Jordan’s concern about filling in some gap in the Government’s case against him.
Far from abusing his discretion, therefore, it seems to me the District Judge offered a reasonable solution to the dilemma of the defendants. Rather than depriving the trial of essential fairness, it seems markedly fair. Now we give assurance that Jordan will testify in Shuford’s defense since we leave standing his conviction as an aider and abettor, conditioned upon Shuford’s subsequent conviction, but neither Shuford nor Jordan had any rightful claim to that kind of advantage.2 The District *782Court’s very practical resolution of the matter was more in the interest of justice and without the taint of basic unfairness which, alone, would warrant our awarding a new trial because of a denial of a motion for severance.
The situation in Echeles 3 was far different from the one which confronted the District Judge here. Echeles had represented Arrington, a defendant in a narcotics case who claimed an alibi. Ar-rington procured the falsification of a motel registration card and supporting testimony of the motel operator and clerk in aid of the alibi defense. The falsity of this evidence was discovered before the conclusion of the narcotics case. Thereupon, Arrington admitted his participation in the perjury, but twice in open court informed the judge that Echeles, his lawyer, had had nothing to do with it.
When Echeles, Arrington and others, were being tried on the perjury charges, Arrington’s admissions of perjury, made in the narcotics trial, were received in evidence, but his statements exonerating Echeles were excluded. Unlike this case, Arrington was the principal who had full knowledge of the extent, if any, to which Echeles had participated in the perjurious scheme. Twice in the narcotics case, while confessing his own participation, he had stated that Echeles had nothing to do with it, and there was no reason to suppose he would not repeat such statements if, in a severed trial, Echeles did call him as a witness in his defense. Moreover, the introduction of Arrington’s admissions and the exclusion of his accompanying exoneration of Echeles inevitably had a prejudicial effect on Echeles, the lawyer representing Arrington when the perjured testimony and false registration card were introduced.
Here the situation was quite different. Shuford stood in no comparable need of Jordan’s testimony, for Jordan could offer no direct contradiction of Long’s testimony about the instructions he had received from Shuford. Nor did any extrajudicial admissions of Jordan come into the ease which adversely affected Shuford’s interest.
And, finally, the Court here, by denying the Government the right to use Jordan’s prior criminal record in his cross examination, freed Jordan from all substantial reason for not taking the witness stand in the joint trial which would not be present in an equal way had Shuford’s severance motion been granted. In Echeles, nothing was done to relieve Arrington’s very understandable disinclination to testify in a joint trial; probably nothing of that sort could have been done.
This case simply cannot be blown up into the extraordinary kind of situation presented in Echeles. It is a frequently encountered situation routinely left to the discretion of the trial judge. The manner in which the trial judge exercised his discretion here deserves our commendation rather than our criticism.
I would affirm the convictions.

. It is possible that Jordan and his lawyer would have consented to this since he later sought a severance as to himself, but the record contains no affirmative evidence of it. He might well have withheld his consent in the hope of erecting a bar against his subsequent retrial.

. Since the developments have left Jordan with no hope of avoidance of his conviction except by Shuford’s acquittal, he *782has every incentive for active cooperation to procure that acquittal, even to the point of grave incrimination of himself in, the process.

. United States v. Echeles, 7 Cir., 352 F.2d 892.