Court Opinion

ID: 9492799
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 14:50:48.605804+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:55:30.010632
License: Public Domain

LOKEN, Circuit Judge,
concurring.
In Part II, the court concludes that Min-ko-Bad Wound waived her adverse spousal testimony privilege when she entered into a plea agreement in which she promised to provide the government “complete and truthful testimony ... as required.” I am uncomfortable with this conclusion for two reasons. First, it is not clear from the face of the plea agreement that Minko-Bad Wound knowingly waived this rather obscure privilege, and the record does not reveal whether the privilege was discussed during plea agreement negotiations. Second, the court’s analysis ignores a serious question — whether a prior waiver of this privilege may be withdrawn at trial, as the waiver of the Fifth Amendment testimonial privilege was withdrawn in Stevens v. Marks, 383 U.S. 234, 86 S.Ct. 788, 15 L.Ed.2d 724 (1966). Assertion of the adverse spousal testimony privilege may well breach a plea agreement to cooperate, but that is not the same as concluding that a plea agreement waiver may not be withdrawn, so that the spouse’s promise to testify can be specifically enforced.
In my view, we need not resolve these troublesome issues because Bad Wound failed to preserve them. The adverse spousal testimony privilege belonged to Minko-Bad Wound, not defendant Bad Wound. Therefore, when she proposed to testify adversely to Bad Wound at trial, his only legitimate concern was whether she was knowingly and voluntarily waiving the privilege at that time. Bad Wound filed a motion in limine in which he proposed to question Minko-Bad Wound outside the presence of the jury regarding the waiver issue. The district court cryptically denied this motion prior to trial, and again when it was renewed at trial. We know from these rulings the court was unwilling to allow Bad Wound to pursue this evidentia-ry issue outside the presence of the jury, a ruling clearly within the court’s broad discretion. Bad Wound did not inquire whether the court would have permitted (or conducted itself) a voir dire of Minko-Bad Wound prior to her adverse testimony to clarify whether she understood the adverse spousal testimony privilege and was voluntarily waiving it. Thus, Bad Wound *1079waived the only issue he had standing to raise, and his attack on the admissibility of Minko-Bad Wound’s testimony must be rejected.
I join the remainder of-the court’s opinion and its decision to affirm. ;