Court Opinion

ID: 9463970
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 23:21:54.695462+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:38:23.614376
License: Public Domain

*1191THORNBERRY, Circuit Judge,
concurring specially:
While I agree with the majority that defendant was denied a fair trial and therefore concur in reversal of the conviction, my reasons differ somewhat from the reasons put forth in the majority’s opinion. Accordingly, I write separately.
I agree that the prosecutor violated the defendant’s marital privilege in his comment on the defense’s failure to call Mrs. Pariente as a witness. As the Ninth Circuit stated in Bisno v. United States, 299 F.2d 711, 723 (9 Cir. 1961), cert. denied, 370 U.S. 952, 82 S.Ct. 1602, 8 L.Ed.2d 818 (1962):
[T]he established principle which permits an inference that the excluded testimony would be unfavorable to the party who suppressed it ought to yield, as being inconsistent with the full exercise of the [marital] privilege.
I must disagree, however, with the majority’s holding that the prosecutor erred in mentioning Coronado’s sworn statement during cross-examination of defendant Par-iente. The controlling precedent, Hall v. United States, 419 F.2d 582 (5 Cir. 1969), sets forth a battery of questions relevant to the determination of error in such situations:
Are the prosecutor’s statements made for the purpose, or do they have the effect, of getting before the jury for its consideration extrinsic evidentiary matter? Does the extrinsic matter consist of statements by the prosecutor of matters asserted as fact though not in evidence? Or does the extrinsic matter consist of statements which reasonably lead the jury to believe that there is existent evidence not available to them but the content of which is unrevealed?
Does the extrinsic matter, whether its content is delineated or its existence merely implied, tend to show the accused guilty of the offense charged? Or does it tend to persuade that he is guilty of some other offense than that charged? Or that he simply should be put away as a social undesirable? Does it go only to his credibility? Is the subject-matter of the remarks just abstract name-calling, not really related to evidence at all?
419 F.2d at 583.
The majority notes that Coronado testified as to the existence of the statement. But it overlooks pages 95-98 of the transcript, which contain direct testimony as to the contents of that statement, including the offer of payment.1 The majority also notes that we do not have in our files the written statement itself. Nevertheless, the prosecutor referred to a statement by Coronado mentioning an offer of payment, and the testimony quoted in the margin deals *1192with a statement by Coronado mentioning an offer of payment. The jury heard testimony as to the existence and contents of a statement fitting the description of the contents of the one which the prosecutor mentioned. The majority’s decision to ignore the testimony because we do not have physical custody of the documentary form of the statement seems to me, on these facts, to be hollow formalism. It seems to me that common sense allows us to consider clear, direct testimony. To be sure, this testimony entered the record over defendant’s objection but defendant apparently has abandoned that objection on appeal. The evidence therefore suffers under no probative disability, and should be as available as any other properly introduced evidence to provide ammunition for cross-examination. The only “extrinsic” aspect about the statement was that the sheets of paper themselves did not find their way into the exhibit envelope. Hall simply fails to support a finding of error here.

. The relevant portion of the transcript reads:
Q You said you had occasion to give the Miranda warnings to the co-defendant in this case, Mr. Coronado. Did you question Mr. Coronado?
A I questioned him after he agreed to answer questions without a lawyer present, after I gave him his warnings, yes sir.
Q What did he tell you?
Mr. Lewis: Your Honor, we are going to object to that on the grounds of hearsay, particularly since Mr. Coronado is available to all parties in this proceeding.
The Court: He can tell us what he told him.
Overruled.
Go ahead, what did Mr. Coronado tell you?
A Well, he gave me a statement to the fact that Thursday he was in Matamoros and he met two men there in the plaza and they asked to be taken to Naples, Florida, for a hundred dollars apiece. He said in total it was thirty-two men that wanted to go. And Mr. Coronado said he agreed to take them. And so the man that was talking to him told him that they would meet him or call him whenever they were going to come across and tell him. *1192And so Saturday, I believe it was Saturday he got a call about 3:00 o’clock in the afternoon. He told him to meet the people at La Esperanza Road.
Q Was it one man acting as spokesman for all aliens?
A Yes sir, that’s what he said.
Q Go ahead.
A And so he got the call to meet them at there about 3:00 o’clock Sunday afternoon which was the 5th. . .
A This is about 3:00 o’clock Sunday afternoon, and he went over there and he said he walked from his house out there and he talked to the people out there and there he collected a sum of $830, I believe, from them. Then and went and rented a U-Haul van, went back after dark, picked them up, started down the freeway and got off the freeway near Boca Chica where he was going to buy some cigarettes at a Jif-E-Mart, I believe he said, and he went to buy some cigarettes and as he was leaving he said he saw Mr. Pariente walking down the street, and they said he had seen him around before, so he stopped and asked Mr. Pariente to help him drive to Florida. He said he would be paid something for his trouble.
And Mr. Pariente agreed and got in the pickup and they came on — in the van.
Q Did Mr. Coronado tell you that he had informed this defendant about the transportation of the aliens?
A No sir, he didn’t tell me that.
Q Didn’t he in fact tell you, officer Jackson, that when he picked up Mr. Pariente that Pariente was not aware that the aliens were in the van?
Mr. Lewis: Your Honor, we are going to object to that. First place what Mr. Par-iente, the defendant, would be aware of would be beyond the competency of Coronado to testify to.
Second place, this is all hearsay. Mr. Coronado is upstairs and he knows what he said and we can bring him down here, ask him.
The Court: Overruled. What did Mr. Coronado tell you?
He said that Mr. Pariente didn’t know the aliens were in the van until they stopped to let them out. A
And that’s when they let them out according to your conversation with Mr. Coronado, that’s when they let them out just south of the checkpoint so they could walk around the checkpoint through the brush? Q
That’s right, that’s what he said. A
He told you that that was the first indication that Pariente was aware that there was anybody in the van? Q
That’s what Mr. Coronado said. A
Yes, and at the time that he gave you this statement he did not have benefit of anyone advising him such as a lawyer or another person? Q
Well, he signed the release saying that he didn’t want a lawyer present at the time, sir. A