Court Opinion

ID: 9471712
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 03:39:31.543213+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:42:32.829866
License: Public Domain

McKAY, Circuit Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part:
I am in agreement with the court’s disposition of this case and with its opinion. However, in connection with the problem of recanted testimony, I concur in part and dissent in part.
In cases where a critical witness’ testimony is probably determinative of the outcome of the case, and he himself has executed an affidavit recanting that testimony, the danger of a miscarriage of justice is so great that, as the court here has indicated, the trial court must at least set forth reasons for denying a motion for new trial based on that recantation. The difficulty I have is that we have not given the trial court any directions for the exercise of its discretion in denying a new trial. Nor do I think the cases or commentaries give adequate guidance for the assessment of the effects the recantation should have on a trial judge’s evaluation of a motion for a new trial. We have provided no guidance in this opinion and therefore give the trial court an impossible task.
Numerous cases suggest that the trial court, having heard the first trial and observed the witness’ testimony, may. simply decide the motion for new trial based on recanted testimony on the basis of the affidavits alone without a hearing. United States v. Nace, 561 F.2d 763, 772 (9th Cir. 1977); United States v. Ward, 544 F.2d 975, 976-77 (8th Cir.1976); United States v. Co-lacurcio, 499 F.2d 1401, 1406 n. 7 (9th Cir. 1974); United States v. Hoffa, 382 F.2d 856, 864-65 (6th Cir.1967), cert, denied, 390 U.S. 924, 88 S.Ct. 854,19 L.Ed.2d 984 (1968). As I understand it, this court has not adopted that position. If, however, it has, then a remand for findings serves no useful purpose. If the trial court reviewed the affidavits and denied the motion for a new trial, it obviously rejected the recantation as be*606ing false. A remand for a hearing to have him state that seems entirely unnecessary.
Where, as here, the recanting affidavit is from the critical witness in the case, great danger lies in letting the verdict stand even if the recantation is subsequently recanted. See Government’s allegation, unsupported by the record, Government’s Brief at 8. The danger of an erroneous conviction based on such unreliable testimony is great indeed. As the Supreme Court has indicated, “[t]he dignity of the United States government will not permit the conviction of any person on tainted testimony.” Mes-arosh v. United States, 352 U.S. 1, 9, 77 S.Ct. 1, 5, 1 L.Ed.2d 1 (1956).
In addition to the recantation, there are independent reasons for the court to be suspicious of the testimony of this witness at the trial. As in so many cases we are now seeing, this government witness was admittedly guilty of the crime he accused the defendant of committing at trial. His motivation to testify falsely in the first instance was extreme. As he so colorfully put it in his affidavit, “[m]y appointed lawyer told me I could be given the needle or a long time in the pen unless I went along with the federal lawyers and investigators.” Appellant’s Opening Brief at 7. When dealing with this kind of witness, oft-repeated dictum that recanted testimony is generally looked upon with downright suspicion, see, e.g., United States v. Ahern, 612 F.2d 507 (10th Cir.1980), seems as inapplicable as it is unjustified in the cases which recite it. The temptation to perjure in the first instance to satisfy the government, which controls future prosecution and sentencing, is so great that the suspicion of original testimony ought at least to have equal dignity with the suspicion of recanted testimony. The fact that the witness was subject to the penalties of perjury is his original testimony is not equal in weight to the fact that in the recanted testimony he has explicitly made the government’s case against him if it chooses to prosecute him for perjury.
I believe that where a critical witness who testifies for the government — while the government still controls his prosecution and sentencing for the very things about which he testifies at trial — subsequently recants, the trial court should look to something more than the mere fact that there is a conflict between the original testimony and the recantation before merely opting to disbelieve the recantation. Before a conviction under such circumstances should be permitted to stand, the trial court should at least set forth some articulable reason other than the fact that the witness has taken two opposing positions for failing to grant a new trial. If those reasons include the possibility that the witness has come under some particular pressure to give the recanting, affidavit, that must be supported by sufficient testimony at a hearing.
At the very least, I would not tell the trial court to make findings without indicating to the trial court what the criteria are which should guide its exercise of discretion. On the cold record, the recanting affidavit seems as believable as the trial testimony in its reasons and internal consistency. If, then, we do not tell the trial court that its findings have to demonstrate some additional factor for rejecting the recantation, we have given the trial court an impossible task.