Court Opinion

ID: 9363919
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-01-17 21:01:14.291427+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:15:34.889196
License: Public Domain

This opinion is subject to revision before publication.

      UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
               FOR THE    ARMED FORCES
                     _______________

                   UNITED STATES
                       Appellee

                             v.

Adam M. PYRON, Master-at-Arms Second Class
        United States Navy, Appellant

                     No. 22-0277
              Crim. App. No. 201900296R

Argued December 7, 2022 — Decided January 17, 2023

           Military Judge: Ryan J. Stormer

 For Appellant: Lieutenant Megan E. Horst, JAGC,
 USN (argued).

 For Appellee: Lieutenant R. Blake Royall, JAGC,
 USN (argued); Colonel Joseph M. Jennings, USMC,
 Lieutenant Gregory A. Rustico, JAGC, USN, and
 Brian K. Keller, Esq.

 Chief Judge OHLSON delivered the opinion of the
 Court, in which Judge SPARKS, Judge MAGGS,
 Judge HARDY, and Senior Judge CRAWFORD
 joined.
                 _______________
           United States v. Pyron, No. 22-0277/NA
                    Opinion of the Court

  Chief Judge OHLSON delivered the opinion of the
Court.
    This case stems from an interlocutory appeal under Ar-
ticle 62, Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ),
10 U.S.C. § 862 (2018). At a rehearing in this case, the mil-
itary judge denied the Government’s motion to admit Ap-
pellant’s testimony from his original court-martial. We
hold that the military judge abused his discretion by ex-
cluding this evidence. Because the United States Navy-Ma-
rine Corps Court of Criminal Appeals (CCA) reached the
same conclusion, we affirm the judgment of the lower court.
                       I. Background
    The Government charged Appellant with two specifica-
tions of attempted rape of a child, one specification of rape
of a child, and four specifications of sexual abuse of a child,
in violation of Articles 80 and 120b, UCMJ, 10 U.S.C.
§§ 880, 920b (2018). These charges arise from a February
2019 Super Bowl party that Appellant attended at the
home of a family friend in Yokosuka, Japan, where an
eight-year-old girl and a six-year-old girl were present.
   In his original trial (Pyron I), Appellant testified under
oath on the merits. The CCA in its Article 62 decision sum-
marized Appellant’s trial testimony as follows:
      [Appellant] stated that he was “[p]retty drunk”
      and did not remember doing what the accusations
      alleged. After he was confronted with the exist-
      ence of DNA evidence and testimony from the
      named victims, [Appellant] stated that he lied to
      NCIS. [Appellant] testified that he remembered
      “waking up to a hand on my penis . . . Like my
      boxers are pulled down and then I look over and I
      see . . . two smaller fingers and I . . . push that
      away and . . . I’m trying to push my penis down
      and I say no and roll over.” [Appellant] explained
      that he did not tell this to NCIS because it “wasn’t
      the same as everything they were saying,” and he
      had no memory of it during his interrogation. [Ap-
      pellant] explained that he sent incriminating text
      messages to his wife because he “was so convinced
      that [he] was a child rapist.” [Appellant] stated

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           United States v. Pyron, No. 22-0277/NA
                    Opinion of the Court

      that went to sleep wearing pants with a belt and
      that for a hand to get to his penis, his belt would
      have to be unbuckled, his pants unbuttoned and
      unzipped. [Appellant] also testified that the vic-
      tims reached into his boxers and pulled out his pe-
      nis while he was sleeping.
United States v. Pyron, No. 201900296R, 2022 CCA LEXIS
410, at *6-7, 2022 WL 2764366, at *3 (N-M. Ct. Crim. App.
July 15, 2022) (unpublished) (all ellipses in original)
(second and seventh set of brackets in original) (footnotes
omitted).
   A panel sitting as a general court-martial convicted Ap-
pellant of the charged Articles 80 and 120b, UCMJ, of-
fenses. The members sentenced Appellant to a dishonora-
ble discharge, confinement for thirty-nine years, and a
reduction to E-1.
                II. The Initial CCA Appeal
    In appealing his conviction in Pyron I, Appellant argued
to the CCA that he was prejudiced when “the military judge
erred in denying a Defense challenge for cause on grounds
of implied bias.” United States v. Pyron, 81 M.J. 637, 639
(N-M. Ct. Crim. App. 2021). The CCA agreed with Appel-
lant and therefore set aside and dismissed the findings and
sentence but authorized a rehearing.
    The underlying facts of Pyron I and the CCA’s analysis
pertaining to that prior trial are relevant to the disposition
of the issue before us. During individual voir dire in Py-
ron I, Lieutenant (LT) Alpha, a prospective panel member,
stated that (1) he thought about his daughters “ ‘not in a
good way’ ” when he reviewed the charge sheet alleging
that Appellant had engaged in sexual offenses involving
young girls and (2) “ ‘it would be hard not to’ think about
his daughters when witnesses testified.” Id. at 643. As the
CCA noted in its decision, “neither trial counsel nor the
military judge asked any further questions of LT Alpha” to
rehabilitate him. Id. And yet later in the process, “the trial
counsel [mistakenly] made arguments regarding the [de-
fense] challenge for cause that suggested a rehabilitation
colloquy had been conducted, and the military judge

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           United States v. Pyron, No. 22-0277/NA
                    Opinion of the Court

adopted those incorrect facts and based his denial of the
[defense] challenge [for cause] upon them.” Id. at 645 (foot-
note omitted). Nevertheless, the CCA did “not find that the
trial counsel intentionally misled the military judge as to
LT Alpha’s answers.” Id. at 645 n.47. Instead, the lower
court found that trial counsel made an “honest mistake.”
Id. But because of this prejudicial error, the court set aside
and dismissed the findings and sentence and authorized a
rehearing. Id. at 645.
                    III. The Rehearing
   At the rehearing (Pyron II), the convening authority
rereferred the same charges against Appellant as in Py-
ron I. The Government then moved to admit Appellant’s
testimony from his first trial under Military Rule of Evi-
dence (M.R.E.) 801(d)(2) as an admission by a party oppo-
nent. Citing the standards imposed by relevant case law,
the Government argued that the “testimony was not in-
duced by the Government’s use of wrongfully introduced
evidence nor was it the result of ineffective assistance of
counsel.” The defense opposed the Government’s motion,
asserting that Appellant’s prior testimony “was induced by
the Government’s actions and it [was] unfairly prejudicial.”
     The military judge found “that the government ha[d]
not shown their actions from the first trial did not induce
the accused’s testimony in his first trial.” He emphasized
that the CCA in Pyron I “made it very clear that the error
. . . was due in large part to the government’s error in as-
serting inaccurate facts about a member during the voir
dire process,” which “then led the [original military] judge
to make inaccurate findings of fact.”
   The military judge in Pyron II then ruled that although
there was “no evidence the government’s error was done
with malice or done intentionally, . . . it was, at the very
least, grossly negligent and was highly prejudicial to the
accused. The defense has provided some evidence . . . that
the accused did testify at his first trial due in some part to
this error.” He further stated that “the government’s error
may not rise to the level of ‘illegal action’ articulated in”

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           United States v. Pyron, No. 22-0277/NA
                    Opinion of the Court

Harrison v. United States, 392 U.S. 219 (1968), but “the
government should not benefit from their error in
[Appellant’s] first trial by getting to introduce [Appellant’s]
testimony from his first trial at his second trial.” To
conclude otherwise, the military judge observed, “would
bring the ‘taint’ of the first trial into the second.”
Accordingly, the military judge denied the Government’s
motion to introduce Appellant’s court-martial testimony
from the first trial.
          IV. The Article 62, UCMJ, CCA Appeal
   In its appeal to the CCA from the military judge’s rul-
ing, the Government moved to attach the entire Pyron I
record of trial “because it was erroneously excluded from
the” Article 62, UCMJ, certified record. Over Appellant’s
objection, the CCA summarily granted the Government’s
motion to attach. Examining the merits of the underlying
issue, the CCA observed that “the military judge expanded
the holding of Harrison to the facts of [Appellant’s] case”
and concluded that the military judge abused his discretion
by doing so because his decision was based on an erroneous
view of the law. Pyron, 2022 CCA LEXIS 410, at *13-16,
2022 WL 2764366, at *5-6. This led the CCA to vacate the
military judge’s ruling and to remand the case for further
proceedings. Id. at *16, 2022 WL 2764366, at *6. Appel-
lant’s appeal to this Court followed.
                   V. The Granted Issues
   We granted review of two issues:
      I. Whether the lower court exceeded the scope of
      review under Article 62, UCMJ, and departed
      from this Court’s precedent set in United States v.
      Vangelisti by attaching materials to the record
      that were not proffered at trial and using them to
      Appellant’s detriment.
      II. Whether the military judge correctly concluded
      Appellant’s testimony from his first court-martial
      was inadmissible where the Government failed to
      prove Appellant testified for reasons unrelated to
      his biased member panel.

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            United States v. Pyron, No. 22-0277/NA
                     Opinion of the Court

United States v. Pyron, __ M.J. __ (C.A.A.F. 2022) (order
granting review). Because we do not need to consider any
of the evidence attached by the CCA to conclude that the
military judge abused his discretion, the second issue is
dispositive of this case. Therefore, we do not address the
first issue.
                   VI. Standard of Review
    “ ‘In an Article 62, UCMJ, appeal, this court reviews the
military judge’s decision directly and reviews the evidence
in the light most favorable to the party which prevailed at
trial, which in this case is Appellant.’ ” United States v.
Harrington, 81 M.J. 184, 188 (C.A.A.F. 2021) (quoting
United States v. Lewis, 78 M.J. 447, 452 (C.A.A.F. 2019)).
“A military judge’s ruling on admissibility of evidence is re-
viewed for abuse of discretion. In order to be overturned on
appeal, the [military] judge’s ruling must be arbitrary, fan-
ciful, clearly unreasonable or clearly erroneous or influ-
enced by an erroneous view of the law.” United States v.
Datz, 61 M.J. 37, 42 (C.A.A.F. 2005) (citations omitted) (in-
ternal quotation marks omitted).
                     VII. Applicable Law
   There is a “general evidentiary rule that a defendant’s
testimony at a former trial is admissible in evidence
against him in later proceedings.” Harrison, 392 U.S. at
222). As explained by the Supreme Court:
       A defendant who chooses to testify waives his
       privilege against compulsory self-incrimination
       with respect to the testimony he gives, and that
       waiver is no less effective or complete because the
       defendant may have been motivated to take the
       witness stand in the first place only by reason of
       the strength of the lawful evidence adduced
       against him.
Id. 1 However, the Supreme Court announced an exception
to this general rule: If the government engaged in illegal

   1Such testimony also is not subject to exclusion on hearsay
grounds. M.R.E. 801(d)(2)(A) provides that a statement “is not

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            United States v. Pyron, No. 22-0277/NA
                     Opinion of the Court

conduct and this conduct prompted the accused’s testi-
mony, the government may not use “any testimony im-
pelled” by this illegality because it is “the fruit of the poi-
sonous tree.” Id. Thus, under Harrison, an accused’s
testimony at a prior trial is admissible at a subsequent trial
unless (1) the government engaged in illegal conduct at the
first trial, and (2) the government’s illegal conduct induced
the accused’s prior testimony. See id.
                        VIII. Discussion
    The military judge in this case misapplied the law to the
facts when he ruled that Appellant’s testimony from his
first trial was inadmissible at his second trial. We reach
this conclusion because the circumstances of this case do
not meet the first prong of the exception to the general rule
that an accused’s testimony at a prior trial is admissible at
a rehearing. We highlight the fact that the military judge
made no finding that the Government engaged in illegal
conduct in this case. Rather, in his written ruling he re-
peatedly refers to the Government’s action as merely an
“error,” and he acknowledges that although the Govern-
ment’s conduct in this case “may not rise to the level of ‘il-
legal action’ articulated in Harrison” he still wished to pe-
nalize the prosecution for its conduct by excluding
Appellant’s prior testimony. But in United States v. DeWitt,
this Court’s predecessor definitively refused to extend the
Harrison exception “to instances . . . where there is no pri-
mary illegality on the part of the Government’s” agents. 3
M.J. 455, 456 (C.M.A. 1977). In light of this precedent, we
hold that the military judge abused his discretion when he
ruled that Appellant’s prior testimony was not admissible
at the upcoming trial. 2 Simply stated, when there is no

hearsay” if “[t]he statement is offered against an opposing party
and . . . was made by the party in an individual . . . capacity.”
   2  Appellant alternatively argues that his prior testimony
should be excluded under M.R.E. 403. Although Appellant
argued this theory of exclusion at the rehearing, the military
judge did not address it. Therefore, it is outside the scope of the
granted issue, which specifically asks about the military judge’s
ruling. We do not weigh in on this matter and instead leave this

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          United States v. Pyron, No. 22-0277/NA
                   Opinion of the Court

illegal conduct by the Government then there is no excep-
tion to the general rule as articulated in Harrison.
                     IX. Conclusion
  The judgment of the United States Navy-Marine Corps
Court of Criminal Appeals is affirmed.

M.R.E. 403 theory for the military judge to consider upon
remand.

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