Court Opinion

ID: 9469868
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 02:51:01.785272+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:41:36.417259
License: Public Domain

BUTZNER, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
I dissent. The district court impermissibly limited the scope of Burgess’s surrebuttal. As a consequence, Burgess did not receive a full and fair hearing on his defense of insanity.
In his opening statement, defense counsel outlined the testimony of several witnesses whom he intended to call on the issue of Burgess’s sanity. The government objected to the relevancy of some of the proposed testimony. Defense counsel justified the testimony as necessary to meet a charge of fakery that the government intended to present in rebuttal. The prosecutor responded that “those witnesses are more appropriately recalled in surrebuttal.”
Conforming to the government’s position on the order of proof, the defense presented its case-in-chief without calling the witnesses whose testimony the government characterized as surrebuttal.
After rebuttal by the government, defense counsel attempted to introduce evidence on surrebuttal. Despite the lack of objection, the court refused to allow Betsy Hatch to testify. It correctly recognized that her proffered testimony was relevant to the issue of Burgess’s sanity. Indeed, her testimony, if believed, would have supported the opinion of Burgess’s psychiatrist that he was not faking insanity. Nevertheless, the court excluded her testimony, saying: “Here again, I am excluding this, this isn’t rebuttal. Rebuttal is a very narrow concept.” *
While “a litigant is not entitled to a perfect trial but only a fair trial,” an impor*1159tant element of fairness is the opportunity for a criminal defendant to be heard. United States v. Portis, 542 F.2d 414, 418 (7th Cir. 1976). “[WJhere the plea is insanity, the goal of expediting the trial must not be allowed to interfere with the defendant’s right to develop fully and completely the many complex and often tenuous circumstances that may shed light on his plea.” United States v. Smith, 507 F.2d 710, 712 (4th Cir. 1974). This principle is peculiarly applicable to this case where, after counsel agreed to the order of proof, the court excluded relevant testimony because it viewed the sequence inappropriate.
I would vacate the judgment and remand the case for a trial at which all relevant testimony would be admitted. Preferably Burgess’s witnesses should be allowed to testify during his case-in-ehief, as his counsel first proposed. If the government, however, maintains its position and Burgess again acquiesces, the testimony should be admitted during surrebuttal.

 The court also excluded the testimony of two other witnesses, and limited the testimony of a third, on the basis that their testimony was not proper surrebuttal. The rulings pertaining to these three witnesses, though contrary to the agreed order of proof, do not constitute reversible error because their proffered testimony was either irrelevant or repetitive with respect to the charge of fakery. See Fed.R.Crim.P. 52(a).