Court Opinion

ID: 9763613
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 02:50:42.41237+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:29:46.718175
License: Public Domain

MACK, Associate Judge,
dissenting:
With considerable regret I must say that, in my view, the majority opinion not only denies this appellant a statutory remedy, but further clouds an area of the law already suffering from an unfortunate lack of clarity and uniformity. In this case the trial court, after conducting a hearing for the purpose of considering Jencks Act requirements, specifically found that Officer Hassell’s lost or destroyed notes were Jencks material, that Officer Hassell’s failure to preserve those notes constituted “gross negligence,” and that “some sanctions might be appropriate” to penalize the government for neglecting its responsibilities under the Act. Despite our unequivocal ruling in Hardy v. United States, 316 A.2d 867 (D.C.1974), that the Jencks “Act imposes its sanction on the testimony of the witness who gave the statement [Officer Allen in this case], rather than on the one who received it [Officer Hassell],” id. at 869-70, the trial court ordered Officer Hassell’s testimony relating to the broadcast and descriptions stricken from the record.
Appellant contends, in this court, that the trial court exceeded its proper exercise of discretion by eliminating Officer Has-sell’s testimony rather than the testimony of Officer Allen, the government witness who broadcast the description to Hassell. The majority opinion concludes that because appellant did not object to the sentence fashioned by the court at trial, his abuse of discretion argument cannot now be heard on appeal. In my opinion, because the remedy afforded by the court was misdirected, it constituted a clearly *686erroneous ruling, given the government’s culpability for the loss or destruction of the notes. The court, having determined to invoke the Act’s sanctions, erred in failing to strike the testimony of Officer Allen. I would, therefore, reverse.
The principal objective of the Jencks Act has been described as “enhancing the likelihood of truth by enabling the defendant to gain access to previous statements of witnesses and use them as desired to test the accuracy of the actual testimony in court given by the same witnesses.” United States v. Perry, 153 U.S.App.D.C. 89, 94, 471 F.2d 1057, 1062 & n. 21 (1972) (citing Campbell v. United States, 365 U.S. 85, 92, 81 S.Ct. 421, 425, 5 L.Ed.2d 428 (1961); see also Hardy v. United States, supra, 316 A.2d at 869. In keeping with the purpose of the Act, a trial judge has an affirmative duty to see that a “defendant has access to previous statements of a witness to the fullest extent possible under the terms of the statute .... ” United States v. Perry, supra, 153 U.S.App.D.C. at 95, 471 F.2d at 1063; see also Williams v. United States, 355 A.2d 784, 788 (D.C.1976). To further the ends of justice and the search for truth, the Act provides the trial judge with a “lever,” in the form of sanctions, which the judge may pull if the government “elects” not to produce Jencks statements. United States v. Perry, supra, 153 U.S.App.D.C. at 98, 471 F.2d at 1066. The “lever” may be pulled, pursuant to the statute, in one of two ways: the court may either strike the testimony of the witness involved or declare a mistrial. See 18 U.S.C. § 3500(d) (1982). The direction in which the “lever” is pulled, as well as whether it is pulled at all, depends upon the sound discretion of the trial judge. United States v. Augenblick, 393 U.S. 348, 355, 89 S.Ct. 528, 533, 21 L.Ed.2d 537 (1969).
In the instant case, the problem is not that the trial court has abused its discretion; in balancing, as it did, the conduct of the government against the risk of prejudice to the defense, the court reasonably exercised the considerable discretion granted it under the Act. The record reveals that the court conducted this balancing process and concluded that the interest of justice would be furthered by penalizing the government in some fashion. Thus, the trial court was cognizant of its role as “special guardian” of the command of the statute and applied its provisions within the permissible scope of discretion granted. See Campbell v. United States, supra, 365 U.S. at 92, 81 S.Ct. at 425. As I view the case, therefore, the error of the trial court was not that it miscalculated in its determination that the appropriate sanction for the government's “gross negligence” was the exclusion of the identification testimony, but that it directed that sanction at the testimony of the wrong witness. See Hardy v. United States, supra, 316 A.2d at 869-70.
We recently stated that when a trial court examines the government’s conduct in determining whether sanctions are appropriate, “[t]he degree of negligence involved is especially significant_” United States v. Jackson, 450 A.2d 419, 427 (D.C.1982). This is true because “the policy of the statute, the quest for truth, is undercut as much by governmental negligence as by intentional acts of destruction.” United States v. Perry, supra, 153 U.S.App.D.C. at 95, 471 F.2d at 1063); see also Cotton v. United States, 388 A.2d 865, 870 (D.C.1978). In recognition of the comparable negative effect that negligent and intentional “elections” have on the fair and just administration of criminal justice, this court in Jackson, supra, ruled that “[wjhere the loss [of producible statements] is a result of bad faith or gross negligence, the trial court must exclude the witness’ testimony.” 450 A.2d at 427 (emphasis added) (citing Johnson v. United States, 298 A.2d 516, 520 (D.C.1972)). Accordingly, under our ruling in Jackson, once the trial court in this case went through the balancing process and determined that Officer Hassell was “grossly negligent” in failing to preserve her notes, it was required to exclude the testimony of *687the witness involved.1 The error of the trial court was in considering the Jencks statements in this case to be those of Officer Hassell, rather than those of Officer Allen, and thereby striking her identification testimony while leaving Officer Allen’s identification testimony intact. Because the Jencks Act only permits the imposition of its sanctions on the “testimony of the witness who gave the statement, rather than on the one who received it,” Hardy v. United States, supra, 316 A.2d at 870, the ruling was clearly erroneous.2
The majority, however, concludes that the government’s “gross negligence” may be excused in the case at bar because appellant failed to request “at trial the sanction he now seeks on appeal.” In their willingness to sustain this appellant’s conviction, my colleagues once again end-run the Jencks Act to avoid its legislative mandate. This time we employ a waiver analysis which, in my view of the law, is inconsistent with the main objective of the Act, i.e., the maximum truth in the courtroom. Moreover, the majority’s rationale effectively transforms the judiciary's role in the overall scheme of the statute, reducing the trial judge’s part from one of special custodian of the goal of the Act to one of merely an interested observer who will not comply with the mandate unless requested to do so.
Finally, one comment on the majority’s precautionary alternative ruling, i.e., its holding that the trial court’s action, assuming it was misdirected, was harmless error in view of the “independent source doctrine.” Assuming that this judicial en-graftment on the Act is a viable one, in view of its incompatibility with the express wording of the statute {see Fields v. United States, 368 A.2d 537, 544-45 (D.C.1977) (Mack, J., dissenting)), as well as its potential for rendering meaningless our repeated admonition that notes taken of initial descriptions of assailants be kept and produced (Moore v. United States, 353 A.2d 16, 19, aff'd after remand, 363 A.2d 288 (D.C.1976); United States v. Jackson, supra, 450 A.2d at 425), I do not see how it could apply under the instant circumstances. I respectfully dissent.

. Appellant concedes that a mistrial, the other sanction available under the Jencks Act, was inappropriate in this case because the notes are lost or destroyed and therefore would not be produced at another trial.

. The fact that the trial judge gave, at appellant's request, a variant of the missing witness instruction does not alter my conclusion. Although such an instruction may be an appropriate sanction under limited circumstances, see Williams v. United States, supra, 355 A.2d at 788 n. 9, it clearly does not suffice where there has been a finding of gross negligence or bad faith. See United States v. Jackson, supra, 450 A.2d at 427.