Court Opinion

ID: 9464209
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 23:27:35.309035+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:38:30.777983
License: Public Domain

*952CHOY, Circuit Judge,
concurring specially:
I agree that the convictions of McLennan and Bender should be affirmed. I would reach that result, however, for reasons different from those advanced by Judge Duni-way.

Hearsay

I am unpersuaded by Brother Duniway’s attempt to distinguish the controlling precedent of United States v. Freeman, 519 F.2d 67 (9th Cir. 1975). Here, as there, the involved statements contained the words “I told” (or “stated” or “advised”), and thus at least that portion of the declarant-witness’s out-of-court utterance cannot be said to have been offered merely for the nonhearsáy purpose of proving notice, for previous notice in this context is the very truth of the matter asserted: that this statement was in fact previously uttered.1 On the assumption that Freeman was correctly decided, therefore, Burnett’s testimony in the instant case was hearsay. Even as such, however, I would hold that it is admissible under the excited utterance exception, Fed. R.Evid. 803(2). See United States v. Bell, 351 F.2d 868, 872-73 (6th Cir. 1965), cert. denied, 383 U.S. 947, 86 S.Ct. 1200, 16 L.Ed.2d 210 (1966) (decided prior to the effective date of the Federal Rules of Evidence).
More fundamentally, however, upon reflection I now question the validity of the holding in Freeman that a declarant-witness’s self-quoting is in fact hearsay.2 Although commentators maintain that, as a general principle, under the “orthodox approach,” such self-quotation is technically hearsay if offered for the truth of its contents, see 4 J. Weinstein & M. Berger, Weinstein’s Evidence H 801(d)(l)[01], at 801-64 to -65 (1975) [hereinafter cited as Weinstein] and authorities cited therein, I have found no case other than Freeman which so holds, and Freeman itself cited none. The reason for this precedential void may be that characterization of declarant-witness self-quoting as hearsay — and its resultant exclusion on that basis — usually may be avoided by offering the statement not to prove the truth of the matter asserted therein, but rather to prove notice or knowledge on the part of someone alleged to have heard (or read) the statement. Because of the “I told” component of the statements in Freeman, however, such treatment was unavailable, and the evidence there was held to be hearsay.3 I *953believe that, if the holding in Freeman was correct on this issue, it compels the same result here.
I would reject the assumption in Freeman and do away with its rule that makes declarant-witness self-quoting hearsay (1) because it is so rarely encountered (possibly only in the context of “I told” or equivalent statements), (2) because the problem is so easily avoidable by a properly framed question which elicits identical information, and (3) because, in any event, the rule is without foundation either in logic4 or the policy considerations which underlie the hearsay safeguards, for the declarant-witness is present at trial, under oath, subject to cross-examination, and he affirms the statement as his.5
6 See generally McCormick on Evidence § 245 (2d ed. Cleary 1972). I would hold that, in all cases, declarant-witness self-quoting is not hearsay, or that, if it is technically hearsay under the definition of Fed.R.Evid. 801(c), it should be admitted pursuant to the “federal common law” hearsay exception provisions of rule 803(24) owing to its independent indicia of reliability and to serve the “interests of justice.”6 See 4 Weinstein at 803-250.

*954
The Copeland Act Count

I also cannot agree with Judge Duniway’s conclusion that the failure of the trial court to instruct the jury in detail about the dismissal of the Copeland Act count was not error. Clearly, most of the evidence offered by the Government related to this count. The Copeland Act provided the single strongest ground upon which the Government based its contentions that defendants’ architect-developer arrangement was illegal and that the failure to disclose it was “false” or “misleading.” Moreover, as placed before the jury, the “that’s illegal” portion of Burnett’s testimony was the prime piece of evidence of both the illegality of defendants’ conduct as well as their knowledge thereof.7
But, once again, I concur in the result, for I believe that a properly instructed jury could find that defendants’ architect-developer agreement did involve a “kickback” in violation of the Copeland Act and that the trial court, therefore, was in error in dismissing the Copeland Act count. The double jeopardy clause and 18 U.S.C. § 3731 (appeal by United States) may well forbid the Government from appealing the dismissal of the count for purposes of reinstating the indictment as to it. See United States v. Martin Linen Supply Co., 430 U.S. 564, 97 S.Ct. 1349, 51 L.Ed.2d 642 (1977); United States v. Morrison, 429 U.S. 1, 97 S.Ct. 1292, 50 L.Ed.2d 1 (1976); United States v. Jenkins, 420 U.S. 358, 95 S.Ct. 1006, 43 L.Ed.2d 250 (1975); United States v. Wilson, 420 U.S. 332, 95 S.Ct. 1013, 43 L.Ed.2d 232 (1975). We are free, however, to examine the propriety of the dismissal to determine whether, instead of being prejudiced by an alleged improper omission from the jury charge, the defendants in fact received more generous treatment than they deserved by virtue of the dismissal and, therefore, now have no cause to complain that an improper dismissal was not clearly explained. Cf. United States v. Lemon, 550 F.2d 467, 469-70 (9th Cir. 1977); United States v. King, 552 F.2d 833, 849 (9th Cir. 1976), cert. denied, 430 U.S. 966, 97 S.Ct. 1646, 52 L.Ed.2d 357 (1977).
While it may be true, as the district court apparently held, that the legislative history of the Copeland Act reveals that it was passed in order to prevent contractors from avoiding those minimum wage laws which govern federal construction, see United States v. Carbone, 327 U.S. 633, 638-39, 66 S.Ct. 734, 90 L.Ed. 904 (1946) (discussing in detail the Copeland Act’s legislative history), the words of the statute are clear in their generality:
Whoever, by force, intimidation, or threat of procuring dismissal from employment, or by any other manner whatsoever induces any person employed in the construction, prosecution, completion or repair of any public building, public work, or building or work financed in whole or in part by loans or grants from the United States, to give up any part of the compensation to which he is entitled under his contract of employment, shall be fined not more than $5,000 or imprisoned not more than five years, or both.
18 U.S.C. § 874. We must observe the admonition of the Supreme Court — repeated recently in Santa Fe Industries, Inc. v. Green, 430 U.S. 462, 472, 97 S.Ct. 1292, 1300, 51 L.Ed.2d 480 (1977), quoting Blue Chip Stamps v. Manor Drug Stores, 421 U.S. 723, 756, 95 S.Ct. 1917, 44 L.Ed.2d 539 (1975) (Powell, J. concurring) — that “ ‘[t]he starting point in every case involving construction of a statute is the language itself.’ ” On the face of the Copeland Act, there is no indication that Congress intended to limit its reach to the minimum wage context. *955Nor is there an ambiguity which would compel a resort to the legislative history. See Ex parte Collett, 337 U.S. 55, 61, 69 S.Ct. 944, 93 L.Ed. 1207 (1949); Packard Motor Car Co. v. NLRB, 330 U.S. 485, 492, 67 S.Ct. 789, 91 L.Ed. 1040 (1947); United States v. American Trucking Associations, Inc., 31(5 U.S. 534, 543, 60 S.Ct. 1059, 84 L.Ed. 1345 (1940); United States v. Sabatino, 485 F.2d 540, 544 (2d Cir. 1973), cert. denied, 415 U.S. 948, 94 S.Ct. 1469, 39 L.Ed.2d 563 (1974).8 I would, therefore, heed the sardonically expressed teaching of Mr. Justice Frankfurter that
this is a case for applying the canon of construction of the wag who said, when the legislative history is doubtful, go to the statutef,]
Greenwood v. United States, 350 U.S. 366, 374, 76 S.Ct. 410, 415, 100 L.Ed. 412 (1956), quoted in Van Hoomissen v. Xerox Corp., 503 F.2d 1131, 1133 (9th Cir. 1974), and hold that the Copeland Act count was improperly dismissed.
On these grounds, I would Affirm.

. Judge Duniway’s misreading of Freeman may stem from the focus of his attention in that opinion. He quotes the following language:
Counsel was not asked whether he had advised appellant of the order that she appear on May 20th; instead, he was asked whether, on that date, he had stated to the court that he had done so. An affirmative response to the former question, insofar as it constituted evidence of utterances and writings offered to show the effect on the hearer or reader, would not have been subject to attack as hearsay. See, e. g., McCormick, Evidence § 249 (2d ed. 1972).
519 F.2d at 69. He overlooks, however, the very next sentence:
But an affirmative response to the latter inquiry — the response here given — was clearly evidence of out-of-court statements offered to prove the truth of the matters asserted therein.
Id. (footnote omitted).
It is possible that the result in Freeman may reflect a desire to limit evidence of a witness’s effort to buttress his statement with testimony that he had repeated it before. If so, whether Ms. Freeman’s attorney stated what he did to the court in the bail-jumping proceeding may well have been irrelevant, and possibly should have been excluded on that basis. But that objection is clearly not one based on hearsay principles. The hearsay problem would arise only when, and if, third parties to whom the declarant had spoken were called to corroborate his testimony.

. The Freeman court went even further in that it apparently found some statements to have been hearsay by adoption, for the witness’s testimony in one instance consisted only of the answer “yes” to the prosecutor’s question.

. Judge Duniway characterizes Burnett’s self-quote as a classic example of a verbal act, which is not, in turn, hearsay, citing United States v. Kutas, 542 F.2d 527, 528 (9th Cir. 1976), and Phillips v. United States, 356 F.2d 297, 301 (9th Cir. 1965), cert. denied sub nom. Walker v. United States, 384 U.S. 952, 86 S.Ct. 1573, 16 L.Ed.2d 548 (1966). I have difficulty with this analysis. The hearsay issues in the cited cases are resolved not by the verbal act exception, but by the well-accepted notice or *953knowledge exception to the hearsay rule. See Kutas, 542 F.2d at 528 (“[t]he statement was admitted as evidence from which it could be inferred that [defendant] knew”); Phillips, 356 F.2d at 301 (“[t]he documents in question were received ... for the jury’s consideration in determining whether one or more of the defendants knew”). While application of the verbal act concept is less than uniform, see generally 4 Weinstein at 801-59 to -60, it is at least questionable whether the cited authorities render it apposite here. Moreover, resort to verbal act analysis obscures the fact that notice is clearly at issue here, and that the notice exception is unavailable where the truth of the “I' told” component of the statement is the truth of the matter asserted.

. An absurd result obtains: a witness can, without any possible hearsay objection, relate what he has seen, yet he cannot relate what his memory tells him his own mouth said. It is as if one’s eyes’ sensory input to the brain is admissible, but testimony as to one’s mouth’s sensory input to the brain is forbidden.

. Such is apparently also the understanding of the federal Advisory Committee on Proposed Rules as expressed in a somewhat ambiguous commentary to rule 801, which became effective after the trial in Freeman :
Considerable controversy has attended the question whether a prior out-of-court statement by a person now available for cross-examination concerning it, under oath and in the presence of the trier of fact, should be classed as hearsay.- If the witness admits on the stand that he made the statement and that it was true, he adopts the statement and there is no hearsay problem. The hearsay problem arises when the witness on the stand denies having made the statement or admits having made it but denies its truth.
Fed.R.Evid. 801(d)(1), Note (prior statement by witness) (emphasis added). Later in the same Note, however, the Committee cuts back on the expansive thrust of the foregoing language, and it seems to limit the admission of a witness’s prior statements as substantive evidence to the two contexts of present rule 801(d)(1)(A) and (B) — prior inconsistent statements given under oath, and prior consistent statements offered to rebut a charge of recent fabrication or improper motive — and not to differentiate between whether a third party is testifying as to what the then-present declarant had said or whether the declarant himself is testifying as to what he said.
The Note and commentators suggest that the reluctance to permit the admission of prior out-of-court statements of a witness notwithstanding his present availability for cross-examination under oath grew from a fear that such a rule would lead to trial by fraudulently prepared deposition testimony. See, e. g., 4 Weinstein at 801-68 to -69. Such an apprehension, however, goes more to condemning the ethics of the federal bar than to violations of the policies underlying the hearsay protections. Compare note 1 supra.

. Rule 803(24) provides that the following is not excluded as hearsay:
A statement not specifically covered by any of the foregoing exceptions but having equivalent circumstantial guarantees of trustworthiness, if the court determines that (A) the statement is offered as evidence of a material fact; (B) the statement is more probative on the point for which it is offered than any other evidence which the proponent can procure through reasonable efforts; and (C) the general purposes of these rules and the interests of justice will best be served by admission of the statement into evidence. However, a statement may not be admitted under this exception unless the proponent of it makes known to the adverse party sufficiently in advance of the trial or hearing to provide the adverse party with a fair opportunity to prepare to meet it, his intention to offer the statement and the particulars of it, including the name and address of the declar-ant.

. If the Copeland Act does not apply, I would hold that the failure of the court below to limit the admission of Burnett’s testimony to proof of notice of possible illegality — which failure allowed it to appear that defendant’s own counsel on the involved projects was testifying that defendants’ conduct was “illegal” — was plain error under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 52(b). If the Act does apply, however, it would provide a sufficiently strong basis for calling the arrangement illegal, and the failure to give a limiting instruction, though still error, would not be so egregious that we should recognize it without a proper contemporaneous objection.

. I am cognizant that, in the criminal context, ambiguity with respect to a statute’s ambit should be resolved in favor of lenity. Rewis v. United States, 401 U.S. 808, 812, 91 S.Ct. 1056, 28 L.Ed.2d 493 (1971). I, however, find no ambiguity in the Copeland Act. Compare Sa-batino, 485 F.2d at 544.