Court Opinion

ID: 9473797
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 04:39:55.192799+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:43:44.361847
License: Public Domain

FAGG, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
This court today reverses the conviction of Linda A. Mossie, who, for the express purpose of gaining acceptance to the jury and obstructing the administration of justice, knowingly and willfully failed to respond honestly to the district court’s voir dire question. In so doing, this court, although acknowledging the controlling standard of review, misapplies this standard and rejects the detailed and fully supported factual determinations of the district court. Just as significantly, in ruling as it does this court again diminishes a fundamental principle of our system of adversary justice, i.e., the requirement of truthful, forthright, and honest testimony, see, e.g., Whiteside v. Scurr, 744 F.2d 1323 (8th Cir.), rehearing denied, 750 F.2d 713, 717-19 (8th Cir.1984) (Fagg, dissenting), cert. granted sub nom. Nix v. Whiteside, — U.S. -, 105 S.Ct. 2016, 85 L.Ed.2d 298 (1985). Because I cannot accept the immediate or long term implications of such a decision, I respectfully dissent.
The case before us was tried to the district court. Thus, the district court was solely responsible for making the subsidiary and ultimate factual determinations to which the relevant legal principles were *989then applied. These findings must be, and have historically been, accorded a high degree of deference by this court. This high degree of deference, which is reflected in the “clearly erroneous” standard of review, see e.g., United States v. Johnson, 570 F.2d 836, 838 (8th Cir.1978), is well-founded since the district court, unlike this court, actually sees the witnesses and hears them testify. As a result, the district court is best qualified to weigh conflicting evidence and make all necessary credibility determinations.
Under the “clearly erroneous” standard of review, a finding of fact will only be overturned if “although there is evidence to support it, the reviewing court on the entire evidence is left with the definite and firm conviction that a mistake has been committed.” Anderson v. City of Bessemer, — U.S. -, 105 S.Ct. 1504, 1511, 84 L.Ed.2d 518 (1985) (quoting United States v. United States Gypsum Co., 333 U.S. 364, 395, 68 S.Ct. 525, 542, 92 L.Ed. 746 (1948)); accord United States v. Dochterman, 630 F.2d 652, 653 (8th Cir.1980). Further, in reviewing the district court’s findings
“appellate courts must constantly have in mind that their function is not to decide factual issues de novo.” Zenith Radio Corp. v. Hazeltine Research, Inc., 395 U.S. 100, 123, 89 S.Ct. 1562, 1576, 23 L.Ed.2d 129 (1969). If the district court’s account of the evidence is plausible in light of the record viewed in its entirety, the court of appeals may not reverse it even though convinced that had it been sitting as the trier of fact, it would have weighed the evidence differently.
Anderson, 105 S.Ct. at 1512 (emphasis in original). Finally, when — as in this case— many of the district court’s findings rest upon credibility determinations, this court must be particularly reluctant to set aside those findings. Dochterman, 630 F.2d at 653; see also Anderson, 105 S.Ct. at 1512-13.
In the present action, after hearing the evidence and after making numerous detailed and fully supported findings of subsidiary fact, see In re Mossie, 589 F.Supp. 1397, 1400-04 (W.D.Mo.1984), the district court ultimately found that Mossie knowingly and willfully failed to respond to the court’s question; that Mossie did so in order to gain acceptance on the jury; and that Mossie’s actions resulted in the obstruction of justice. Id. at 1403. Although these findings of fact are fully supported in the record and provide a solid basis for sustaining Mossie’s contempt conviction, they are never specifically mentioned or discussed in this court’s opinion. Instead, the court implicitly rejects these findings when, after first determining that ordinance violations.are not crimes under Missouri law, it finds both that Mossie’s lawyer advised her that under Missouri law she could deny ever having been accused of a crime and that Mossie in fact relied on this advice in failing to respond to the district court’s question. Ante at 987-988.
These two findings by the court, which are in all respects de novo factual determinations, explicitly reject one specific finding of the district court and entirely ignore a second specific finding of that court. First, with respect to the issue of the lawyer’s advice, the district court, which saw the witness and heard him testify, found that Mossie’s lawyer “did not * * * advise [her] that she could legally deny that she had ever been accused of a criminal offense.” 589 F.Supp. at 1403. While the court purports to apply the clearly erroneous standard to this finding, viewing the record as a whole, this finding simply cannot be considered clearly erroneous.
During trial, Mossie’s lawyer was called upon to testify concerning his statements to Mossie. In the course of testifying, the lawyer gave two conflicting statements with respect to the advice that was given. The first of these statements, which occurred on direct examination, can reasonably be read to indicate that the lawyer told Mossie that she could deny ever having been accused of a crime. See Record at 94. The second statement, however, which was made in response to a direct *990inquiry by the court, can reasonably be read to indicate that while the lawyer informed Mossie that she could deny ever having been convicted of a crime, he did not advise her that she could deny ever having been accused of a crime. See id. at 99.
The district court, which was in the position to weigh the evidence and determine credibility, concluded that the lawyer’s latter statement more accurately reflected what actually occurred. This determination by the district court is based upon two competing and reasonably supported views of the evidence and thus is conclusively binding on this court. As the Supreme Court has recently reaffirmed, “[w]here there are two permissible views of the evidence, the fact finder’s choice • between them cannot be clearly erroneous.” Anderson, 105 S.Ct. at 1512.
With respect to the issue of reliance, the court, again after a de novo review of the record, assumes that Mossie actually relied on the lawyer’s advice in failing to respond to the district court’s question. Ante at 987, 988. This finding fails to consider the district court’s specific determination that “[Mossie’s] failure to answer * * * was motivated not by her * * * reliance on the legal distinction between municipal ordinance violations and technical crimes, but instead * * * was the result of her deliberate concealment of facts in order to avoid exclusion from the jury.” 589 F.Supp. at 1406.
The court’s failure to consider the district court’s finding is particularly troublesome since in this case the determination of Mossie’s reliance turns largely on the issue of Mossie’s credibility as a witness. In such a situation, “even greater deference [must be given] to the district court’s findings; for only the trial judge can be aware of the variations in demeanor and tone of voice that‘bear so heavily on the listener’s understanding of and belief in what is said.” Anderson, 105 S.Ct. at 1512. Here, the court, in failing to mention the district court’s finding, fails to give any deference let alone greater deference to the credibility determination of the district court.
The court also ignores the district court’s related finding that Mossie’s “admitted involvement with drugs, particularly cocaine, as well as her repeated brushes with the law, provided [Mossie] with a substantial motive to seek membership on a jury panel which she knew would be determining the guilt or innocence of two individuals charged with cocaine distribution.” 589 F.Supp. at 1409. This finding like all other findings made by the district court is supported by substantial evidence in the record as a whole and thus is not clearly erroneous and is binding on this court. By ignoring this and many other findings and just as seriously by ignoring or misapplying the controlling standard of review, this court has usurped the district court’s role as the primary finder of fact.
The court, in a footnote, does attempt to trivialize the district court’s findings by suggesting that issues such as advice and reliance are largely irrelevant. The court’s position is premised on its view that Mossie’s failure to respond to the court’s question (whether she had been accused of a crime) was literally a true response under Missouri law and thus cannot provide any basis for a finding of contempt. Ante at 988 n. 2. The court’s position would be well taken if the evidence established that Mossie’s failure to respond, regardless of advice or reliance, was inadvertent and without ulterior motive. In such a situation, contempt would not lie since no willful or purposeful attempt to obstruct justice could be established.
Here, however, the district court specifically found that Mossie’s failure to respond was purposefully intended both to avoid exclusion from the jury and ultimately to obstruct the administration of justice. 589 F.Supp. at 1403. This ultimate finding, which is fully supported in the record, flows directly from the district court’s subsidiary findings with respect to advice and reliance, and in my opinion transcends any protection this court’s technical construction of Missouri law might otherwise pro*991vide Mossie. The court’s view allows Mossie, who willfully and purposefully failed to answer the court’s voir dire question in an eventually successful attempt to obstruct justice, to avoid being found in contempt simply because by a technical construction of state law her answer, although dishonest and evasive, cannot be said to be literally false. I cannot accept such a result.
Reviewing the record and applying the appropriate standard of review, it is clear that Mossie understood the court’s questions but determined not to answer them because she knew that to do so would lead to her exclusion from the jury. It is also clear that in so doing Mossie knowingly and willfully failed to respond in order to gain acceptance on the jury and to obstruct the administration of justice by preventing the defendants’ convictions.
Because I believe that the district court’s opinion and its findings are supported by the record, I feel this court is obligated to affirm the district court. In failing to do so, this court allows Mossie to use and abuse to her advantage our system of justice.