Court Opinion

ID: 9494174
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 15:31:07.991802+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:56:15.574836
License: Public Domain

BATCHELDER, Circuit Judge,
concurring.
I agree with the majority that this case calls for application of the standard announced in Gordon v. United States, 178 F.2d 896 (6th Cir.1949), and that under that standard the district court did not abuse its discretion. I write separately for two reasons.
I.
First, in discussing the requirement of Gordon that “the party seeking the new trial was taken by surprise when the false testimony was given and was unable to meet it or did not know of its falsity until after the trial,” 178 F.2d at 900, the majority holds that “the satisfaction of the final element of the Gordon/Larrison test is not a condition precedent to the defendant receiving a new trial.” Maj. Op. at 20. This holding sweeps too broadly and misconstrues this circuit’s opinion in Gordon and the Seventh Circuit’s decision in Larrison.
In Gordon, the court “backpedaled,” maj. op. at 20, on the necessity for a defendant to satisfy this element of the standard based upon the peculiar facts presented there:
This last ground does not seem pertinent to our consideration of the special circumstances of this case, as, certainly, if all of the testimony given against a convicted man were recanted, it would not appear necessary to show that the party seeking a new trial was taken by surprise and was unable to meet such testimony or did not know of its falsity until after the trial.
178 F.2d at 900 (emphasis added). As indicated by this passage, “the special circumstances” presented in the Gordon case consisted of the recantation by the government’s principal witness of his testimony implicating the defendant in the charged offense. Indeed, this witness presented virtually the only evidence against the defendant. 178 F.2d at 897-99. See also Gordon v. United States, 164 F.2d 855, 857 (6th Cir.1947) (affirming the conviction and noting that “the conviction was based principally upon the testimony of Herman Frank Banning, a co-defendant under the *650indictment”). Accordingly, the court reasoned that since “all of the testimony given” against the defendant had been recanted, requiring satisfaction of the “surprise element” of the standard for a new trial was not necessary. In doing so, the Gordon court did not abandon the “surprise element” or hold that a defendant need not show surprise before succeeding on a motion for a new trial.
Similarly, the Seventh Circuit has preferred a case-by-case approach to the determination of whether a defendant must satisfy the “surprise element” of the Gordon/Larrison standard for granting a new trial to outright abandonment of the inquiry altogether. In United States v. Leibowitz, 919 F.2d 482, 484-85 (7th Cir.1990), the Seventh Circuit rejected the government’s contention that a defendant must always show surprise. Although the court questioned whether the Larrison court erroneously adopted the requirement of surprise, Leibowitz makes clear that surprise remains a consideration except in the narrow class of cases in which the government’s principal witness recants his testimony after trial:
Surprise is relevant, surely. If the defendant had every opportunity to meet the allegedly false testimony at trial, his failure to unmask its falsity at that time is some evidence that the testimony was true. But why the defendant should be required to demonstrate surprise in every case of recantation baffles us. In a case such as this in which the principal (though not the only) evidence of guilt is the testimony of an accomplice or eyewitness, the only resource of the defendant in unmasking the falsity, even "with all the advance warning in the world, may be cross-examination, which — much mythology to the contrary notwithstanding — is not an infallible lie detector.
919 F.2d at 484. Subsequent decisions demonstrate that the Seventh Circuit does not regard Leibowitz as eliminating the need for a defendant to show surprise. See, e.g., Olson v. United States, 989 F.2d 229, 231-33 (7th Cir.1993) (concluding that an inquiry into surprise was appropriate on the facts of the case).
For these reasons I think that a proper reading of Gordon and Leibowitz does not support the majority’s sweeping statement that “the satisfaction of the final element of the Gordon/Larrison test is not a condition precedent to the defendant receiving a new trial.” Maj. Op. at 20. To the extent that the majority intends to follow Gordon and Leibowitz in limiting the force of this holding to the uncommon situation in which a principal government witness recants his testimony, I do not think that the facts of this case justify reliance on Gordon or ibowitz to excuse the defendant from showing surprise. As the majority’s summation of the evidence adduced at trial shows, the government presented substantial evidence of the defendant’s guilt other than the rebuttal testimony of Richard Warren. Therefore, this case is not one of those rare “special circumstances” in which the government’s only or principal witness recants. Leibowitz, 919 F.2d at 484; Gordon, 178 F.2d at 900. In any event, I do not think the district court’s conclusion, based upon the facts of this case, that the defendant was surprised by Warren’s testimony constitutes an abuse of discretion.
II.
More importantly, I am deeply troubled by the way in which the district court conducted the defendant’s trial. After reviewing the record of the proceedings before the district court in its entirety, I am at a loss to explain many of the court’s evidentiary and procedural rulings. For *651example, the record shows that the defendant placed Charles and William Warren, two of Richard Warren’s brothers, on his witness list. Notwithstanding a separation order entered by the district court, defense counsel allowed Charles Warren to sit in the courtroom during the trial. When the prosecution then sought to call Charles Warren to the stand as a rebuttal witness, defense counsel objected on the ground that he had seen the proffered witness in the courtroom on two separate occasions in violation of the separation order. During his voir dire, Charles Warren informed the court that he had in fact observed part of the trial over two days. Based upon this admission the district court sustained the defense objection and precluded the prosecution from calling Charles Warren. In short, the district court penalized the United States for the violation of a separation order when defense counsel had listed Charles Warren as a potential witness, observed him in the courtroom over two days, and faded to take any action to notify the court of the violation or to remedy' it. This and numerous other rulings, which it is not necessary to list here, lead me to conclude that the district court effectively prevented the prosecution from putting on its case. Since none of these rulings are before this court, however, I join the majority in concluding that the district court did not abuse its discretion by granting the defendant’s motion for a new trial.