Court Opinion

ID: 9465162
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 00:37:40.438501+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:39:00.518640
License: Public Domain

FAY, Circuit Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part:
While agreeing with everything my brothers say up to the last paragraph, I *668must respectfully dissent from that portion of the opinion. Rule 615 establishes the witness exclusion rule. By its express terms three categories of individuals, who may be witnesses, are not to be excluded and are exempted from the rule. Sub-part (2) exempts a designated representative of the government. As I read the rule and its legislative history, this designated representative may be anyone, including the case agent. I find nothing in Rule 615 or in Rule 611 which allows the District Court to modify or restrict the government’s selection of such a representative. My interpretation of both rules and their legislative histories leads me to conclude this was a direct attempt to put “a party which is not a natural person” on the same level with a party who is a natural person. By virtue of these provisions, corporations, partnerships, trusts, governmental agencies, administrative bodies and the sovereign itself have an absolute right to be represented by a warm body. Nothing in Rule 611 indicates to me that this right can then be compromised by requiring such a representative to testify at any given time in the proceedings.