Court Opinion

ID: 9466248
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 01:09:34.302044+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:39:37.490021
License: Public Domain

FRIENDLY, Circuit Judge, concurring:
Although Judge Mansfield’s opinion thoroughly demonstrates that Rubin’s conviction should be affirmed even if the limitations of Federal Rule of Evidence 801(d)(1)(B) applied in terms when a prior consistent statement was offered only for rehabilitation, it seems to me important for the future to make clear that despite the contrary dictum in United States v. Quinto, 582 F.2d 224, 233-34 (2 Cir. 1978), see also United States v. Check, 582 F.2d 668, 681 n. 40 (2 Cir. 1978), the limitations apply only to the use of prior consistent statements as affirmative evidence and are not controlling when such statements are used only for rehabilitation. Some background is needed to illuminate the problem.
Before adoption of the Federal Rules of Evidence, there had been a lively controversy summarized in 4 Wigmore, Evidence, *67§ 1126 (Chadbourn rev. 1972), over the use of prior consistent statements to rehabilitate a witness whose credibility had been attacked on the basis of a prior inconsistent statement. There had been little need to consider the use of prior consistent statements as affirmative evidence, since they were no more probative for that purpose than what the witness had said or could say on the stand; indeed, the case law was practically unanimous in rejecting the use of prior consistent statements as affirmative evidence although the Uniform Rule of Evidence 63, adopted in a few jurisdictions, was to the contrary. See 4 Wigmore, supra, §§ 1124, 1132. On the point that was in controversy, namely, the use of prior consistent statements for rehabilitation after impeachment by an inconsistent statement, a number of views had emerged. Two of these, both rather simplistic, were a minority view “that if a contradictory statement counts against the witness, a consistent one should count for him”, and a majority view that “since the self-contradiction is conceded, it remains as a damaging fact, and is in no sense explained away by the consistent statement.” Id. at 259. However, adherents of the majority view recognized an exception when the making of the prior consistent statement would tend to dispel a charge of recent fabrication or improper motive. See Note, Evidence of Prior Consistent Statements Admissible for Rehabilitation when Witness’ Testimony Assailed as Recent Fabrication, 45 Calif.L.Rev. 202 (1957).
A third view, apparently originating in Judge Cooley’s opinion in Stewart v. People, 23 Mich. 63, 74-76 (1871), rightly considered the problem to be more complex and not susceptible to any bright-line solution. Judge Cooley pointed to a number of situations beyond those of recent fabrication and improper motive where it would outrage common sense to reject the prior consistent statement for rehabilitation. The clearest case was when the making of the inconsistent statement was disputed. Thus, when a person was “testifying in a case where he had spent a considerable period of time and a large sum of money in pursuing an alleged criminal to conviction, and he is confronted with evidence of his own conflicting statements,” he should be entitled to demonstrate “such circumstances of his connection with the case as would make the impeaching evidence appear to be at war with all the probabilities.” Beyond these, “other cases may readily be supposed in which, under the peculiar circumstances, the fact that the witness has always previously given a consistent account of the transaction in question might well be accepted by the jury as almost conclusive that he had not varied from it in the single instance testified to for the purpose of impeachment.” He concluded that “though spch evidence should not generally be received,” its admission “ought not to be set aside except in a clear case of abuse” of discretion.
The most cited decision on the subject in this circuit was Judge Learned Hand’s opinion in United States v. Sherman, 171 F.2d 619, 621 — 22 (1948), cert. denied sub nom. Grimaldi v. United States, 337 U.S. 931, 69 S.Ct. 1484, 93 L.Ed. 1738 (1949). In that case, a prosecution for stealing goods in interstate commerce, one Oliva testified that Sherman not only was a party to the theft but drove the truck used to effectuate it. The defense impeached Oliva with a written post-arrest statement in which he had not mentioned Sherman and had identified one Whelan as the driver of the truck, and the trial court then allowed the prosecution to introduce a second written statement, made a few weeks after the first, which coincided with the trial testimony. In reversing, Judge Hand said this:
Concededly the second statement was not competent unless the admission of the impeaching statement made it so, for when Oliva made it he had the same motive to fabricate — the hope of lenity— that he had while on the stand. Rationally, it is true, the fact that he changed his story so soon after making the contradictory statement, may have added to the persuasiveness of his testimony; and for that matter most persons would probably consider any earlier consistent account, in *68some measure at least, confirmatory of a witness’s testimony. The reason for its exclusion is because it has not been made on oath rather than because it has no probative value, although courts have often spoken as though it had none. However, such a statement is as incompetent when the witness has been impeached by an inconsistent statement, as when he has not been. So the Supreme Court decided many years ago; and although the point has apparently never come up again in that court, the lower federal courts have several times applied or recognized the doctrine, (footnotes omitted).
With all respect, the analysis is hard to follow. Judge Hand clearly rejected the irrelevancy argument which was the cornerstone of the majority view. His reason for excluding the evidence was rather that it had “not been made on oath,” which sounds in hearsay although he did not add “and subject to cross-examination.” But Oliva’s second statement was not hearsay since, apart from other considerations, it was not offered as proof of the matter asserted but only because the very fact of its having been made would “break the force of the impeachment”.
Only two years later this court rendered a decision fundamentally inconsistent with Judge L. Hand’s hearsay theory. In United States v. Gorry, 183 F.2d 155,156-57 (1950), the court, speaking through Judge A. N. Hand and following Judge Cooley, approved the sensible action of then District Judge J. Joseph Smith in allowing the jury to consider prior consistent statements by government witnesses, without any limitation on the score of difference in motivation, where there was an issue whether an alleged inconsistent statement had been made. We regularly permitted use of consistent statements for rehabilitation without the need of any further showing when, as here, they were needed in the interest of completeness, see United States v. Weinbren, 121 F.2d 826, 828-29 (2 Cir. 1941); United States v. Lev, 276 F.2d 605, 608 (2 Cir.), cert. denied, 363 U.S. 812, 80 S.Ct. 1248, 4 L.Ed.2d 1153 (1960); United States v. Fayette, 388 F.2d 728, 733-35 (2 Cir. 1968) (Medina, J.). Later in Felice v. Long Island Railroad Co., 426 F.2d 192, 197-98 (2 Cir.), cert. denied 400 U.S. 820, 91 S.Ct. 37, 27 L.Ed.2d 47 (1970), we again approved Judge Cooley’s approach, recognizing the peculiar appropriateness of admitting prior statements, quite apart from a claim of recent fabrication, in order to explain away a claim of incompleteness in a statement used in impeachment, and said that “a good deal of latitude should be accorded trial judges in admitting prior consistent statements for rehabilitation.” Shortly thereafter, in Applebaum v. American Export Isbrandtsen Lines, 472 F.2d 56, 60-62 (1972), the court, speaking through Judge Mansfield, reversed a judgment because of the exclusion of a prior consistent statement offered for rehabilitation in the face of a later inconsistent statement, even though there was nothing to indicate any difference of motivation on the two occasions. This court’s flexible approach to the use of prior consistent statements for rehabilitation, with an appropriate limiting charge to be given if requested, was the rule generally followed in the federal courts when the Federal Rules of Evidence were being framed. Affronti v. United States, 145 F.2d 3, 7-8 (8 Cir. 1944) (Sanborn, J.) (if some portions of a statement are used for impeachment, other relevant portions may be used to meet its force); Cafasso v. Pennsylvania R. Co., 169 F.2d 451, 453-54 (3 Cir. 1948) (Maris, J.). See also McCormick, Evidence § 49 at 106 (Cleary ed. 1972).1
Since the only mention of prior consistent statements in the Federal Rules of Evidence is in Rule 801(d)(1)(B) and this limits admission to cases where the statement “is offered to rebut an express or implied *69charge against him of recent fabrication or improper influence,” lawyers and judges can be forgiven for being misled into concluding, as was done by dictum in United States v. Quinto, supra,2 that the limitation applies to the use of prior consistent statements for rehabilitation as well as for direct evidence. However, analysis makes it clear that Rule 801(d)(1)(B) simply does not deal with the extent to which prior consistent statements may be used for rehabilitation.
The cited provision is in a definitional section of the article of the Rules which deals with hearsay; Rule 801(d) says that certain consistent statements, among them consistent statements of the kind there enumerated, are not hearsay. But, pace Judge Learned Hand’s statement in Sherman, consistent statements used only for rehabilitation are never hearsay since they are not “offered in evidence to prove the truth of the matter asserted”, Rule 801(c), but only for the fact of their having been made, 4 Wigmore, supra, § 1132 at 294 and cases there cited in n. 1. By allowing certain prior consistent statements to be used as proof of the matter asserted, as they could not previously have been, Rule 801(d)(1)(B) does not imply that others not meeting that standard can never be used for rehabilitation. The Note of the Advisory Committee reproduced in the margin3 makes clear that the purpose of Rule 801(d)(1)(B) was to admit for general use a category of prior consistent statements that “traditionally” had been admissible for rehabilitation. It does not at all follow, as was said in Quinto, supra, 582 F.2d at 233, without benefit of briefing, that the exemption of only certain consistent statements from exclusion as hearsay also determines “which varieties of prior consistent statements can be admitted for the more limited purpose of rehabilitation.” Apart from the fact that an article of the Rules concerned with hearsay would be a strange place for dealing with rehabilitation, the very fact that the latter is a “more limited purpose” would suggest that *70the standard should not be so rigorous. What other types of consistent statements might be received for rehabilitation is a subject, like many others, to which the Rules do not speak.4 Judge Weinstein’s treatise attests that the purpose of Rule 801(d)(1)(B) was simply to give substantive effect to prior consistent statements meeting its standards, 4 Weinstein’s Evidence, 1801(d)(l)(B)[01] at 801-99 (1978), thereby moving part but not all of the way toward Uniform Rule of Evidence 63. To apply the severe limitations of Rule 801(d)(1)(B) as a universal rule restricting the use of prior consistent statements for rehabilitation is thus unjustified as a matter of language and of history, and would run counter to the instruction of Rule 102 that:
These rules shall be construed to secure fairness in administration, elimination of unjustifiable expense and delay, the promotion of growth and development of the law of evidence to the end that the truth may be ascertained and proceedings justly determined.
Liberality in allowing prior consistent statements for rehabilitation is peculiarly demanded when, as here, a court is dealing with a record of what was said as distinguished from a narrative of what occurred. The fact to be proved by Agent Cox’ testimony was not what Rubin had done but what he had said in his interviews by the agents, Rule 801(d)(2). The allegedly inconsistent and consistent statements were all in one set of records, made at substantially the same time. Under such circumstances, a court that has received inconsistent statements in such records for impeachment should be generous in allowing consistent ones for rehabilitation, since they bear on whether, looking at the whole picture, there was any real inconsistency. This is the great principle of completeness, now enacted in Rule 106. The important thing is that, unless the prior consistent statements are admissible as affirmative evidence under Rule 801(d)(1)(B), the jury should be clearly apprised, if requested, that they are to be considered solely as breaking the force of the impeachment.

. The decisions of this court in United States v. Lombardi, 550 F.2d 827 (1977) and United States v. Zito, 467 F.2d 1401, 1403-04 (1972), approving the admission of prior consistent statements for rehabilitation to rebut a charge of recent fabrication in no way show that this was the only instance in which such use was permissible. As indicated, in several cases we had gone beyond this.

. The statement in Quinto with respect to rehabilitation was no less dictum because the opinion characterized it as a holding. As the Quin-to opinion clearly showed, the trial court had received the agents’ memorandum as direct evidence “under 801(d)(l)(2) [sic],” see 582 F.2d at 231-32, which provides for admission for the truth of the matter asserted. This court held such admission to constitute error under that provision. Anyone reading the opinion can readily see that this was the only issue presented; nothing in the opinion suggested that questions had been raised whether the memorandum could be used solely for rehabilitation if that issue were to arise on a new trial and the briefs show that none had been. It is particularly puzzling that Judge Meskill should regard ourselves as bound by the unnecessary statement in Quinto with respect to rehabilitation when, as he correctly says, the Federal Rules of Evidence have not changed the law governing admission of prior consistent statements for that purpose which was considerably broader than Rule 810(d)(1)(B). A judge’s power to bind is limited to the issue that is before him; he cannot transmute dictum into decision by waving a wand and uttering the word “hold”. There should hardly be need to recall the long established Supreme Court jurisprudence that, as said in Cohens v. Virginia, 6 Wheat. (19 U.S.) 264, 399-400, 5 L.Ed. 257 (1821):
It is a maxim, not to be disregarded, that general expressions, in every opinion, are to be taken in connection with the case in which those expressions are used. If they go beyond the case, they may be respected, but ought not to control the judgment in a subsequent suit, when the very point is presented for decision. The reason of this maxim is obvious. The question actually before the court is investigated with care, and considered in its full extent. Other principles which may serve to illustrate it, are considered in their relation to the case decided, but their possible bearing on all other cases is seldom completely investigated.
So far as concerns United States v. Check, 582 F.2d 668, 680-81 (2 Cir. 1978), the text of the opinion, written by the distinguished author of Quinto and filed only three weeks earlier, carefully and properly limited the effect of Rule 801(d)(1)(B) to the use of consistent statements as affirmative evidence, again the only point there at issue, although note 40 volunteered that “the statements were not admissible even for the more limited purpose of bolstering the witness’ credibility.”

. Prior consistent statements traditionally have been admissible to rebut charges of recent fabrication or improper influence or motive but not as substantive evidence. Under the rule they are substantive evidence. The prior statement is consistent with the testimony given on the stand, and, if the opposite party wishes to open the door for its admission in evidence, no sound reason is apparent why it should not be received generally.

. It is not entirely clear why the Advisory Committee felt it necessary to provide for admissibility of certain prior consistent statements as affirmative evidence. As indicated above, this had been a non-problem. Evidently the Committee considered that since it was permitting certain types of inconsistent statements to be admitted as proof of the facts stated, Rule 801(d)(1)(A), in line with our decision in United States v. DeSisto, 329 F.2d 929 (2 Cir.) cert. denied, 377 U.S. 979, 84 S.Ct. 1885, 12 L.Ed.2d 747 (1964), it ought to confer a similar benefit on some consistent statements.