Court Opinion

ID: 9465378
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 00:44:51.041596+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:39:09.191444
License: Public Domain

GURFEIN, Circuit Judge
(concurring):
I agree with all of my brother Mulligan’s excellent opinion. I write only to say that if I did not feel bound by United States v. Rucker, 586 F.2d 899 (2d Cir. 1978), so recently decided, I would hold that the jury instruction on how to assess the credibility of a defendant who testifies was so unbalanced as to amount to plain error.
If there is one thing of which a lay juror need not be reminded, it is that a person accused of crime has a strong temptation to lie his way out of it. The parable of Parson Weems, in which George Washington admitted that he had chopped down the cherry tree, supposedly marked George as unusually virtuous because he told the truth in the face of an accusation. The common tendency to view a defendant’s testimony as self-serving and subject to doubt hardly needs reemphasis from a trial judge. Yet, when he does remind the jury of the self-interest of a defendant who has taken the stand, he should balance it by a statement that a defendant, mirabile dictu, can be telling the truth. An omission of this balancing seems to me to amount to telling the jury that they need not be concerned at all with that alternative possibility.
The error is serious because the heavily weighted instruction makes the choice of the defendant to testify on his or her own behalf the basis for inferentially downgrading the presumption of innocence. We have recently been instructed that refusal to charge the presumption of innocence is constitutional error even though the burden of proof was properly charged. Taylor v. Kentucky, 436 U.S. 478, 98 S.Ct. 1930, 56 L.Ed.2d 468 (1978). The Court observed that jury instructions are for ordinary citizens who are not legal scholars. To paraphrase Mr. Justice Powell, 436 U.S. at 487, 98 S.Ct. at 1936, the unbalanced charge “could be viewed as an invitation to the jury to consider petitioner’s status as a defendant as evidence tending to prove his guilt.”
Since Taylor is distinguishable so far as the due process formulation is concerned, I do not assert that the charge here was a violation of due process, but it was surely within our supervisory power to correct.
I write only to suggest respectfully to our fellow judges in the District Courts who are on the firing line that they ought to consider the point in drawing jury instructions.
It is so easy to balance the charge, as Judge Owen did in United States v. Martin, 525 F.2d 703, 706 n. 3 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, 423 U.S. 1035, 96 S.Ct. 570, 46 L.Ed.2d 410 (1975), as follows:
However, I want to say this with equal force to you — however, it by no means follows that simply because a person has a vital interest in the end result, that he is not capable of telling a truthful and straightforward story.
It is for you to decide to what extent, if at all, defendant’s interest has affected or colored his testimony.
We commented on that charge in United States v. Floyd, 555 F.2d 45, 47 n. 4 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, 434 U.S. 851, 98 S.Ct. 163, 54 L.Ed.2d 120 (1977), saying:
“[LJanguage more nearly akin to that approved in United States v. Martin, 525 *1156F.2d 703, 706 n. 3 (2d Cir. 1975), is preferable because it explicitly states that a defendant’s vital interest in the outcome of his trial is not inconsistent with the ability to render truthful testimony.”
It is too bad that the comment in Floyd was relegated to a footnote. If this concurring statement serves no other purpose, at least it restores the sage comment to text where it is more easily seen.