United States v. Walker ( 1998 )

REVISED, August 4, 1998
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
For the FIFTH CIRCUIT
_______________________________
No. 97-60153
_______________________________
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff-Appellee,
VERSUS
SANTONIO LAMOND WALKER AND JERRY LEE QUINN,
Defendants-Appellants.
_____________________________________________________
Appeals from the United States District Court
For the Northern District of Mississippi
______________________________________________________
July 28, 1998
Before POLITZ, REYNALDO G. GARZA, and DENNIS, Circuit Judges.
Dennis, Circuit Judge:
A Federal Grand Jury returned a three-count indictment
charging defendant-appellant Jerry Lee Quinn with one count of
suborning Santonio Lamond Walker to commit perjury, in violation of
18 U.S.C. § 1622 (Count 1), and charging defendant-appellant Walker
with two counts of knowingly making false material declarations
while under oath, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1623(a) (Counts 2 and
3). The indictment was based on Walker’s allegedly false testimony
1
on Quinn’s behalf in the trials of a felon in possession of a
firearm charge against Quinn.1 Walker moved for severance, but the
motion was denied. After a jury trial, Quinn and Walker were found
guilty on all three counts. At sentencing, Quinn received 24
months imprisonment as to Count 1 of the indictment, while Walker
received 24 months each as to Counts 2 and 3, to run concurrently.
Walker appeals, alleging: (1) The admission of four out-of-
court statements by his codefendant, Quinn, violated his Sixth
Amendment right to cross-examination (i.e., a Bruton violation 2);
(2) the trial court erroneously denied his motion for severance in
light of the alleged Bruton violation; (3) the evidence was
insufficient to support his convictions; and (4) his offense level
calculated for purposes of the United States Sentencing Guidelines
(U.S.S.G.) was improperly based on the underlying offense of
possession of a firearm.
Quinn also appeals, alleging: (1) Admission of an out-of-court
statement by his codefendant, Walker, was a Bruton violation; (2)
testimony about Quinn’s attempt to suborn perjury from someone
other than Walker was improperly admitted because it was evidence
of “other acts” not admissible pursuant to Federal Rule of Evidence
404(b); and (3) admission of statements made by Quinn to a
1
See United States v. Quinn, Criminal Number 1:95CR083-S,
aff’d, United States v. Quinn, No. 96-60089, summary calendar, 101
F.3d 697 (5th Cir. 1996).
2
Referring to Bruton v. United States, 391 U.S. 123 (1968),
which held that a defendant’s Sixth Amendment right to confront a
witness is violated by the admission of a non-testifying
codefendant’s out-of-court, inculpatory statement, and that the
violation cannot be cured by a jury instruction.
2
jailhouse informant violated his Sixth Amendment right to counsel.
Having considered each alleged point of error, we affirm.
Facts
On May 12, 1995, Jerry Lee Quinn was under surveillance by
Aberdeen (Mississippi) Police Officer Pete Conwill and Bureau of
Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms Agent Joey Hall pursuant to their
investigation of Quinn for possession of a firearm by a convicted
felon.3 Quinn detected their surveillance and fled. Conwill and
Hall pursued a black and gold Pontiac Grand Am, which they believed
to be driven by Quinn. Conwill attempted to apprehend the driver
of the Grand Am at an impromptu roadblock. The Grand Am driver
avoided the roadblock, however, by speeding in reverse around a
corner into the yard of James Kilan, abandoning the Grand Am, and
fleeing on foot. After impounding the Grand Am, police found a
loaded 9mm semiautomatic handgun in the backseat armrest. Further
investigation led to the arrest of Quinn for possession of a
firearm by a convicted felon.
At Quinn’s first firearms possession trial, Santonio Lamond
Walker, an acquaintance of Quinn’s, testified that he, and not
Quinn, had been driving the Grand Am on May 12, 1995 during the
pursuit by Hall and Conwill. The jury deadlocked. At Quinn’s
second firearms possession trial, Walker again testified that he
had been driving the Grand Am during the chase. Quinn was
convicted in the second trial.
3
See 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1).
3
Suspecting that Quinn had suborned Walker’s perjury in the
firearms possession trials, Hall asked Quinn’s cellmate, Rodney
Seaton, to be attuned to anything Quinn might say about his recent
trial, but not to initiate any conversation with Quinn; Hall gave
Seaton no details concerning the investigation of Quinn. On
Thanksgiving night, Quinn volunteered to Seaton that he should not
be in jail because his “home boy” had “stood up in court and took
the rap for him being in the car.” After Quinn volunteered this
information, Seaton asked him if he was driving the car during the
chase, to which Quinn replied that he was, but that his “home boy”
had claimed to be the driver. Seaton relayed this information to
Hall, which, along with the results of further investigation, led,
eight months later, to the indictments of Walker for perjury and
Quinn for subornation of perjury.
The government presented its evidence in two stages of a joint
trial of the charges against Walker and Quinn. The first stage of
the government’s case addressed whether Walker had knowingly made
false material declarations while under oath as a witness in
Quinn’s firearms possession trials. Seaton testified that Quinn,
in his jailhouse statements on Thanksgiving night, said that Walker
had “taken the rap for him” in the firearms possession trials, and
that the police were unaware that his “home boy” was not the driver
of the Grand Am because its windows were darkly tinted. Hall
testified that, during the car chase, when he pulled his vehicle’s
left side up to the Grand Am’s left side at an intersection, the
driver of the Grand Am, whom Hall identified definitely as Quinn,
4
rolled down his window and looked at him. Conwill testified that
he blocked the road with his car after seeing the Grand Am
approaching from behind, and got out of his car to apprehend the
driver. When he was close enough to the Grand Am to place his hand
on its hood, the Grand Am backed around the corner. Conwill
testified, however, that he was able to see through the tinted
glass and identify Quinn as the driver and sole occupant of the
car. Conwill further testified that, in a separate municipal court
trial related to the chase, Quinn offered two different exculpatory
stories regarding driving the Grand Am on the day of the chase;
each story related that Quinn had driven the Grand Am to a mechanic
(the first story related that the mechanic was in Columbus,
Mississippi, and the second story changed the mechanic’s location
to Aberdeen), and neither story involved Walker’s driving the Grand
Am at any point.
Although James Kilan testified that he was not positive that
Quinn was the driver who abandoned the Grand Am in his yard, he
described the driver as resembling Quinn but not Walker. Barbara
Byrd, the court clerk of the city of Aberdeen, testified that
Walker was in the City Court appearing on two unrelated matters on
the day and at the time of the chase. Robert Taylor, an
acquaintance to both Walker and Quinn, testified that, in a
conversation prior to the firearms possession trial, Quinn had
admitted to having driven the Grand Am during the chase. The
foreman of the jury that convicted Quinn of the firearms violation
testified that the identity of the driver was a major issue in
5
determining whether Quinn possessed the firearm found in the Grand
Am’s backseat armrest. The transcripts from the two firearms
possession trials were entered as evidence, demonstrating that
Walker had testified under oath that he was the driver of the hotly
pursued Grand Am.
The second stage of the prosecution’s case addressed whether
Quinn had knowingly acted to suborn Walker’s false testimony.
Taylor testified that Walker told him in a conversation after
Quinn’s firearms possession conviction that he testified falsely
that he was driving the Grand Am, and that Quinn promised to give
him $5,000 and two ounces of cocaine if Quinn was acquitted of the
firearms possession charges. Taylor also testified that Quinn had
tried to persuade him to testify falsely at the firearms possession
trial that he, not Quinn, was the driver of the Grand Am.
Neither Walker nor Quinn testified at the perjury/subornation
trial.
Analysis
I. Walker’s appeal
A. The alleged Bruton violation.
“‘[T]he right of cross-examination is included in the right of
an accused in a criminal case to confront the witnesses against
him’ secured by the Sixth Amendment.” Bruton v. United States,
391 U.S. 123, 126 (1968) (quoting Pointer v. State of Texas, 380
U.S. 400, 404 (1965)). Where an out-of-court statement by a non-
testifying codefendant is admitted, the defendant inculpated by the
6
statement is denied the opportunity to cross-examine his
codefendant, thus leaving the reliability of the codefendant’s
statement untested. Therefore, the inculpated defendant is denied
his constitutional right to confront the witnesses against him.
Bruton, 391 U.S. at 127 (citing Douglas v. State of Alabama, 380
U.S. 415, 419 (1965)); see also United States v. Wilson, 116 F.3d
1066, 1083 (5th Cir. 1997) (examining a possible Bruton violation).
This type of constitutional violation is termed a Bruton violation
after the case of Bruton v. United States in which the Supreme
Court held that a curative instruction for the jury to consider an
inculpatory statement only in determining the confessing
codefendant’s guilt, rather than that of the non-confessing
inculpated defendant, does not cure the Sixth Amendment violation.
See Bruton 392 U.S. at 131.
There are two well-established exceptions to the Bruton rule,
however. First, Bruton only applies to out-of-court statements
that are “facially incriminating.” Richardson v. Marsh, 481 U.S.
200, 209 (1987). Therefore, for a Bruton violation to occur, the
codefendant’s statement must directly implicate the defendant.
Where the reference to the defendant is indirect and the jury can
only complete the inference by relying on other evidence in the
trial, Bruton will not apply. United States v. Wilson, 116 F.3d
1066, 1083 (5th Cir. 1997) (where reference to the defendant is as
“the man with the sack,” the reference was not sufficient to
trigger a Bruton violation); but see Gray v. Maryland, --- U.S. ---
, 118 S. Ct. 1151, 1152 (March 9, 1998) (where a direct implication
7
of the defendant is redacted by replacing defendant’s name with an
obvious indication of deletion, a Bruton violation is not avoided).
The second established exception to Bruton is a statement that
falls within certain “firmly rooted hearsay exception[s].” Ohio v.
Roberts, 448 U.S. 56, 66 (1980); see also United States v. Saks,
964 F.2d 1514, 1525 (5th Cir. 1992). For example, in Saks, this
court held that Federal Rule of Evidence 801(d)(2)(D), the agency
exception, was one such “firmly rooted” exception, and identified
other “firmly rooted” hearsay exceptions that qualify as Bruton
exceptions, viz. the hearsay exception for co-conspirators provided
in Rule 801(d)(2)(E), the “spontaneous declaration” exception, and
the “medical examination” exception. Saks, 964 F.2d at 1525.
Walker contends that a Bruton violation resulted from four
out-of-court statements by Quinn, contained in the testimonies of
Taylor, Seaton, and Conwill. At issue are Quinn’s statements to
Taylor that he was driving the Grand Am during the chase, to Seaton
that Quinn’s “home boy” had taken the rap for Quinn in court, to
Seaton that the Grand Am’s darkened windows prevented the police
from seeing that his “home boy” was not the driver, and to the
municipal court, as reported by Conwill, that Quinn was driving the
Grand Am on the morning of the chase. The testimony of Taylor and
Conwill was admitted over Walker’s Bruton objections. We review
these possible Bruton violations for abuse of discretion. United
States v. Fletcher, 121 F.3d 187, 197 (5th Cir. 1997). We review
the introduction of the second-hand statements testified to by
Seaton for plain error, however, because there was no objection to
8
their admission.
Regardless of the standard of review, however, the district
court did not commit error in allowing any of these statements into
evidence against Walker. None of them directly implicates Walker
in perjuring himself during Quinn’s firearms possession trials.
Thus, with respect to Walker, each of the statements fall squarely
within the Richardson exception to Bruton. Neither Quinn’s
statement to Taylor nor Conwill’s testimony about Quinn’s municipal
court statements, that he was the one driving the Grand Am,
directly inculpate Walker in perjury. They reflect that Quinn said
in municipal court that he was driving the Grand Am, and do not
refer, directly or indirectly, to Walker or to his testimony in the
firearms possession trials.
Quinn’s statements to Seaton that his “home boy took the rap
for him” and that his “home boy” was not driving the car do not
facially implicate Walker. See United States v. Basey, 816 F.2d
980, 1005 (5th Cir. 1987) (the out-of-court statement must “clearly
implicate the codefendant”). To deduce inculpation of Walker from
Quinn’s statements about his “home boy” would require the jury to
draw inferences from other evidence at the trial. See Wilson, 116
F.3d at 1083 (finding no Bruton violation where other evidence from
trial was necessary to complete inference that person referred to
in testimony as “man in the sack” was defendant). Because the
identity of Walker within the statement by Quinn is not evident on
the face of the statement, the statement falls within the
Richardson exception to Bruton.
9
Therefore, because the four out-of-court statements by Quinn
of which Walker complains fall within the well-established
Richardson exception, we conclude that their admission did not
constitute a Bruton violation.4
B. Insufficiency of the evidence.
Walker contends that there was insufficient evidence to
support his conviction of perjury. In considering insufficiency of
the evidence claims, the court reviews the evidence to determine
whether a rational trier of fact, after considering all the
evidence and reasonable inferences drawn therefrom in a light most
favorable to the verdict, could have found the defendant guilty
beyond a reasonable doubt of the offense charged. United States v.
Carrillo-Morales, 27 F.3d 1054, 1064 (5th Cir. 1994).
At trial, Hall identified Quinn as the Grand Am’s driver when
its driver rolled down his window at the intersection and looked at
him; Conwill identified Quinn as the driver and sole occupant of
the Grand Am when he attempted to apprehend the driver at the
improvised roadblock; Byrd, the court clerk, testified that Walker
was in City Court at the time of the chase; Kilan’s description of
4
Because we find that Walker’s Bruton claim is without merit,
we must find that his contention that the district court abused its
discretion in denying his motion of severance is equally without
merit. United States v. Park, 531 F.2d 754, 761-62 (5th Cir. 1976)
(denial of severance reviewed for abuse of discretion). Severance
is improper where there is no direct incrimination by the
codefendant. United States v. Beaumont, 972 F.2d 91, 95 (5th Cir.
1992) (“[s]everance of the trials is proper . . . only in cases
where a defendant's statement directly incriminates his or her
co-defendants without reference to other, admissible evidence”).
10
the driver fit Quinn but not Walker; and the firearms possession
trial transcripts reflected that Walker testified that he was
driving the Grand Am during the chase. Viewing this evidence in
the light most favorable to the verdict, a reasonable fact finder
could have found Walker guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, even in
the face of the testimony of three witnesses to the contrary. In
fact, Walker, himself, argues that the contrary testimony would
create a reasonable doubt only if Quinn’s out-of-court statements
to Seaton, Taylor and Conwill were to be excluded as Bruton
violations. Because there was no Bruton violation in the admission
of Quinn’s statements (which further implicate Walker when taken
with the other evidence), and also because of the independent
strength of the prosecution’s other evidence, we conclude that
there was sufficient evidence to support Walker’s perjury
conviction.
C. Sentencing Guidelines.
Section 2J1.3 of the U.S.S.G. applies to, inter alia, a
sentence based on a conviction for perjury. However, § 2J1.3 also
provides that “[i]f the offense involved perjury, . . . apply §
2X3.1 (Accessory After the Fact) in respect to that criminal
offense, if the result is greater than that determined above.”
Section 2X3.1 provides for a base offense level of six levels lower
than the offense level for the underlying offense. The district
court found the underlying offense of Walker’s perjury to be
Quinn’s firearms possession (base offense level of 22), which made
11
for a perjury base offense level for Walker of 16 (one level higher
than what would have been applicable under § 2J1.3 without
application of § 2X3.1). Walker contends that subornation of
perjury should have been the underlying offense used, rather than
the firearms possession. This argument is without merit.
In referring to the accessory-after-the-fact guideline, the
perjury sentencing guideline essentially directs the sentencing
court to determine to what crime Walker’s perjury made him an
accessory-after-the-fact. That crime was Quinn’s firearms
possession offense. It was in Quinn’s firearms possession trial
that Walker perjured himself. Walker’s perjury had the potential
to help Quinn evade the firearms possession conviction. The counts
of the indictment concerning Walker’s perjury were based on his
testimony at the firearms possession trial. Walker’s perjury
conviction does not turn on whether Quinn suborned that perjury,
but only on whether Walker made false declarations under oath about
a material fact in the firearms possession case.5
II. Quinn’s appeal
A. Alleged Bruton violation.
5
We also reject Walker’s contention that the offense level
increase for a stolen firearm should not apply. The Guidelines
mandate the increase, regardless of the defendant’s knowledge that
the gun was stolen. U.S.S.G. § 2K2.1, Application Note 19; see
also United States v. Singleton, 946 F.2d 23, 27 (5th Cir. 1991)
(holding that defendant’s knowledge of whether gun was stolen was
irrelevant to court’s upward adjustment of sentence for stolen
gun); United States v. Dancy, 947 F.2d 1232, 1234 (5th Cir. 1991)
(remanding for resentencing where the upward level adjustment was
not applied to defendant who did not know the gun was stolen).
12
1. The constitutional violation.
Quinn contends that a Bruton violation was triggered by the
admission of Taylor’s testimony as to Walker’s statement that
“Quinn was going to pay [Walker] $5,000 and give him two ounces of
cocaine if he won the case.” Quinn contends that admission of this
testimony was a clear violation of his Sixth Amendment right of
confrontation as defined by Bruton. Bruton, 391 U.S. at 127. The
government, however, argues that Walker’s statement was not offered
to prove Quinn suborned perjury, but to show that Walker had
knowledge of the perjury and the intent to commit perjury. It is
unclear from this argument whether the government is claiming that
Bruton would not apply in this case because Walker’s out-of-court
statement does not amount to inadmissible hearsay at all, or
whether the government is claiming that Walker’s statement, since
it was not intended to prejudice Quinn, should be added to the list
of “firmly rooted” hearsay exceptions that are also Bruton
exceptions. Because of this ambiguity, we address both
implications.
The Supreme Court has in one case directed that the confession
of one defendant, inculpating his codefendant, when not introduced
to prove the guilt of that codefendant, may not fall within the
purview of Bruton. Tennessee v. Street, 471 U.S. 409 (1985).
Street, however, is distinguishable from the instant case in two
respects: 1) The implicated codefendant had testified, and the
defendant’s out-of-court statement was being used specifically to
impeach that testimony, not to prove the truth of any of the
13
matters asserted within the out-of-court statement, id. at 412, and
2) before the out-of-court statement was introduced, the jury was
twice instructed that it was not being introduced to prove the
assertions contained within it, but to impeach the codefendant’s
testimony. Id. at 413.
In the present case, however, Quinn did not testify, and the
record reveals no attempt to clearly instruct or warn the jury that
Walker’s out-of-court statement was not being introduced to prove
that Quinn had offered Walker cocaine and money to commit perjury,
either before it was introduced in Taylor’s testimony or at the end
of the trial. Where these warnings are absent, we cannot assume
that the statement will not be “misused by the jury.” Id. at 414-
15. Because the Street court relied on these instructions to the
jury to distinguish the holding in Bruton, and because such
instructions are absent here, we must find that Bruton still
applies in the present case.
The government argues for expansion of the list of “firmly
rooted” hearsay exceptions to include any out-of-court statement
that is not introduced to prove the truth of the matter asserted.
In seeking to add such an exception to Bruton, the government asks
us to stretch Roberts and Saks beyond the scope of their holdings.
The Court in Roberts makes clear that all of the exceptions to the
hearsay rule are not to be considered as exceptions to the
guarantees of the Confrontation Clause. Roberts, 448 U.S. at 62-
63. The Court notes that the hearsay rules are “riddled with
exceptions developed over three centuries,” and that these
14
exceptions “vary among jurisdictions as to number, nature, and
detail.” Id at 62. When the Court in Roberts excepted from the
Confrontation Clause guarantee those statements that “fall[] within
a firmly rooted hearsay exception,” id. at 66, it did so with the
understanding that every exception to the hearsay rule is not
“firmly rooted.”
In Saks, this court deliberated very cautiously before adding
Rule 801(d)(2)(D) to the list of these “firmly rooted” hearsay
exceptions. Careful and thorough consideration is required of a
court entertaining an argument for a new exception to Bruton and
the Sixth Amendment. “In all cases the constitutional safeguards
are to be jealously preserved for the benefit of the accused, but
especially is this true where the scales of justice may be
delicately poised between guilt and innocence.” Glasser v. United
States, 315 U.S. 60, 67 (1942) (in considering a Sixth Amendment
claim). With this “jealous[] preserv[ation]” in mind, the Saks
court recognized an addition to the list of “firmly rooted” hearsay
exceptions only after evaluating how “rooted in our jurisprudence,”
Saks, 964 F.2d at 1525, was the particular hearsay exception as
correlative with an indicia of unquestionable reliability. Id. We
exercise the same caution in determining whether the government’s
proffered hearsay exception is “firmly rooted” enough to serve as
a Bruton exception.
The Roberts Court stated that the Confrontation Clause would
only countenance “hearsay marked with such . . . ‘indicia of
reliability which have been widely viewed as determinative of
15
whether a statement may be placed before the jury though there is
no confrontation of the declarant.’” Roberts, 448 U.S. at 65(quoting Mancusi v. Stubbs, 408 U.S. 204, 213 (1972)). Each of the
hearsay exceptions listed by the Saks court contains such an
indicia of reliability. The agency and co-conspirator exceptions
specifically provided for in Rules of Evidence 801(d)(2)(D) and
(E), and the medical examination and spontaneous declaration
exceptions are all excepted because statements falling within them
carry a strong “indicia of reliability.”
A stalwart “indicia of reliability” is not inherent in every
statement introduced for a purpose other than to prove the truth of
the matter asserted, however. The government’s proposed addition
to the list of “firmly rooted” hearsay exceptions would eviscerate
the Bruton rule, allowing the introduction of out-of-court
statements by unconfronted declarants inculpating the defendant,
but having no particular indicia of reliability, so long as they
were offered for a purpose other than to prove the truth of the
matter asserted. If we allowed this exception to Bruton, we would
be guilty of not “jealously preserving” the Sixth Amendment
“constitutional safeguards,” as we are clearly directed to do. See
Glasser, 315 U.S. at 67. To make such an addition to the list of
hearsay exceptions that double as Bruton exceptions would be
counter to this circuit’s deliberately cautious approach in Saks
and to the Supreme Court’s reasoning in Roberts. Consequently, we
must hold that the admission of Walker’s direct implication of
Quinn in his out-of-court statement was a violation of Quinn’s
16
Sixth Amendment right to confrontation as it is defined in Bruton,
and therefore an abuse of discretion. See Fletcher, 121 F.3d at
197.
2. Harmless Error Analysis.
Since the Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Chapman v.
California, 386 U.S. 18 (1967), in which it adopted the general
rule that a constitutional error does not automatically require
reversal of a conviction, the Court has applied harmless error
analysis to a wide range of errors and has recognized that most
constitutional errors can be harmless, including the admission of
the out-of-court statement of a non-testifying codefendant in
violation of the Sixth Amendment Counsel Clause. Id., citing, inter
alia, Brown v. United States, 411 U.S. 223, 231-232 (1973).
Accordingly, the erroneous admission of Walker’s out-of-court
statement that directly tended to show Quinn’s guilt of subornation
will not require reversal of the conviction if the prosecution can
“show ‘beyond a reasonable doubt that the error complained of did
not contribute to the verdict obtained.’” Sullivan v. Louisiana,
508 U.S. 275, 279 (1993), quoting Chapman, 386 U.S. at 24. Thus,
“the question [Chapman] instructs the reviewing court to consider
is not what effect the constitutional error might generally be
expected to have upon a reasonable jury, but rather what effect it
had upon the guilty verdict in the case at hand.” Id., citing
Chapman, supra, at 24 (analyzing effect of error on “verdict
obtained”). In other words, “[h]armless-error review looks, we
17
have said, to the basis on which the jury actually rested its
verdict.’” Id., quoting Yates v. Evatt, 500 U.S. 391, 404 (1991)
(emphasis added). The inquiry is “whether the guilty verdict
actually rendered in this trial was surely unattributable to the
error.” Id. (underline added); see also O’Neal v. McAninch, 513
U.S. 432, 435 (1995) (in conducting a harmless error analysis, the
court should examine whether the error affected the jury’s
verdict); Harry T. Edwards, To Err is Human, but not Always
Harmless: When Should Legal Error be Tolerated?, 70 N.Y.U. L. Rev.
1167, 1201 (1996) (“Sullivan seems to swing the focus of harmless-
error analysis back where Chapman and Kotteakos directed it: to the
effect that an error may have had upon the verdict actually
rendered”). Applying the Chapman standard, we conclude that the
prosecution has carried its burden of showing beyond a reasonable
doubt that the error complained of did not contribute to the guilty
verdict in the case at hand.
The jury’s guilty verdict regarding Quinn’s subornation of
perjury count must reflect a two-pronged finding: (1) That there
was false testimony material to the indicted crime, and (2) that
the accused said or did something to influence the person providing
the false material testimony to do so. United States v. Brumley,
560 F.2d 1268, 1275-76 (5th Cir. 1977).
Quinn does not contest the jury’s finding of the first prong,
i.e., that Walker testified falsely as to a fact material to proof
of the charged offense. In this particular case, however, because
of the nature of the testimony and the kind of relationship between
18
the defendants, evidence relevant to one prong tends to be equally
probative as to the other. It is extremely unlikely that a person,
who gives intentionally untrue testimony incriminating himself in
order to exonerate another, does so without some persuasion or
inducement by the beneficiary of his false swearing. Completely
uninvited self-incriminating testimony may be somewhat more likely
if the witness is closely related to the beneficiary by blood or
marriage. Quinn and Walker, however, are merely acquaintances.
Consequently, in the present case, every piece of evidence that
tends to prove that Walker’s self-incriminating testimony was false
also tends to prove that Quinn persuaded or induced Walker to so
testify in behalf of an acquittal on Quinn’s firearms possession
charge.
Independently of Wallace’s out-of-court statement, the
prosecution introduced substantial evidence tending to prove that
Quinn instigated, persuaded or induced, and thus suborned, Walker’s
false testimony: (1) Two eyewitnesses positively identified Quinn
as the driver of the Grand Am during the chase; (2) A third
eyewitness described the driver as resembling Quinn but not Walker;
(3) Quinn’s testimony in city court, in an attempt to exculpate
himself from separate charges arising from the chase, related that
he had driven the Grand Am to a mechanic on the day of the chase,
and did not relate that Walker had driven the Grand Am that day;
(4) The city court clerk testified that Walker was in court at the
time of the Grand Am chase; (5) Taylor testified that Walker
admitted to falsely swearing for Quinn; (6) Seaton testified that
19
Quinn claimed his “home boy” had taken the rap for him; (7) Taylor
testified that Quinn had attempted to suborn perjury from him
before he approached Walker; (8) Walker testified in Quinn’s
firearms possession case that he drove the Grand Am during the
chase and illegally possessed the firearms; (9) the foreman of the
jury that convicted Quinn of the firearms violation testified that
the identity of the Grand Am’s driver was a major issue in
determining whether Quinn had possessed the firearms.
A consideration relevant to whether the verdict was “surely
unattributable” to the Bruton violation is the degree of importance
placed on Walker’s out-of-court statement by the prosecution in its
presentation and argument of the case to the jury. The emphasis,
or lack thereof, placed on the statement by the prosecution can
affect the perception of that statement by the jurors. See
Delaware v. Van Arsdall, 475 U.S. 673, 684 (1986) (looking to the
importance of the erroneously admitted testimony to the
prosecution’s case in resolving a harmless error analysis). In its
direct examination of Taylor, the prosecution did not specifically
ask Taylor whether Walker said that he had been induced to testify
by Quinn, or seek to emphasize the portion of Walker’s statement
referring to Walker’s expectation of reward if Quinn were to be
acquitted; in Taylor’s testimony, that portion of Walker’s
statement followed a larger portion wherein Taylor related that
Walker confessed to testifying falsely at Quinn’s firearms
20
possession trial.6 The prosecution did not question Taylor further
about Quinn’s inducement or persuasion of Walker’s testimony, and
did not re-visit the issue in its redirect. In its closing
argument, the prosecution did not refer at all to the allusion to
a possible reward in Walker’s out-of-court statement.7
6
Specifically, Walker’s statement about Quinn’s offer of
money and cocaine emerged in Taylor’s testimony as follows:
Q: . . . Where did you go after you were
playing basketball?
A: I went and found Santonio and asked him if
he had testified at Quinn’s trial, and he told
me yeah. He told me that he testified that he
was driving the car.
[Quinn’s attorney objects on the basis of
Bruton, and is overruled by the court, then:]
Q: What did Santonio Walker say when you asked
him had he testified in Quinn’s trial?
A: He said he had testified that he was
driving the car and that the gun was his. He
said that Quinn was going to pay him $5,000
and give him two ounces of cocaine if he won
the case.
[Quinn’s attorney asks for a continuing
objection, which is granted, then:]
Q: What did Santonio Walker say about what had
happened when he testified? . . .
7
Regarding the subornation count, the prosecution related:
Then Quinn tried to get Robert Taylor to be a
witness. Taylor refused. The next thing you
know is Santonio Walker is that witness. Then
Santonio Walker over in January of this year
told Robert Taylor that he lied at Quinn’s
trial. You know that Quinn told Rodney Seaton
that he had been the one in the car but one of
his buddies had testified that it was him
instead of Quinn and so he shouldn’t be even
having a problem with it but that one of his
buddies had taken the rap for it . . .. He
persuaded one of his buddies, Santonio Walker,
to give perjury.
21
Additionally, no other testimony introduced at the trial had as a
foundation information contained in Walker’s out-of-court
statement. Thus, exclusion of that statement would not have
undermined the probative effect of any other evidence.
Considering the error complained of in the context of the
entire body of evidence presented by the prosecution, and taking
into account the lack of emphasis placed upon the erroneously
admitted material by the prosecution and the insignificant effect
its exclusion would have had on the government’s case, we conclude
that the prosecution has shown beyond a reasonable doubt that the
error did not contribute to the verdict of guilt of subornation of
perjury rendered against Quinn. In other words, Quinn’s
conviction was “surely unattributable” to the Bruton violation.
Admission of the statement, therefore, did not constitute
reversible error.
B. Alleged Rule 404(b) violation.
Taylor testified that Quinn approached Taylor and asked him to
lie for him in the firearms possession trials. Quinn contends that
admission of Taylor’s testimony in the subornation of perjury trial
was tantamount to admitting evidence of “other crimes,” extrinsic
to the indicted crime of suborning Walker’s perjury in violation of
Fed. R. Evid. 404(b). This court reviews admissibility of evidence
questions for abuse of discretion. United States v. Pace, 10 F.3d
1106, 1114-15 (5th Cir. 1993).
Taylor’s testimony is not governed by Rule 404(b), because it
22
did not describe acts extrinsic to those in the indicted crime.
Simply stated, an uncharged crime arising from the same transaction
should not be considered extrinsic for 404(b) purposes. United
States v. Dula, 989 F.2d 777 (5th Cir. 1993); see also United
States v. Maceo, 947 F.2d 1191, 1199 (5th Cir. 1991), cert. denied,
503 U.S. 949 (1992). Quinn’s attempt to suborn perjury from Taylor
was part of the same transaction of shopping for an alibi of which
the subornation of Walker’s perjury was a part.
In United States v. Aleman, 592 F.2d 881 (5th Cir. 1979), this
court explained:
The extrinsic acts rule is based on the fear
that the jury will use evidence that the
defendant has, at other times, committed bad
acts to convict him of the charged offense.
In the usual case, the “other acts” occurred
at different times and under different
circumstances from the crime charged. The
policies underlying the rule are simply
inapplicable when some offenses committed in
a single criminal episode become “other acts”
because the defendant is indicted for less
than all of his actions.
Id. at 885; see also United States v. Moeller, 80 F.3d 1053, 1060
(5th Cir. 1996) (where the evidence is not extrinsic, there was no
error in admitting it). Because Quinn was seeking to suborn
perjury, to gain an alibi for possession of a firearm, all of his
actions in attempting to elicit that particular perjury and gain
that particular alibi were part of the “same criminal episode.”
The district court did not abuse its discretion in admitting
23
this testimony.
C. Alleged Sixth Amendment violation.
Seaton’s testimony about Quinn’s Thanksgiving night confession
regarded a conversation Seaton and Quinn had while cellmates
following Quinn’s firearms possession conviction. Quinn argues
that admission of this testimony violated his Sixth Amendment right
to counsel. See Massiah v. United States, 377 U.S. 201, 206 (1964)
(“[defendant] was denied the basic protections of [the Sixth
Amendment guarantee to counsel] when there was used against him at
his trial evidence of his own incriminating words, which federal
agents had deliberately elicited from him after he had been
indicted and in the absence of his counsel”). We review
constitutional challenges de novo. United States v. Asibor, 109
F.3d 1023, 1037 (5th Cir. 1997); see also United States v.
Hamilton, 128 F.3d 996, 999 (6th Cir. 1997) (reviewing
constitutional challenge to admission of evidence de novo).
We need not address the question of whether admission of
Quinn’s volunteered statement to Seaton or his answer to Seaton’s
follow-up question was the product of a deliberate design to elicit
incriminating information8; there was no violation of Quinn’s Sixth
8
See Kuhlman v. Wilson, 477 U.S. 436 (1986) (holding that no
Sixth Amendment violation had occurred where the defendant’s
statements to the informant were volunteered and the volunteering
of the information was precipitated by events beyond the
informant’s control); see also Maine v. Moulton, 474 U.S. 159, 177
n.13 (1985) (Sixth Amendment right to an attorney violated when the
informant "frequently pressed . . . for details of [crime] and in
so doing elicited much incriminating information”).
24
Amendment right to counsel because that right had not yet attached
at the time of his statements. See Kuhlman v. Wilson, 477 U.S.
436, 456 (1986) (right to counsel not violated where Sixth
Amendment protections had not yet attached); United States v.
Henry, 447 U.S. 264, 272 (1980) (same); Massiah, 377 U.S. at 206(same). Sixth Amendment protections are offense-specific. Maine
v. Moulton, 474 U.S. 159, 180 n.16 (1985); Hurst v. United States,
370 F.2d 161, 165 (5th Cir. 1967). In Kirby v. Illinois, 406 U.S.
682 (1972), a plurality of the Court concluded that the right to
counsel for an offense attaches at the initiating point of the
adversarial process.9 Id. at 689; see also McNeil v. Wisconsin,
501 U.S. 171, 175 (1991) (right to counsel is offense-specific, not
attaching until the commencement of adverse judicial criminal
proceedings).
Even without a clear, fact-based delineation marking when the
9
The Kirby court reasoned that:
[t]he initiation of judicial criminal
proceedings is far from mere formalism. It is
the starting point of our whole system of
adversary criminal justice. For it is only
then that the government has committed itself
to prosecute, and only then that the adverse
positions of government and defendant have
solidified. It is then that the defendant
finds himself faced with the prosecutorial
forces of organized society, and immersed in
the intricacies of substantive and procedural
law. It is this point, therefore, that marks
the commencement of the “criminal
prosecutions” to which alone the explicit
guarantees of the Sixth Amendment are
applicable. Kirby, 406 U.S. at 689-90.
25
Sixth Amendment right to counsel attaches,10 we can determine that
adverse judicial criminal proceedings had not commenced at the
point when Quinn made his remarks to Seaton. Quinn’s admissions to
Seaton occurred on Thanksgiving night in 1995. Under the facts of
the present case, adverse criminal proceedings on Quinn’s
subornation offense did not commence until months later. Quinn was
indicted for subornation of perjury on July 24, 1996. His initial
hearing was not held until August 5, 1996, and counsel was not
appointed until August 6, 1996. Under all theories, there was a
delay of several months between Quinn’s statements to Seaton and
the starting point of the adverse criminal judicial proceedings
against Quinn on the subornation offense. We conclude, therefore,
that Quinn’s Sixth Amendment right to counsel had not yet attached
with respect to this offense at the time of his Thanksgiving 1995
statements.
Quinn argues, however, that the subornation of perjury charge
was “inextricably intertwined” with the firearms possession charge.
Where the offense for which incriminating comments are being
elicited is inextricably intertwined with an offense to which the
Sixth Amendment protections have already attached, those
protections cover both offenses. United States v. Laury, 49 F.3d
10The plurality in Kirby declined to mark the commencement of
adverse criminal judicial proceedings at a particular point, noting
that the commencement point has been variously identified as the
“formal charge, preliminary hearing, indictment, information, or
arraignment.” Kirby, 406 U.S. at 689; see also McNeil, 501 U.S. at
175 (also declining to delineate a fact-based rule of when the
Sixth Amendment right attaches).
26
145, 150, n.11 (5th Cir. 1995) (citing United States v. Carpenter,
963 F.2d 736, 740 (5th Cir.), cert. denied 506 U.S. 927 (1992)).
Quinn maintains that, because the same evidence (concerning whether
Quinn was driving the Grand Am) was crucial to both offenses, the
firearms possession and the subornation of perjury offenses are
inextricably intertwined.
Quinn’s reliance on the similarity of the evidence as the
standard of whether the two offenses are inextricably intertwined
is misplaced. The Moulton court identifies the correct standard as
whether the conduct leading to each offense is the same. Moulton,
474 U.S. at 179-80. Possession of a firearm and subornation of
perjury involve two distinct types of conduct, the one not leading
necessarily to the other. Also, the distinctly separate offenses
of firearms possession and subornation of perjury did not occur
within a close temporal proximity. See Carpenter, 963 F.2d at 741
(no close relatedness of offenses where the warrant for one
predated the events leading up to the warrant for the other).
Using the standards applied in Moulton and Carpenter, we
cannot find that the subornation of perjury charge was so
inextricably intertwined with the firearms possession charge that
Quinn’s Sixth Amendment right to counsel, as triggered by the
firearms possession charge, attached also to his subornation of
perjury charge at the time of his statements to Seaton. Therefore,
there was no Sixth Amendment violation in the admission of any of
Quinn’s statements to Seaton.
27
Conclusion
Finding no reversible error in the disposition of this matter
by the district court, the defendants’ CONVICTIONS and SENTENCES
ARE AFFIRMED.
28