U.S. v. Bettencourt

• Citation: 614 F.2d 214
• Decision Date: 22 February 1980
• Docket Number: No. 79-1276,79-1276
• Parties: 5 Fed. R. Evid. Serv. 976 UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. David G. BETTENCOURT, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (9th Circuit)

Page 214

614 F.2d 214

5 Fed. R. Evid. Serv. 976

UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. David G. BETTENCOURT, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 79-1276.

United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit.

Feb. 22, 1980.

Michael A. Weight, Weight & Ellsworth, Honolulu, Hawaii, for defendant-appellant.

Walter M. Heen, U. S. Atty., Honolulu, Hawaii, on brief; Elliot Enoki, Asst. U. S. Atty., Honolulu, Hawaii, for plaintiff-appellee.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Hawaii.

Before WRIGHT, GOODWIN and SCHROEDER, Circuit Judges.

GOODWIN, Circuit Judge:

David Bettencourt appeals his conviction under 18 U.S.C. § 111 for interfering with a federal officer in the performance of his official duties. Bettencourt asserts that he was deprived of due process by prosecutorial misconduct before the grand jury, that testimony concerning his prior state arrest was improperly admitted, and that the trial judge incorrectly instructed the jury on the elements of the offense charged. We affirm the conviction.

On May 30, 1978, Bettencourt, an attorney, was in the basement of the Federal Building in Honolulu to observe a search of a client's car by Secret Service agents. He had obtained permission from the local special agent in charge to be present during the search. Once the search began, Bettencourt started photographing the agents' actions. When the agents told Bettencourt that taking pictures was prohibited in the Federal Building, he persisted, and the agents consequently decided to postpone the search.

The agents then attempted to move the car from the search area to another part of the basement which was enclosed by a chain-link fence, but Bettencourt prevented this move by standing behind the car. Bettencourt blocked the car until he was assured that it was not being moved out of the building, but only into a secured area, and that the search was not to be continued, but would be resumed at some later time. As the car was being moved into the secured area, Bettencourt attempted to force his way past Special Agent Donald Wilson, who was closing the gate to the enclosure. In attempting to enter the secured area, Bettencourt twice struck Agent Wilson with blows which witnesses variously described as "body blocks" or "shoves". The agents then took Bettencourt into custody. The search was completed in his absence.

A grand jury subsequently indicted Bettencourt for violating 18 U.S.C. § 111, charging, in part, that he "did forcibly assault, impede, intimidate And interfere with Special Agent Donald Wilson * * *." (Emphasis added.) The conjunctive wording of this indictment did not track the disjunctive language of the statute. ¹

Two events that are relevant to this appeal occurred at trial. First, the district court, over objection, admitted testimony that Bettencourt had been arrested for interfering with local police officers during the course of a search on August 9, 1977, 21 months before the incident in the Federal Building. Honolulu Police Department Detective Samuel Foster, relying on another officer's report, testified that Bettencourt had been arrested after attempting to prevent police from entering a client's home by blocking the doorway, because the officers did not have a search warrant. Bettencourt disputed this description of the incident, but, whatever the truth, it is apparent that Bettencourt was not prosecuted following his arrest and that he was later successful in having his arrest record expunged. The district judge admitted Detective Foster's testimony under Fed.R.Evid. 404(b) (evidence of an act going to prove Bettencourt's knowledge or intent).

The second relevant trial event occurred when the trial judge, again over objection, instructed the jury on the essential elements of the offense, adopting the disjunctive phrasing of the statute rather than the conjunctive language of the indictment.

Bettencourt argues, first, that two broad types of prosecutorial misconduct, use of "perjured" testimony and "slanted" presentation of applicable law, deprived him of due process before the grand jury. This contention is without merit.

In United States v. Basurto, 497 F.2d 781 (9th Cir. 1974), this court found that a prosecutor's presentation of perjured testimony relating to a material matter resulted in a denial of due process before a grand jury. More recent decisions from this circuit have suggested that prosecutorial misconduct must be "flagrant" to violate due process. See, e. g., United States v. Vargas-Rios, 607 F.2d 831 (9th Cir. 1979); United States v. Kennedy, 564 F.2d 1329, 1338 (9th Cir. 1977), Cert. denied, 435 U.S. 944, 98 S.Ct. 1526, 55 L.Ed.2d 541 (1978). Nothing in the record of this case supports an inference that the prosecutor was aware of any inaccuracy in the testimony presented. Nor were the alleged inaccuracies material.

Similarly, any "slanting" or evasiveness by the prosecutor in responding to grand jurors' questions concerning Bettencourt's legal rights while in the Federal Building did not so mislead or prejudice the grand jury as to deny due process. The grand jury transcript demonstrates the panel's independence in exploring Bettencourt's authority to observe and photograph the search. Any prosecutorial misconduct in this respect does not warrant reversing Bettencourt's conviction under our necessarily limited review of the underlying indictment. See United States v. Chanen, 549 F.2d 1306 (9th Cir.), Cert. denied, 434 U.S. 825, 98 S.Ct. 72, 54 L.Ed.2d 83 (1977).

Bettencourt next contends that the admission of evidence concerning his earlier state arrest was improper for three reasons. First, he claims that the police record upon which Detective Foster relied in testifying was Jencks Act material which the government had agreed to disclose to Bettencourt before trial but had not disclosed. Second, he claims that evidence concerning the prior incident was inadmissible under Fed.R.Evid. 403. And, finally, because the state arrest had been expunged, he claims that Detective Foster's testimony violated Bettencourt's "reasonable expectation of privacy" concerning his arrest.

We reject Bettencourt's arguments concerning the release of Jencks Act material. Even if, as Bettencourt claims, the prosecutors agreed to release all Jencks Act statements before trial in return for Bettencourt's withdrawal of his motion for a bill of particulars, ² the police report upon which Detective Foster relied was not a "statement" discoverable under the Jencks Act.

The applicable section of the Jencks Act, 18 U.S.C. § 3500(e)(1), defines a "statement" as "a written statement made by (a) witness and signed or otherwise adopted or approved by him". For purposes of the Act, then, "only those statements which could properly be called the witness' own words should be made available to the defense for purposes of impeachment." Palermo v. United States, 360 U.S. 343, 352, 79 S.Ct. 1217, 1224, 3 L.Ed.2d 1287 (1959). Here, the report on which Detective Foster relied was prepared by another Honolulu police officer, James Nobriga; consequently, the statement which Bettencourt asserts should have been disclosed was not "made by" the witness Foster, and thus, was not a "statement" under the Act. ³

Bettencourt correctly argues, however, that Detective Foster's testimony should have been excluded under Fed.R.Evid. 403 because, even if the testimony was relevant, its prejudicial effect "substantially outweighed" its probative value. ⁴ The trial court admitted this testimony under Fed.R.Evid. 404(b), as evidence of a prior similar act going to establish Bettencourt's state of mind during the incidents at the Federal Building. ⁵ Under either Rule 403 or Rule 404(b), in order for the evidence of prior similar acts to be admissible, its probative value must exceed the potential prejudicial effect of its admission. See United States v. Hernandez-Miranda, 601 F.2d 1104, 1107-09 (9th Cir. 1979); United States v. Brashier, 548 F.2d 1315, 1325 (9th Cir. 1976), Cert. denied, 429 U.S. 1111, 97 S.Ct. 1149, 51 L.Ed.2d 565 (1977). Detective Foster's testimony did not satisfy that requirement.

The probative value of the evidence in establishing Bettencourt's specific intent was minimal. The evidence may have tended to prove a turbulent or quarrelsome disposition, but that kind of proof was not relevant in this case. While the offense for which Bettencourt was arrested by the Honolulu police was similar to the one charged here, that incident occurred almost two years earlier. Moreover, except to prove Bettencourt's propensity to resort to self help, a commentary on his character, there is no rational connection between the two occurrences. The government does not claim that Bettencourt was engaged in a continuing pattern or practice of assaulting police officers. In a related sense, although the testimony was slightly probative of Bettencourt's intent at the time of the alleged crime, specific intent to assault or impede is not ordinarily transferrable to events two years apart. Discrete intent, spontaneously resulting from a unique set of circumstances, is the more usual case. ⁶

A showing of intent to assault on an earlier occasion proves little, if anything, about an intent to assault at some later time. ⁷ Finally, Bettencourt was never prosecuted or convicted following his state arrest, so his state of mind in the prior incident may have been wholly innocent. At best it remains unknown. The first episode proved nothing about specific intent. Because intent on that earlier occasion was never proved, there is no basis for inferring that Bettencourt intended to assault or interfere with the state officers then, or with federal officers now. Detective Foster's testimony, based on another officer's report, was not only hearsay, but useless hearsay. It established no basis for an inference one way or another. See United States v. Brashier, 548 F.2d at 1325.

Balanced against the minimal...