U.S. v. Coachman
| Citation | 234 U.S. App. D.C. 194,727 F.2d 1293 |
| Decision Date | 09 March 1984 |
| Docket Number | No. 81-2301,81-2301 |
| Parties | , 15 Fed. R. Evid. Serv. 54 UNITED STATES of America v. Albert W. COACHMAN, Appellant. |
| Court | United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (District of Columbia) |
Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Columbia (Criminal No. 81-00090).
Larry J. Ritchie, Washington, D.C., for appellant.
Katherine Winfree, Asst. U.S. Atty., Washington, D.C., with whom John A. Terry, Asst. U.S. Atty., at time brief was filed, Washington, D.C., and Stanley S. Harris, U.S. Atty., at time brief was filed, Washington, D.C., were on brief, for appellee. John R. Fisher and Charles H. Roistacher, Asst. U.S. Attys., Washington, D.C., also entered appearances for appellee.
Before ROBINSON, Chief Judge, WALD, Circuit Judge, and SWYGERT, * Senior Circuit Judge.
Opinion for the Court filed by Chief Judge SPOTTSWOOD W. ROBINSON, III.
After trial by a jury, Albert W. Coachman was found guilty on 54 counts--18 each of mail fraud, 1 theft of Government property, 2 and false claims against the Government. 3 He was sentenced to concurrent terms of imprisonment for five years on each of the counts of mail fraud and theft, and to concurrent terms of three years on each of the counts of false claims, the three-year sentences to be served consecutively to those for five years. 4 Coachman attacks the convictions on grounds that evidence was erroneously admitted and then was improperly shielded from impeachment. Additionally, he claims that the Double Jeopardy Clause of the Fifth Amendment 5 barred any consecutiveness in the sentences. We reject Coachman's evidentiary challenges and find the sentences permissible.
As a clerk in the Finance and Accounting Office of the Military District of Washington, Coachman serviced the payroll of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA). In this role he established accounts for new employees, adjusted individual payroll records, and closed accounts of terminated employees. These activities required Coachman to prepare computer documents calling for salary payments to employees and computer records of changes made in the payroll.
In the course of a routine audit, investigators detected discrepancies in the DIA payroll. The audit revealed that five individuals receiving DIA pay checks were not DIA employees, and that the agency lacked records authorizing their placement on the payroll. DIA then examined all documents submitted for the payroll during the following two pay periods, and found computer-generated forms, bearing Coachman's initials and payroll number, directing preparation and mailing of pay checks to the five non-employees. Further investigation unearthed 34 such checks issued on Coachman's instructions, of which 31 had been mailed and later paid on presentment, with a resulting loss of about $38,000 to the Government.
The indictment against Coachman charged a scheme to defraud the Government. It alleged that Coachman, without authority, placed the names of the five non-employees on the DIA payroll, and periodically submitted paperwork falsely representing that they were entitled to salary payments. The indictment averred that Coachman thus caused pay checks to be distributed through the mails to these non-employees and cashed by them, and that he shared the proceeds of the checks with the payees. The indictment theorized mail fraud through mailing of the ill-gotten checks, false claims against the Government through their presentment for payment, and theft from the Government through their cashing.
At trial, the Government called a number of witnesses and introduced numerous exhibits into evidence. Coachman offered no evidence and was convicted on all counts. Coachman challenges the handling of an item of the Government's proof and raises the specter of a double jeopardy violation through consecutive sentencing.
The evidentiary issue centers on the introduction of a confession by one Gary Ballard, who was separately indicted as a participant in the criminal plot. Pursuant to a plea bargain prior to Coachman's trial, Ballard pleaded guilty to a single count of false claims against the Government. When called by the Government as a witness against Coachman, however, Ballard refused to answer any questions. The Government then offered, and was permitted to place in evidence, a Secret Service agent's recapitulation of an inculpatory statement made by Ballard after his arrest.
Coachman argues that Ballard's confession did not qualify as a declaration against interest and therefore was inadmissible hearsay. We are satisfied that the confession was not vulnerable on that ground. Rule of Evidence 804(b)(3) 6 rejects the common law requirement that the interest declared against be pecuniary or proprietary in nature, and extended the hearsay exception for such declarations to other types of self-damaging statements by an unavailable declarant, including one "which ... at the time of its making so far ... tended to subject him to ... criminal liability ... that a reasonable man in his position would not have made the statement unless he believed it to be true." 7 Ballard's confession plainly was of that character, and his refusal to testify concerning it rendered him unavailable for purposes of the rule. 8
Whether a statement is in fact against interest depends upon the circumstance of the particular case. 9 We are mindful of the Advisory Committee's warning that an in-custody statement which inculpates another as well as the speaker may have been made with a view to currying favor with law-enforcement authorities and consequently might not qualify as a declaration against penal interest. 10 Here, however, Ballard's version did not attempt to trivialize his own involvement in the nefarious scheme by shifting responsibility to his cohorts; rather, it frankly disclosed the extent of his own participation without any effort to demonstrate that others were really the ones to blame. Moreover, other evidence--such as verification of Ballard's endorsement on fraudulently-obtained payroll checks, and tracing of several contemporaneous money orders and a personal check from Ballard into Coachman's bank account--tended strongly to corroborate Ballard's confession.
However, for the very reason that Ballard's statement incriminated not only Ballard himself but Coachman as well, an entirely different problem is encountered. Admission of the confession where Ballard, because of his refusal to testify, was unavailable for cross-examination, deprived Coachman of the benefit of the Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment. 11 The case fell squarely within the Supreme Court's Bruton holding, 12 and Ballard's confession should not have been received in evidence. 13
Nonetheless, this error does not warrant reversal of Coachman's convictions. The record is replete with properly admitted evidence, both physical and testimonial, of Coachman's deep involvement in the criminal enterprise. Moreover, as we have noted, Coachman made no effort whatsoever to rebut the Government's proof in any wise. We thus are led to believe that "the 'minds of an average jury' would not have found the [Government's] case significantly less persuasive had the testimony as to [Ballard's] admissions been excluded." 14 By our estimate, "the properly admitted evidence of guilt is so overwhelming, and the prejudicial effect of [Ballard's] admission[s] is so insignificant by comparison, that it is clear beyond a reasonable doubt that the improper use of the admission[s] was harmless error." 15
Coachman also contends that the District Court's imposition of consecutive sentences on the counts charging theft of Government property and false claims against the Government transgressed the Double Jeopardy Clause. 16 He asserts that, in these 18 instances of consecutiveness, he is being punished twice for the false claims violations because, he says, each was a lesser-included offense of a theft violation for which he was convicted. We thus are brought to consider the methodology for determining whether this particular combination of consecutive sentences for Coachman's factually-related misdeeds constitutes impermissible multiple punishments.
Indubitably, the Double Jeopardy Clause sets a limit on cumulation of punishments for criminal behavior. 17 Since, however, the power to define crimes and dictate punishments for their commission is wholly legislative, 18 and is not confined to prescription of a single punishment for a single crime, 19 "the question whether punishments imposed by a court after a defendant's conviction upon criminal charges are unconstitutionally multiple cannot be resolved without determining what punishment the Legislative Branch has authorized." 20 As recently described by the Supreme Court,
"[w]here consecutive sentences are imposed at a single criminal trial, the role of the constitutional guarantee is limited to assuring that the court does not exceed its legislative authorization by imposing multiple punishments for the same offense." ... Thus, the question of what punishments are constitutionally permissible is not different from the question of what punishments the Legislative Branch intended to be imposed. Where Congress intended ... to impose multiple punishments, imposition of such sentences does not violate the Constitution. 21
The Court has also sketched a multi-step analytical process by which judges may determine whether the legislature meant to authorize cumulative punishments for conduct infringing two or more separate statutory provisions. The court should first resort to the language of each provision for possible explanation of how the punishments it prescribes relate to those authorized by the other. 22 If the provisions are silent or ambiguous on the interaction of punishments, the court should explore the...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
U.S. v. White
...20 The government is correct that under the Blockburger test we examine each relevant statute on its face. In United States v. Coachman, 727 F.2d 1293 (D.C.Cir.1984), in affirming consecutive sentences for theft and for making false claims arising from the same transactions, we observed tha......
-
U.S. v. Rosenberg
... ... in a single prosecution, our cognizance of the values at stake in successive prosecutions for greater and lesser-included offenses leads us to find a subsequent prosecution on a vicarious liability theory violative of double jeopardy ... D. Exceptions to Double Jeopardy ... United States, 420 U.S. 770, 785 n. 17, 95 S.Ct. 1284, 1293 n. 17, 43 L.Ed.2d 616 (1975). See also United ... Page 1421 ... States v. Coachman, 727 F.2d 1293, 1301-02 (D.C.Cir.1984). Moreover, because the test is designed merely to determine whether the legislature intended to create ... ...
-
U.S. v. Kimberlin, 85-1190
...the scope of a court's analysis under the Blockburger test. See, e.g., United States v. Cova, 755 F.2d at 597; United States v. Coachman, 727 F.2d 1293, 1301-02 (D.C.Cir.1984). In United States v. Woodward, --- U.S. ----, 105 S.Ct. 611, 83 L.Ed.2d 518 (1985) (per curiam), however, the Unite......
-
U.S. v. White
...52 S.Ct. 180, 76 L.Ed. 306 (1932), to determine whether concurrent punishment is barred by double jeopardy. See United States v. Coachman, 727 F.2d 1293, 1299 (D.C.Cir.1984). Blockburger allows separate punishment for the same conduct under two statutes if " 'each provision requires proof o......
-
False statements and false claims.
...implied certification theory to find defendant liable under the False Claims Act). (157.) Id. (158.) E.g., United States v. Coachman, 727 F.2d 1293, 1302 (D.C. Cir. 1984) (stating "there is no requirement that the claim has actually been (159.) 18 U.S.C. [section] 287 (2000), supra note 139......
-
Health care fraud.
...or not government was actually defrauded because knowledge of claim's falsity sufficed to support judgment); United States v. Coachman, 727 F.2d 1293, 1302 (D.C. Cir. 1984) (finding violation of 18 U.S.C. [section] 287 where defendant presented a claim knowing it to be "false, fictitious or......
-
Health care fraud.
...government was actually defrauded, reasoning that knowledge of claim's falsity sufficed to support judgment); United States v. Coachman, 727 F.2d 1293, 1302 (D.C. Cir. 1984) (finding violation of [section] 287 where defendant presented a claim knowing it to be false, fictitious or fraudulen......
-
Health care fraud.
...government was actually defrauded, reasoning that knowledge of claim's falsity sufficed to support judgment); United States v. Coachman, 727 F.2d 1293, 1302 (D.C. Cir. 1984) (finding violation of 18 U.S.C. [section] 287 where defendant presented a claim knowing it to be false, fictitious or......