U.S. v. Judon, 77-5044

• Decision Date: 15 February 1978
• Docket Number: No. 77-5044,77-5044
• Citation: 567 F.2d 1289
• Parties: 2 Fed. R. Evid. Serv. 1003 UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Daniel JUDON, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit

Page 1289

567 F.2d 1289

2 Fed. R. Evid. Serv. 1003

UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Daniel JUDON, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 77-5044.

United States Court of Appeals Fifth Circuit.

Feb. 15, 1978.

J. Louis Wilkinson, Birmingham, Ala., (Court-appointed), for defendant-appellant.

J. R. Brooks, U. S. Atty., Bill L. Barnett, Asst. U. S. Atty., Birmingham, Ala., for plaintiff-appellee.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Alabama.

Before TUTTLE, CLARK and RONEY, Circuit Judges:

CLARK, Circuit Judge:

Defendant Daniel Judon appeals his conviction of entering a federally-insured savings and loan association with the intent to commit therein a felony affecting the savings and loan association, in violation of 18 U.S.C.A. § 2113(a) (Supp.1977). We consider three issues on this appeal. First, whether the Jencks Act, 18 U.S.C.A. § 3500 (1969), required the production by the prosecution of certain interview reports prepared by the Federal Bureau of Investigation agents who investigated this case on forms designated FD-302 (popularly called 302's). Second, whether Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83, 83 S.Ct. 1194, 10 L.Ed.2d 215 (1963), required the production of these same 302's. Third, whether Fed.R.Evid. 803(5) prohibited the admission into evidence of the recorded recollection of a prosecution witness. Because we are unable to determine from the face of the 302's whether they are "statements" required to be produced by the Jencks Act, we remand to the district court to make that determination based on extrinsic evidence of the circumstances surrounding the making of the 302's. The remaining issues are without merit.

The 302's in issue are those reporting interviews of Betty Barnett, manager of the robbed savings and loan branch and present during the robbery, and Deborah Beasley, teller at the branch and also present during the robbery. At trial both Barnett and Beasley identified Judon as the person who had robbed the branch, and both recounted what occurred during the robbery. FBI agent Kenneth W. Tanana interviewed Barnett on November 8, 1976, the day of the robbery, and dictated the report on November 10, 1976; agent Frank R. Slapikas interviewed Beasley on November 8 and dictated his report on November 15. Each report was dictated in the third person ("Barnett stated . . ."; "Beasley advised . . ."), each contained the witness' detailed account of what occurred during the course of the robbery, and each contained the witness' description of the perpetrator. Significantly, each 302 concluded with a paragraph saying that the witness had been shown mug shots of several persons and that the witness picked persons other than Judon as "being similar to" or "as resembling" the robber.

At the conclusion of Barnett's direct examination by the prosecutor at trial, Judon's counsel requested any material he was entitled to under the Jencks Act, specifically any 302 in the possession of the government. The government refused to produce the 302 in question, although it did produce another statement Barnett had previously made and did deliver Tanana's 302 to the trial judge in camera. The trial judge did not require its production. Judon's counsel made a similar request following Beasley's direct testimony. The government submitted Slapikas' 302 to the court for inspection, and following a fifteen minute recess the judge similarly refused to require its production. The 302's, though never seen by Judon or his counsel, were marked as exhibits and sealed to be sent to this court for review.

The Jencks Act requires the government in any criminal prosecution brought by the United States to produce, after a witness called by the government has testified on direct examination, any statement of the witness in the possession of the government which relates to the subject matter as to which the witness has testified. 18 U.S.C.A. § 3500(b). Since the subject matter of the interview reports here related to the subject matter of the testimony of the witnesses, the reason that the trial judge refused to require production must have been his determination that the 302's were not "statements" of the witness as defined by 18 U.S.C.A. § 3500(e). The two definitions of "statement" relevant to this case are the (e)(1) definition "a written statement made by said witness and signed or otherwise adopted or approved by him" and the (e)(2) definition "a stenographic, mechanical, electrical, or other recording, or a transcription thereof, which is a substantially verbatim recital of an oral statement made by said witness and recorded contemporaneously with the making of such oral statement." The trial judge made his determination that these 302's were not "statements" solely on the basis of his inspection of the reports. ¹

Our analysis of whether this inspection alone was a sufficient basis for his conclusion is guided by the Supreme Court's decision in Campbell v. United States, 365 U.S. 85, 81 S.Ct. 421, 5 L.Ed.2d 428 (1961) (Campbell I ). In Campbell I a government witness testified on cross-examination that he had been interviewed by an FBI agent and that the agent had written down a statement. The witness testified that he thought he remembered the agent reading the statement back to him for his approval, but that he was not sure. The government admitted that it had possession of the typed interview report that the agent had later dictated, but contended that this report fell outside the statute. In discussing the duty of the trial court in making the determination whether a document is a "statement" under the Jencks Act, the Supreme Court reiterated its admonition in Palermo v. United States, 360 U.S. 343, 354, 79 S.Ct. 1217, 1226, 3 L.Ed.2d 1287 (1959), that "(i)t is also the function of the trial judge to decide, in light of the circumstances of each case, what, if any, evidence extrinsic to the statement itself may or must be offered to prove the nature of the statement." However, the Campbell I Court addressed the facts before it in these words:

After an overnight recess the trial judge conducted an inquiry without the jury present to take testimony and hear argument of counsel. Plainly enough this was a proper, even a required, proceeding in the circumstances. Determination of the question whether the Government should be ordered to produce government papers could not be made from a mere inspection of the Interview Report, but only with the help of extrinsic evidence.

365 U.S. at 92, 81 S.Ct. at 425 (emphasis added).

Campbell I promulgated a list of questions which required "the aid of extrinsic evidence . . . to answer." The first several questions in this list focused on whether the interview report was an (e)(1) statement: Did the agent write down what the witness told him at the interview? Did the witness read the notes over to make sure they were right and then sign or otherwise adopt or approve them? Was the interview report a copy of those notes? Following remand, a second appeal ensued, Campbell v. United States, 373 U.S. 487, 83 S.Ct. 1356, 10 L.Ed.2d 501 (1963) (Campbell II ). In Campbell II the Court held that the interview report, reasonably found by the district court to be an accurate copy of a written statement made the day after the robbery and adopted by the witness as his own, was producible under (e)(1). The Supreme Court indicated in Goldberg v. United States, 425 U.S. 94, 96 S.Ct. 1338, 47 L.Ed.2d 603 (1976), however, that a general approval of the substance of the notes will not suffice under (e)(1):

Every witness interview will, of course, involve conversation between the lawyer (investigating agent) and the witness, and the lawyer will necessarily inquire of the witness to be certain that he has correctly understood what the witness has said. Such discussions of the general substance of what the witness has said do not constitute adoption or approval of the lawyer's notes within § 3500(e)(1), which is satisfied only when the witness has "signed or otherwise adopted or approved" what the lawyer has written. This requirement clearly is not met when the lawyer does not read back, or the witness does not read, what the lawyer has written.

425 U.S. at 110 n.19, 96 S.Ct. at 1348.

Although it is conceivable that the circumstances surrounding the making of the 302's here could make them (e)(1) statements, we follow the Second Circuit's holding in United States v. Lamma, 349 F.2d 338 (2d Cir. 1965), that no hearing was required on the (e)(1) issue where there was nothing before the trial judge to suggest that the witness had ever adopted or approved any notes the government investigator might have written down. In Campbell I, the witness testified that he vaguely remembered that notes had been read back to him and that he may have signed something. In Lamma the Second Circuit held that only if there is something in the witness' testimony or on the document containing the written statement that suggests that there may have been an adoption or approval by the witness does the trial judge have a duty to conduct a voir dire to determine whether or not there was such adoption or approval. Otherwise, a duty would rest with defense counsel to initiate the inquiry. ²

The final of the Campbell I prescribed questions was the following: "(W)as the Interview Report a substantially verbatim recital of an oral statement which the agent had recorded contemporaneously? If extrinsic evidence established this the report would be producible under subsection (e)(2)." 365 U.S. at 94, 81 S.Ct. at 426. Under Campbell I standards, a hearing was required in this case since it is unclear from an inspection of the 302's whether they are transcripts of substantially verbatim recordings of oral statements of the witness recorded contemporaneously with the making of the statements, and thus producible under (e)(2).

In many cases an inspection of the document alone will allow the court...