Corruption bias: defendant entitled to attack jailhouse informant’s track record in past cases with extrinsic evidence

Charles M. Coates v. United States, No. 12-CF-2047 (decided April 23, 2015)

Players: Associate Judges Glickman & Fisher, Senior Judge Ruiz. Opinion by Judge Glickman. PDS for Mr. Coates. Trial Judge: William M. Jackson.

Facts:  The government’s case against Mr. Coates rested on the testimony of a jailhouse informant, Mr. Bethea, who claimed that Mr. Coates confessed to murdering his cousin in a dispute over robbery proceeds. Mr. Coates testified, by contrast, that he killed his cousin by accident after his cousin, in a PCP-induced fit, pulled out a gun and Mr. Coates tried to wrestle it from him. Mr. Coates denied that he had ever confessed to Mr. Bethea. The trial was substantially a credibility contest between Mr. Bethea and Mr. Coates.

Main issue:  In a different case several years earlier, Mr. Bethea had told police that Mr. Freeman, another fellow inmate, confessed to a murder. Mr. Freeman denied committing or confessing to that murder. The trial court permitted Mr. Coates to cross-examine Mr. Bethea about whether he had falsely implicated Mr. Freeman — Mr. Bethea denied this — and allowed Mr. Coates to elicit Mr. Freeman’s testimony that he did not confess to Mr. Bethea. But the court prevented the defense from introducing evidence that Mr. Freeman could not possibly have committed the murder, as he had been incarcerated at the time it occurred.

By excluding this evidence, did the court violate the Confrontation Clause?

Holding:  Yes. 

In most situations, a party wishing to impeach a witness by showing that the witness has acted dishonestly in the past is stuck with the witness’ answer and may not complete the impeachment with extrinsic evidence. This rule does not apply, however, when the impeachment goes to a government witness’ bias. The Confrontation Clause entitles a defendant to probe for bias both through cross-examination and with extrinsic evidence as long as the defendant proffers facts that “support a genuine belief[] that the witness is biased in the manner asserted.”

Evidence that Mr. Bethea had falsely implicated Mr. Freeman in a murder showed that Mr. Bethea was a corrupt witness who was prepared to “thwart the ascertainment of truth in a judicial proceeding.” Corruption is a “distinct form of testimonial bias.” Evidence that Mr. Freeman could not have committed the murder tended to show that he most likely did not confess to Mr. Bethea and thus that Mr. Bethea was a corrupt witness.

Of note:

• The court rejected the government’s assertion that a defendant must “show convincingly” that the witness’ past conduct was dishonest before impeaching him in this way. The “shown convincingly” test does not apply when a defendant seeks to present evidence of a witness’ prior dishonest acts for the purpose of establishing bias, including corruption bias.

• The court expressed deep distrust in the reliability of jailhouse informants, citing seven authorities for the proposition that it is not “implausible that a jailhouse informant would, in order to curry favor with the government or for other personal motives, lie about a fellow inmate having confessed.”  JM

Read full opinion here.