United States v. Lopez-Avila

678 F.3d 955, 2012 WL 450314
Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit·Decided January 12, 2012·No. No. 11-10013·Published·Cited by 17 cases

Opinion

ORDER

The opinion in this case was filed on January 12, 2012 and was published at Slip Op. 259. The government has filed a motion requesting that we amend the opinion to remove the name of Assistant U.S. Attorney Jerry Albert from the Federal Reporter. The government’s motion is DENIED.

However, the opinion is hereby amended as follows.

1. At Slip Op. 274, after the paragraph ending Berger v. United States, 295 U.S. 78, 88, 55 S.Ct. 629, 79 L.Ed. 1314 (1935), insert the following, beginning with a new paragraph:

<The mistake in judgment does not lie with AUSA Albert alone. We are also troubled by the government’s continuing failure to acknowledge and take responsibility for Albert’s error.

The Department of Justice has an obligation to its lawyers and to the public to prevent prosecutorial misconduct. Prosecutors, as servants of the law, are subject to constraints and responsibilities that do not apply to other lawyers; they must serve truth and justice first. United States v. Kojayan, 8 F.3d 1315, 1323 (9th Cir.1993). Their job is not just to win, but to win fairly, staying within the rules. Berger, 295 U.S. at 88, 55 S.Ct. 629. That did not happen here, and the district court swiftly and correctly declared a mistrial when Albert’s misquotation was revealed.

[957]*957When a prosecutor steps over the boundaries of proper conduct and into unethical territory, the government has a duty to own up to it and to give assurances that it will not happen again. Yet, we cannot find a single hint of appreciation of the seriousness of the misconduct within the pages of the government’s brief on appeal. Instead, the government attempts to shift blame by stating that “the prosecutor gave the defense counsel an opportunity to stop the offending question before the prosecutor asked it,” but “defense counsel did not realize, or even inquire about, how the question from the change of plea transcript had been redacted.” Gov’t Br. 26-27. Of course, as we have explained, Albert told the district court what he intended to say. Albert did not tell the court or opposing counsel that what he intended to say was not a full nor fair recitation of the magistrate’s question to Lopez-Avila.

Finally, upon initial release of this opinion, the government filed a motion requesting that we remove Albert’s name and replace it with references to “the prosecutor.” The motion contended that naming Albert publicly is inappropriate given that we do not yet know the outcome of any potential investigations or disciplinary proceedings. We declined to adopt the government’s suggestion and denied its motion. We have noticed that the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Arizona regularly makes public the names of prosecutors who do good work and win important victories. E.g., Press Release, U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Arizona, “Northern Arizona Man Sentenced to Federal Prison for Arson,” (January 31, 2012) (“The prosecution was handled by Christina J. Reid-Moore, Assistant U.S. Attorney, District of Arizona, Phoenix”), available at http://www.justice.gov/usao/az/ press_releases/2012/PR_01312012_Nez. html. If federal prosecutors receive public credit for their good works — as they should — they should not be able to hide behind the shield of anonymity when they make serious mistakes. >

2. At Slip Op. 274-75, replace the entire paragraph beginning with the sentence <We recognize that this court is not the proper venue for direct discipline of Albert, so we will not state here that the blow struck by Albert necessarily was one so foul as to require some form of sanctions with <We recognize that this court is not the proper venue for direct discipline of Albert, so we will not state here that the blow struck by him necessarily was one so foul as to require some form of official sanction. We were not in district court to see what occurred; Albert has not appeared before us to explain himself; and this appeal is not directly about his misconduct, but rather about the question whether the Double Jeopardy Clause bars a new prosecution. However, we do not need a record greater or different than we have here to determine that Albert should not have misrepresented the transcript’s question. Accordingly, we are in a position to do three things to ensure that this matter is handled properly following this disposition: we remand the case to allow the district court to consider dismissal with prejudice of the indictment as an exercise of its supervisory powers and to prevent other misconduct in the future; we instruct the district court to consider disciplinary options also pursuant to its supervisory powers; and we note that the Office of Professional Responsibility within the Department of Justice has the responsibility of investigating allegations of misconduct by federal prosecutors. Whether the circumstances attendant to Albert’s misrepresentation attenuate or aggravate the misconduct is a matter as to which the trial judge or officials in the Office of Professional Responsibility are in a better position to determined

[958]*9583. At Slip Op. 275, replace: <United States v. Kojayan, 8 F.3d 1315, 1324 (9th Cir.1993)> with <Kojayan, 8 F.3d at 1324>.

4. At Slip Op. 267, replace: <But, of course, the prosecutor had not read the question magistrate’s question “exactly the way it was.”> with <But, of course, the prosecutor had not read the magistrate’s question “exactly the way it was.”>

The time for filing a petition for rehearing or rehearing en banc has expired, and neither party filed a petition. No subsequent petitions for rehearing or rehearing en banc shall be filed. The mandate shall issue in due course.

SO ORDERED.

OPINION

BEA, Circuit Judge:

On the second day of trial in this drug trafficking prosecution, during the cross-examination of DefendanL-Appellant Aurora Lopez-Avila, the prosecutor read back supposed testimony of Lopez-Avila from her earlier change of plea hearing. What he read back seemed to contradict Lopez-Avila’s earlier statements on direct examination. Using this supposed prior testimony, the prosecutor — Assistant U.S. Attorney (AUSA) Jerry R. Albert, of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Arizona — accused Lopez-Avila of having lied to the federal magistrate presiding at an earlier hearing.

But the prosecutor’s quotation was only part of what he represented was a question asked the defendant under oath by the magistrate judge. It was a half-truth. Without telling the court or defense counsel, the prosecutor presented to court and counsel an altered version of the prior hearing’s question and answer, and the altered version of such dialogue made it appear as though Lopez-Avila had contradicted herself on a material point, when she plainly had not. The district court naturally assumed the prosecutor had read the question and answer whole, and allowed the questioning to proceed. When the prosecutor’s misrepresentation was discovered by defense counsel, he moved for a mistrial, which the court swiftly granted.

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United States v. Lopez-Avila, 678 F.3d 955, 2012 WL 450314 (9th Cir. 2012).

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