United States v. Frederick John Donatelli, 484 F.2d 505, 1st Cir. (1973)
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Scribd Government DocsUnited States v. Frederick John Donatelli, 484 F.2d 505, 1st Cir. (1973)
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Scribd Government Docs484 F.
2d 505
UNITED STATES of America, Appellee,
v.
Frederick John DONATELLI, Defendant-Appellant.
No. 72-1172.
United States Court of Appeals,
First Circuit.
Submitted July 30, 1973.
Decided Sept. 20, 1973.
Joseph F. Flynn, Rockland, Mass., on brief, for appellant.
James N. Gabriel, U. S. Atty., and Henry H. Hammond, Asst. U. S. Atty.,
on brief, for appellee.
Before COFFIN, Chief Judge, McENTEE and CAMPBELL, Circuit
Judges.
COFFIN, Chief Judge.
Defendant, Frederick Donatelli, was convicted of one count of possession of
counterfeit obligations of the United States, 18 U.S.C. Sec. 472, and was
sentenced to a term of imprisonment of six years. On this appeal we have
considered both the brief submitted by his counsel and defendant's pro se
memorandum which was incorporated by reference into counsel's brief. We
find no merit to any of the points advanced and therefore affirm.
At trial the government relied heavily upon the testimony of two witnesses,
Raymond Scarino and John Scaduto. Scarino testified that sometime in the
spring of 1970 Donatelli approached him with a scheme to print counterfeit
money. By June of that year Scarino, a professional printer, had agreed, and
proceeded to print in the basement of his home seven to eight hundred sheets,
each containing three twenty dollar bills. He testified that upon completion of
the printing he put the uncut sheets in a box and handed them to Donatelli.
Scaduto testified that Donatelli gave him a box and asked him to keep it, then
deliver it to one Walzik. Scaduto hid the box in his yard and gave it to Walzik
when the latter drove up to his house that night. Scaduto also testified that a
couple of nights later Donatelli told him that Walzik and another man had been
arrested and "the stuff was lost". Other testimony showed that Walzik and two
other men had been apprehended by the Secret Service on June 26, 1970 in
possession of a box of counterfeit money, which Scarino identified as the one
he had given to Donatelli.
3
At the commencement of trial the government announced for the first time that
it intended to call Scaduto as a witness. Defendant's trial counsel protested to
the judge that this placed him in a difficult position because he had had a
lawyer-client relationship with Scaduto. The court treated that statement as a
request for a continuance and denied it. Trial counsel made no further mention
of this fact and conducted a cross-examination of Scaduto without indicating
any difficulty caused by the prior relationship. After trial this counsel was
allowed to withdraw from the case and new counsel was appointed for the
purpose of prosecuting an appeal.
Defendant makes a number of attacks upon the fairness of his trial but only two
of his arguments require any extended discussion. The first of these is his
contention that he was denied effective assistance of counsel by virtue of the
inhibiting effect which his trial counsel felt from a prior lawyer-client
relationship with the witness Scaduto. We can perceive two aspects of this
argument: first, that his trial counsel was subject to a conflict of interest which
reduced his effectiveness; and second, that defendant's counsel was prevented
from conducting a vigorous cross-examination of Scaduto because of the fact
that Scaduto had had confidential communications with him.
As to the possibility that there existed a conflict of interest which affected the
ability of defendant's trial counsel to vigorously defend his interests, the key
question is whether any such conflict existed. We must be peculiarly sensitive
to such allegations, Marxuach v. United States, 398 F.2d 548, 552 (1st Cir.),
cert. denied, 393 U.S. 982, 89 S.Ct. 454, 21 L.Ed.2d 443 (1968). But we must
also recognize that it is up to the defendant to establish that such a conflict
existed at his trial. Here the only fact shown is that on two occasions, before
Donatelli's trial, Scaduto came to Donatelli's attorney and sought legal
representation. By the time of defendant's trial Scaduto had retained a different
attorney and had apparently severed all legal relationship with Donatelli's
lawyer. There is no hint that at the time of trial defendant's counsel had any
divided loyalties. Such cases as Glasser v. United States, 315 U.S. 60, 62 S.Ct.
457, 86 L.Ed. 680 (1942); Craig v. United States, 217 F. 2d 355 (6th Cir.
1954); Taylor v. United States, 96 U.S.App.D.C. 379, 226 F.2d 337 (1955), and
United States ex rel. Williamson v. LaVallee, 282 F.Supp. 968 (E.D.N.Y.1968)
are therefore distinguishable because in all of them the defendant's counsel was
also involved in a present legal representation relationship with either a codefendant or a government witness. We are unwilling, in the absence of any
showing of additional facts indicating a conflict of loyalties, to assume that an
attorney who has severed his attorney-client relationship with a government
witness retains a conflict of interest at trial. We therefore conclude that
defendant has failed to establish that his trial counsel had a conflict of interest
at trial.
6
Defendant's contention that his attorney did not conduct as effective a
crossexamination of Scaduto as he could have because he was in possession of
privileged information gathered in the course of his prior lawyer-client
relationship with Scaduto, also lacks merit. The trial transcript reveals that
defendant's attorney conducted an apparently vigorous cross-examination of
Scaduto. While this alone would not be determinative, it takes on added
significance when combined with the fact that defendant's attorney at no time
indicated that a particular avenue of interrogation was closed to him or that he
was deterred in any way from adequately representing his client by virtue of
privileged information in his possession. Defendant made no effort at trial to
seek a determination of whether the witness Scaduto had waived his privilege
either by permitting defendant's presence at one of the sessions which he had
had with counsel prior to the trial, or by his taking the stand. Presumably such a
ruling was not sought because it was not felt needed. In light of the total
absence of any indication of prejudice, defendant cannot rely on speculative
harm caused by speculative confidential information to show that he was
deprived of his constitutional rights at trial.1
The second argument advanced by defendant concerns the possibility that the
government negligently or deliberately failed to truthfully answer all of
defendant's requests in the government's bill of particulars. Defendant sought,
inter alia, "a description of each place in Massachusetts where the defendant is
alleged to have possessed the counterfeited obligations" and similarly sought
this information as to places where defendant was alleged to have concealed
counterfeit obligations. The government replied that the location where the bills
were possessed and concealed by defendant after they left Scarino's basement
and before they were seized by the Secret Service was "unknown". Defendant
urges that the government knew or should have known that Scaduto would
testify that the money was concealed at his house during this period, pointing to
Scaduto's testimony on cross-examination where he indicated in a general way
that he had told special agents of the Secret Service information to this effect in
August, 1971, several months before the government filed its bill of particulars,
and long before trial. The government assures the court that the bill of
particulars was completed in good faith.
8
Even assuming that the bill of particulars was improperly completed, we find
no reason to disturb the judgment below. A defendant in a criminal trial has the
right to a fair trial, and as one aspect of this right he must be supplied by the
prosecution all evidence which may be materially favorable to him, Brady v.
Maryland, 373 U.S. 83, 83 S.Ct. 1194, 10 L.Ed.2d 215 (1963), including
evidence which would have a material effect upon trial preparation, United
States v. Polisi, 416 F.2d 573 (2d Cir. 1969). The suppression of evidence by
the prosecution which is not "materially favorable" to the accused may be
reprehensible, but unless defendant is prejudiced it is not cause for reversal. See
United States v. DeLeo, 422 F.2d 487 (1st Cir.), cert. denied, 397 U .S. 1037,
90 S.Ct. 1355, 25 L.Ed.2d 648 (1970). Here we can see no substantial
possibility that the information omitted from the bill of particulars could have
been of a nature that its suppression worked material harm upon the defendant.
We note that defendant's trial counsel was supplied information concerning the
August statements made by Scaduto to the Secret Service, including the fact
that Scaduto had hidden the counterfeit currency at his house, prior to the
cross-examination of that witness. We are fully cognizant of the remaining
possibility that ignorance of this particular information prior to this time may
have hampered trial preparation and thus that its revelation during trial, while
reducing somewhat the chance of prejudice, does not eliminate it. But we must
have more than vague allegations of prejudice such as those made by defendant.
Since we can find no specific prejudice to the defendant under the
circumstances of this case, we conclude that the government's omission, if
there was one, was essentially harmless.2
Defendant's remaining contentions can be disposed of without extended
discussion. Defendant urges that the testimony of Scarino in the trial of
William McGovern, et al., which trial took place a few months after the
Donatelli trial, demonstrates that the government suppressed evidence in
Donatelli's trial. Careful review of Scarino's testimony in the McGovern trial,
however, convinces us that there was no substantial conflict between his
testimony in that trial and his testimony in Donatelli's trial. Defendant also
urges that he was prejudiced by a statement made by the prosecutor to the jury
during his closing statement. Assuming defendant's version of the statement to
be true, we find the incident to be too trivial to merit reversal. Similarly we find
no merit to defendant's vague allegation that surprise over the government's use
of Scaduto as a witness denied defendant a fair trial. It is clear that both
defendant and his trial counsel were aware of Scaduto's involvement in the case
since they had met with him before trial precisely because, in the words of trial
counsel, "It was my judgment at that time that these matters, as far as Mr.
Scaduto and Mr. Donatelli were concerned, were intertwined." Lack of
objection at trial to Scaduto's testimony supports our conviction that defendant
was not prejudiced by the government's use of this witness. Defendant's
allegations of subornation of perjury and of inadequacy of counsel are patently
frivolous.
10
Affirmed.
Defendant also urges that the trial judge abused his discretion by refusing to
order a continuance when defendant's counsel informed him of his prior
relationship with Scaduto. Because we have found that no prejudice to
defendant flowed from this relationship, it is clear that failure to order a
continuance was not error
We are disturbed by the possibility that the government may have failed to
exercise due diligence in completing its bill of particulars. Proper fulfillment of
this type of task by the government is crucial both to fairness to individual
defendants and to the integrity of the judicial process. Should it appear at any
time that government misbehavior in this regard has become a recurring
problem, we would contemplate the establishment of a rule creating a
presumption of prejudice whenever information is deliberately or negligently
withheld from a defendant by the government after specific request therefor
