PER CURIAM:
Appeals from judgments of conviction entered in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New
Defendants-appellants Nathaniel Alexander, Steven Riddick and Roberto Montgomery were indicted for their participation in broad criminal conspiracies to commit bank fraud and launder money by stealing, altering or counterfeiting checks and depositing the checks into bank accounts. Montgomery was also charged with conspiracy to transport stolen goods resulting from his involvement in a scheme to purchase luxury automobiles with bogus checks. Prior to trial, the government disclosed to defense counsel that it planned to offer statements made by coconspirators Anthony Price, Douglas Shyne, Timothy Montgomery, Toybe Bennett, and Christine Richardson in furtherance of the conspiracies charged in the indictment, pursuant to Federal Rule of Evidence 801(d)(2)(E).
Defendants made an oral application to the district court, supplemented by letter, requesting that the government produce all written or recorded statements, as defined in 18 U.S.C. § 3500 ("the Jencks Act"), for the coconspirators who would not be testifying at trial but whose statements in furtherance of the conspiracies the government intended to introduce at trial.
In a written order, the district court denied defendants' request:
Following a seventeen-day trial, Alexander and Riddick were convicted of conspiracy to commit bank fraud, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1349, bank fraud, in violation
Before the district court, Alexander argued that it was the disclosure obligations of the Jencks Act, together with the Fifth and Sixth Amendments, that required production of all proffer notes made by the non-testifying coconspirators whose statements in furtherance of a conspiracy the government intended to introduce into evidence at trial. On appeal, Alexander, joined by Riddick and Montgomery, argues that the district court's decision to deny their request for the proffer notes, or summaries of proffer statements, made by the non-testifying coconspirators, deprived them of due process and violated the confrontation clause and compulsory process clause of the Sixth Amendment.
In this appeal we consider whether the disclosure obligations of the Jencks Act extend to require production of all proffer notes for non-testifying declarants whose statements in furtherance of a conspiracy the government intends to introduce into evidence at trial pursuant to Federal Rule of Evidence 801(d)(2)(E). "We review issues of statutory construction de novo, and the language of a statute is our starting point in such inquiries." United States v. Figueroa, 165 F.3d 111, 114 (2d Cir.1998) (internal citation omitted).
Under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 16(a)(2), "the discovery or inspection of statements made by prospective government witnesses" is prohibited, "except as provided in 18 U.S.C. § 3500 [(`The Jencks Act')]." The Jencks Act permits disclosure of witness statements and reports in a criminal case. See 18 U.S.C. § 3500. "After a witness called by the United States has testified on direct examination, the court shall, on motion of the defendant, order the United States to produce any statement ... of the witness in the possession of the United States which relates to the subject matter as to which the witness has testified." Id. at § 3500(b).
By its own terms the Jencks Act applies to a "witness" who "has testified on direct examination." Id. at § 3500(a) ("no statement or report in the possession of the United States which was made by a Government witness ... shall be the subject of subpena, discovery, or inspection until said witness has testified on direct examination in the trial of the case."); see also United States v. Jackson, 345 F.3d 59, 76 (2d Cir.2003) (noting that the Jencks Act "does not normally mandate disclosure of statements made by a person who does not testify."). Montgomery's counsel conceded as much when he wrote in an April 12, 2007 letter to the district court that the disclosure requirements of the Jencks Act are "somewhat limited to persons actually testifying." (parentheses omitted). According to defense counsel, however, this limitation is "trump[ed]" by Federal Rule of Evidence 806, which provides that when a statement has been admitted into evidence pursuant to Rule 801(d)(2)(E), "the credibility of the declarant may be attacked... by any evidence which would be admissible for those purposes if declarant had testified as a witness." Appellants argue, in essence, that because Rule 806 treats a declarant as if he is a testifying witness for the purposes of attacking his credibility, the declarant must also be considered a witness under the Jencks Act.
Our Circuit has not, until now, definitively addressed whether the application of Federal Rule of Evidence 806 extends the Jencks Act to require disclosure of statements made by non-testifying declarants. See United States v. Jackson, 345 F.3d 59, 76-78 (2d Cir.2003) (noting that the issue did not need to be decided because if there was a Jencks Act error, it was harmless). In addressing this issue we are aided by our sister circuit's analysis in United States v. Williams-Davis, 90 F.3d 490 (D.C.Cir.1996). There, a defendant and her boyfriend were prosecuted for, inter alia, their participation in a cocaine distribution conspiracy. The boyfriend initially agreed to cooperate with the government but then skipped bond and fled to a country with no extradition treaty with the United States. Id. at 512. The boyfriend was not called as a witness at trial, but a number of recorded phone calls involving the boyfriend and the defendant were introduced at trial as statements made in furtherance of the conspiracy. Id. The defendant argued that admission of the boyfriend's statements in furtherance of the conspiracy triggered the government's duty under the Jencks Act to produce any statements that the boyfriend made to the government following his arrest. Id. The United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit was not persuaded: "merely because one set of rules ... makes two distinct items equivalent for some specific purpose, it does not follow that they are equivalent for all related purposes." Id. at 513. We agree.
The defendants' argument that because a non-testifying declarant's statement comes into evidence against them somehow converts that declarant into the equivalent of a witness who has appeared and testified under oath is the proverbial comparison of apples to oranges. The production of materials in possession of the Government that a defendant may use to take advantage of the opportunity to impeach a declarant under Rule 806 and the Government's obligation to produce such materials of which its agents have knowledge do not have their roots in the Jencks Act. Rather they arise under due process obligations
Appellants' constitutional argument similarly fails. As an initial matter, appellants do not direct us to any cases which support their contention that the government's failure to produce statements made by the non-testifying declarants resulted in violations of the defendants' Sixth Amendment rights. Appellants' Confrontation Clause and Due Process Clause arguments are unavailing because those clauses do not obligate the government to disclose § 3500 material for its testifying witnesses—the government's disclosure obligations are compelled by the Jencks Act, not the Constitution. See United States v. Augenblick, 393 U.S. 348, 356, 89 S.Ct. 528, 21 L.Ed.2d 537 (1969) ("[O]ur Jencks[ v. United States, 353 U.S. 657, 77 S.Ct. 1007, 1 L.Ed.2d 1103 (1957)] decision and the Jencks Act were not cast in constitutional terms."); Sperling v. United States, 692 F.2d 223, 227 (2d Cir.1982), superseded by statute on other grounds, Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, Pub.L. No. 104-132, 110 Stat. 1214, as recognized in Triestman v. United States, 124 F.3d 361, 368-69 (2d Cir.1997) ("[T]he Jencks Act is a statutory requirement, not a constitutional one" (emphasis in original)). Thus the analogy that Appellants would have us draw between non-testifying declarants and testifying witnesses does not work.
For the reasons stated herein and in an accompanying summary order, the judgments
And prior to the trial, defense counsel for Roberto Montgomery wrote a letter to the district court judge: