inconsistent statement

In 1969-1970, Anthony Herbert, a retired Army officer with extended wartime service in Vietnam, accused his superior officers of covering up reports of atrocities and other war crimes and received widespread media attention. Three years later, on February 4, 1973, Columbia Broadcasting System, Inc. broadcast a report on Herbert and his accusations. The program was produced and edited by Barry Lando and narrated by Mike Wallace. Lando later published a related article in Atlantic Monthly magazine. Herbert sued Lando, Wallace, CBS, and Atlantic Monthly for defamation in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, invoking diversity jurisdiction. In his complaint, Herbert alleged that the program and article falsely and maliciously portrayed him as a liar who had made war-crimes charges to explain his relief from command. He sought substantial damages for injury to his reputation and to the literary value of a book he had published recounting his experiences. Although Herbert conceded he was a public figure required to prove actual malice, he deposed Lando at length and sought an order to compel answers to a variety of questions to which response was refused on the ground that the First Amendment protected against inquiry into the state of mind of those who edit, produce, or publish, and into the editorial process. The District Court found the questions relevant under Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(b) because the defendant's state of mind was central to malice and ordered Lando to answer. The case was certified for interlocutory appeal under 28 U.S.C. § 1292(b). A divided panel of the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit reversed. It held that the First Amendment supplied an absolute privilege protecting Lando from inquiry into his thoughts, opinions, and conclusions regarding the material gathered and his conversations with editorial colleagues. The Supreme Court granted certiorari.

On August 1, 1991, San Diego Narcotics Task Force agents arrested Gordon Shuster after discovering a methamphetamine laboratory at his residence in Rainbow, California. Shuster agreed to cooperate with the agents. He placed a call to respondent Gordon Mezzanatto's pager a few hours later. When Mezzanatto returned the call, Shuster told him that a friend wanted to purchase a pound of methamphetamine for $13,000. Shuster arranged to meet Mezzanatto later that day. At the meeting, Shuster introduced an undercover officer as his friend. Mezzanatto produced a brown paper package containing approximately one pound of methamphetamine from his car. He also presented a glass pipe containing methamphetamine residue and asked the officer if he wanted to take a hit. The officer gave a prearranged arrest signal after leaving the car to retrieve the money. Mezzanatto was arrested and charged with possession of methamphetamine with intent to distribute in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1). On October 17, 1991, Mezzanatto and his attorney asked to meet with the prosecutor to discuss cooperating with the Government. At the beginning of the meeting, the prosecutor stated that Mezzanatto would have to agree that any statements made could be used to impeach contradictory testimony at trial if the case proceeded that far. Mezzanatto conferred with counsel and agreed to proceed under those terms. He then admitted knowing the package contained methamphetamine while claiming he had dealt only in ounce quantities and had not visited Shuster's residence for at least a week. The Government confronted Mezzanatto with surveillance evidence showing his car on Shuster's property the day before the arrest. It terminated the meeting for failure to provide completely truthful information. Mezzanatto was later tried on the charge. He took the stand in his own defense. He testified that he thought Shuster used the laboratory to manufacture plastic explosives for the CIA and that he did not know the package contained methamphetamine. Over defense objection, the prosecutor cross-examined Mezzanatto about inconsistent statements from the October 17 meeting. The prosecutor called an attending agent to recount those statements. The jury found Mezzanatto guilty. The District Court sentenced him to 170 months in prison. A Ninth Circuit panel reversed over Chief Judge Wallace's dissent in 998 F. 2d 1452 (1993). The Supreme Court granted certiorari because the decision conflicted with the Seventh Circuit's ruling in United States v. Dortch, 5 F. 3d 1056 (1993).

In January 1975, local police in Lake County, Ohio, arrested Herschel Roberts and charged him with forgery of a check in the name of Bernard Isaacs and with possession of stolen credit cards belonging to Isaacs and his wife Amy. A preliminary hearing took place on January 10 in Municipal Court, where the prosecution presented several witnesses including Mr. Isaacs. Roberts's appointed counsel called Anita Isaacs, the daughter of the Isaacs, as the defense's sole witness. Anita testified that she knew Roberts and had allowed him to use her apartment for several days while she was away, but she denied giving him her parents' checks or credit cards. Defense counsel questioned her extensively in an attempt to obtain an admission that she had provided the items without permission, though she maintained her denial, and the prosecutor did not examine her. A county grand jury later indicted Roberts for forgery, receiving stolen property, and possession of heroin, after which new counsel was appointed for him. Between November 1975 and March 1976, the State issued five subpoenas to Anita at her parents' Ohio residence for four different trial dates, with the last three including instructions that she should call before appearing. Anita did not respond to the subpoenas or appear at the March 1976 trial in the Court of Common Pleas. At trial, Roberts testified that Anita had given him her parents' checkbook and credit cards with permission to use them. The State then offered the transcript of Anita's preliminary hearing testimony pursuant to an Ohio statute allowing use of such testimony when a witness cannot be produced. During a voir dire hearing on the transcript's admissibility, Amy Isaacs testified that Anita had left home for Tucson, Arizona, shortly after the preliminary hearing. She described limited contacts, including a welfare application in San Francisco about a year before trial that led to one phone call, and another call seven or eight months before trial in which Anita said she was traveling outside Ohio. Mrs. Isaacs stated she had no way to reach Anita in an emergency and knew of no one who knew her location. The trial court admitted the transcript, and the jury convicted Roberts on all counts. The Ohio Court of Appeals reversed the convictions after reviewing the voir dire evidence, concluding that the prosecution had not made a good-faith effort to secure Anita's attendance at trial. The Supreme Court of Ohio affirmed the reversal but on different grounds, determining that while Anita was unavailable, the preliminary hearing testimony did not satisfy the requirements for admission under the Confrontation Clause because defense counsel had not actually cross-examined her there. The United States Supreme Court granted certiorari to address the constitutional issues raised by the admission of the testimony.