United States v. Larry Everett Shoupe and Craig Whitman Williams

CELEBREZZE, Circuit Judge.

This is an appeal of Appellants’ convictions after a joint trial by jury for armed robbery of an Ohio bank. We are asked to decide whether the District Court commit ted reversible error by permitting the prosecutor, in the presence of the jury, to recite to a recalcitrant Government witness a litany of leading questions which incorporated the entire substance of his unsworn, oral statements inculpating the Appellants. Whether we join with the trial court in viewing this suspect procedure as a mechanism to refresh the witness’s present recollection or we adopt the…