Case ID: f-appx_75/html/0934-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "PER CURIAM.\n    ", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Larry D. STYLES, Defendant-Appellant.
    No. 02-60851.
    Summary Calendar
    United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit.
    Sept. 17, 2003.
    Linda Randle Anderson, Richard Terrell Starrett, Assistant U.S. Attorney, U.S. Attorney’s Office, Jackson, MS, for PlaintiffAppellee.
    Samuel H. Wilkins, Julie Ann Epps, Jackson, MS, for Defendant-Appellant.
    
      Before SMITH, DeMOSS, and STEWART, Circuit Judges.
   PER CURIAM.

Larry D. Styles appeals from Ms conviction of assault withM the special territorial jurisdiction of the United States and from the demal of a post-verdict motion pursuant to Fed. R.Crim. P. 29 and Fed. R.Crim. P. 33. Styles contends that the evidence was insufficient to support Ms conviction because the district court violated Apprendi v. New Jersey, 530 U.S. 466, 120 S.Ct. 2348, 147 L.Ed.2d 435 (2000), by taldng judicial notice that the VA Hospital M which Ms offense occurred is withM the special maritime and territorial jurisdiction of the UMted States; that the district court erred by admittMg hearsay testimony that the head nurse at the VA Hospital previously had received complaints about Styles; that the district court erred by denyMg admission of evidence of Styles’s private polygraph examination; and that the district court constructively amended Styles’s Mdictment through its Mstruction definMg the term “assault.”

In Apprendi, the Supreme Court held that “[o]ther than the fact of a prior conviction, any fact that Mcreases the penalty for a crime beyond the prescribed statutory maximum must be submitted to a jury, and proved beyond a reasonable doubt.” Apprendi 530 U.S. at 490. Apprendi did not otherwise alter the legal landscape regardMg whether elements of an offense must be proved beyond a reasonable doubt, and it had no effect on whether the district court could take judicial notice of the status of the VA Hospital.

A district court may take judicial notice of the legislative fact that a federal Mstallation is under federal jurisdiction. United States v. Bowers, 660 F.2d 527, 531 (5th Cir.1981). VA hospitals are “withM the special maritime or territorial jurisdiction of the United States.” United States v. Dixon, 185 F.3d 393, 396 n. 1 (5th Cir.1999). The district court did not err by takMg notice that the VA Hospital in Styles’s case was within the special territorial jurisdiction of the United States.

The head nurse’s testimony that complaMts had been filed agaMst Styles was hearsay. See Fed.R.Evid. 801(c). However, the admission of the testimony was harmless. Styles himself testified that complaMts had been filed against him for roughness with patients. See United States v. Rodriguez, 43 F.3d 117, 123 (5th Cir.1995).

The testimony of Polygraph ExamMer Wayne Humphries did not establish that polygraph tests generally, or Ms tests specifically, were sufficiently reliable to be Mtroduced Mto evidence. Nor had any of Humphries’s examMations ever been admitted Mto evidence. Humphries could not say that Styles was not being deceptive, and he placed Styles Mto his second-highest category of honest respondMg. Nor was the Government Mvited to participate M the examMation. Exclusion of the evidence was not an abuse of discretion. See United States v. Pettigrew, 77 F.3d 1500, 1514 (5th Cir.1996).

Styles did not raise the constructive-amendment contention he raises on appeal sufficiently for it to be considered by the district court. Our review thus is for plaM error. United States v. Calverley, 37 F.3d 160, 162 (5th Cir.1994) (en banc). The jury M Styles’s case was informed that it must find that he inflicted serious bodily injury on his victim. The definition of “assault” did not create any possibility that Styles might have been convicted of a crime other than the one alleged in his indictment. See United States v. Nunez, 180 F.3d 227, 230-31 (5th Cir.1999).

AFFIRMED. 
      
       Pursuant to 5th Cir. R. 47.5, the court has determined that this opinion should not be published and is not precedent except under the limited circumstances set forth in 5th Cir. R. 47.5.4.