Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca3-09-02863/USCOURTS-ca3-09-02863-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Alexander Sylvester
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

Honorable Paul S. Diamond, United States District Judge for the Eastern District *

of Pennsylvania, sitting by designation.

NOT PRECEDENTIAL

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT

____________

No. 09-2863

____________

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

v.

ALEXANDER SYLVESTER,

 Appellant

____________

On Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Middle District of Pennsylvania

(D.C. No. 08-cr-00248-001)

District Judge: John E. Jones, III

____________

Submitted Pursuant to Third Circuit LAR 34.1(a)

January 28, 2010

Before: FUENTES and FISHER, Circuit Judges, and DIAMOND, District Judge.

*

(Filed: February 17, 2010)

____________

OPINION OF THE COURT

____________

Case: 09-2863 Document: 003110023457 Page: 1 Date Filed: 02/17/2010
2

FISHER, Circuit Judge.

A jury convicted Alexander Sylvester of one count of possession of a prohibited

object by a prison inmate in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1791(a)(2). The District Court

sentenced him to sixty months in prison. He appeals both his conviction and his sentence. 

We will affirm the former, vacate the latter, and remand to the District Court for

resentencing.

I.

We write exclusively for the parties, who are familiar with the factual context and

legal history of this case. Therefore, we will set forth only those facts necessary to our

analysis.

Sylvester was charged in June 2008 with one count of possession of a prohibited

object by a prison inmate in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1791(a)(2). A two-day trial ensued. 

At trial, the government presented evidence that Sylvester, while serving a sentence in

federal prison for unrelated charges, triggered a metal detector alarm at the entrance to the

prison cafeteria. He refused to submit to a pat-down by prison officials and fled from the

cafeteria to another area of the prison compound. While fleeing, Sylvester threw an

object to the ground. Prison officials later identified that object as a homemade knife, or

a “shank.” Sylvester did not testify at trial, but the defense called several witnesses. 

Among those witnesses were two of Sylvester’s co-inmates, one of whom testified that it

was he, not Sylvester, who had thrown the object, and another of whom testified that the

Case: 09-2863 Document: 003110023457 Page: 2 Date Filed: 02/17/2010
The District Court had jurisdiction under 18 U.S.C. § 3231. We have jurisdiction 1

under 28 U.S.C. § 1291 and 18 U.S.C. § 3742.

3

object Sylvester had thrown was a can of chewing tobacco. The jury returned a guilty

verdict and the District Court thereafter sentenced Sylvester to sixty months in prison.

Sylvester has timely appealed his conviction and sentence.

1

II.

Sylvester attacks his conviction on the grounds that the prosecutor’s statements

during closing argument violated his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination

and that the District Court erroneously refused to instruct the jury on his theory of the

case. Sylvester also challenges his sentence on the ground that the District Court wrongly

classified him as a career offender under the United States Sentencing Guidelines. We

address each of these issues in turn.

A. Statements During Closing Argument

Sylvester argues that the District Court erred in denying his motion for a mistrial

based on the prosecutor’s statements during closing argument. “We review a district

court’s decision to deny a motion for mistrial predicated on the grounds that the

prosecutor made improper remarks in a closing argument for abuse of discretion.” United

States v. Wood, 486 F.3d 781, 786 (3d Cir. 2007) (citation omitted).

In Griffin v. California, the Supreme Court held that the Fifth Amendment bars the

prosecution from commenting, directly or indirectly, on a defendant’s silence. 380 U.S.

Case: 09-2863 Document: 003110023457 Page: 3 Date Filed: 02/17/2010
4

609, 615 (1965). “Otherwise, the defendant is penalized by the court for exercising his

constitutional right not to incriminate himself.” United States v. Isaac, 134 F.3d 199, 206

(3d Cir. 1998) (citing Griffin, 380 U.S. at 614). A comment “is directed to a defendant’s

silence when the language used was manifestly intended or was of such character that the

jury would naturally and necessarily take it to be a comment on the failure of the accused

to testify.” United States v. Brennan, 326 F.3d 176, 187 (3d Cir. 2003) (internal

quotation marks and citation omitted). “Statements regarding the absence of facts in the

record, however, need not be taken as comment on a defendant’s failure to testify.” Id.

(internal quotation marks, alterations and citations omitted). Furthermore, “when the

defendant uses his Griffin protection as a sword, rather than a shield, the prosecution may

respond appropriately.” Isaac, 134 F.3d at 206 (citing United States v. Robinson, 485

U.S. 25, 32 (1988)). In determining whether a prosecutor has impermissibly commented

on a defendant’s right against self-incrimination, “we must examine the challenged

prosecutorial remark in its trial context.” Lesko v. Lehman, 925 F.2d 1527, 1544 (3d Cir.

1991) (citations omitted).

During closing argument, the prosecutor stated in relevant part as follows:

So what [Sylvester] does, if his claim is being it is this, what he does,

he runs. He is told to stop. Rules violation. He flees. Told to stop. Rules

violation. He’s told to get on the ground. Told to stop. Rules violation. 

He breaks all of these rules for a can of chewing tobacco. Do you really

think, using your common sense, that he goes through all that bother, all

that trouble of fleeing those officers, of refusing to obey their commands

because of a can of chewing tobacco, Copenhagen?

Case: 09-2863 Document: 003110023457 Page: 4 Date Filed: 02/17/2010
5

Or do you really think, using your common sense, he is fleeing

because he knows this is a serious violation. He knows he is going to get

jammed up if this is found on him. That is why he ran out and gave it a toss

and off it went.

Judge Jones told you at the start of this trial that anything that I

would say or defense says in the opening statement or closing arguments is

not evidence. The only person that you’ve heard say that Mr. Sylvester

panicked with the can of chewing tobacco was Mr. Becker [Sylvester’s

counsel]. That was Mr. Becker’s theory. No witness took the stand and

said he panicked.

It’s a credibility issue. Five prison guards, they all testified

consistent. We have inmates who go out there as far as 2045, 2050, and

their stories are just entirely inconsistent with each other as far as where the

object was thrown and where it was dropped.

(App. 263 (emphasis added).)

After the prosecution finished its closing argument, Sylvester’s counsel moved the

District Court at sidebar for a mistrial, arguing that the prosecutor had implicitly, and

impermissibly, commented on Sylvester’s election not to testify because, in his view, no

one but Sylvester could have testified about whether Sylvester had in fact panicked. The

District Court denied the motion, concluding that the prosecutor’s statement, taken in

context, plainly referred only to the witnesses who had actually testified at trial and could

not be interpreted as an allusion to Sylvester’s silence.

Sylvester paints only the italicized portion of the above excerpt of the prosecutor’s

closing argument as an infringement of his Fifth Amendment right against selfincrimination. Taking that remark in context, however, we are far from persuaded that it

could be reasonably construed as a reference to Sylvester’s silence at trial. Cf. United

Case: 09-2863 Document: 003110023457 Page: 5 Date Filed: 02/17/2010
6

States v. Price, 13 F.3d 711, 721 (3d Cir. 1994). Rather, we agree with the District Court

that the remark was most reasonably understood as a reference to the absence of

testimony that Sylvester panicked by those witnesses who actually took the stand.

Even assuming that Sylvester’s characterization of the prosecutor’s statement is

correct, we still see no evidence of misconduct. Sylvester’s counsel told the jury during

his opening statement that when prison officials ordered Sylvester “to go through [the

metal detector] again[,] . . . it went off again and he panicked.” (App. 79.) Importantly,

that statement invited the prosecutor’s statement about the lack of testimony regarding

Sylvester’s purportedly panicked state, as there was no testimony presented by either side

suggesting that Sylvester had panicked when ordered to submit to a pat-down. In other

words, the context of the remark shows that it was directed toward rebutting Sylvester’s

theory of the case. Under these circumstances, the prosecutor’s statement did not

constitute misconduct. Cf. Brennan, 326 F.3d at 188 (prosecutor’s statement “was

permissible argument regarding what evidence was, and was not, in the record”); Isaac,

134 F.3d at 206-07 (no Fifth Amendment violation where the prosecutor stated in closing

argument that “[the defendant] captained that boat from Jamaica, and the only people who

would know that [the defendant] captained that boat from Jamaica are [the defendant],

Conrad Brown, Irvin Reid, and that fourth individual in Jamaica. Those are the only

people”); United States v. Balter, 91 F.3d 427, 441 (3d Cir. 1996) (prosecutor’s statement

exposing weaknesses in the defense’s theory was not impermissible).

Case: 09-2863 Document: 003110023457 Page: 6 Date Filed: 02/17/2010
7

Because the prosecutor committed no misconduct, we perceive no abuse of

discretion in the District Court’s denial of Sylvester’s motion for a mistrial. See Wood,

486 F.3d at 786 (“To find that the court abused its discretion in failing to order a mistrial

for prosecutorial misconduct, we must first be convinced that the prosecution did in fact

misconduct itself.” (quotation omitted)).

B. Jury Instructions

Sylvester argues that he is entitled to a new trial because of the District Court’s

refusal to read his proposed jury instruction.

“We review a district court’s decisions regarding jury instructions for abuse of

discretion.” United States v. Hoffecker, 530 F.3d 137, 167 (3d Cir. 2008) (citation

omitted). “We reverse ‘a district court’s denial to charge a specific jury instruction only

when the requested instruction was correct, not substantially covered by the instructions

given, and was so consequential that the refusal to give the instruction was prejudicial to

the defendant.’” United States v. Leahy, 445 F.3d 634, 651 (3d Cir. 2006) (quoting

United States v. Phillips, 959 F.2d 1187, 1191 (3d Cir. 1992)). In determining whether

reversal is warranted, we read the jury instructions as a whole, United States v. Flores,

454 F.3d 149, 157 (3d Cir. 2006), bearing in mind that “the trial judge retains discretion

to determine the language of the jury charge. . . . So long as the court conveys the

required meaning, the particular words used are irrelevant.” Id. at 161 (citation omitted). 

Moreover, while “a defendant is entitled to a jury instruction on a theory of defense

Case: 09-2863 Document: 003110023457 Page: 7 Date Filed: 02/17/2010
8

whenever some evidence supports that theory, . . . [t]he district court is not obligated to

use the language the defendant proffers.” United States v. Kapp, 781 F.2d 1008, 1013 (3d

Cir. 1986) (citation omitted).

Here, Sylvester asked the District Court to read a proposed jury instruction stating

his theory of the case. According to that theory, the object that triggered the metal

detector alarm was a can of chewing tobacco rather than a knife, and the knife that prison

officials found on the ground had in fact been discarded by another inmate. Specifically,

Sylvester wanted the Court to tell the jury that “because the prosecutor chose not to

charge the defendant with possession of a prohibited object, tobacco, you will not have

the option of convicting Alexander Sylvester of that crime.” (App. 309-10.) The District

Court agreed that Sylvester could argue his theory of the case to the jury but declined to

read his proposed instruction. The Court reasoned that its other instructions made

sufficiently clear that Sylvester’s guilt vel non hinged on the jury’s finding beyond a

reasonable doubt that Sylvester possessed a weapon, not some other object. We agree

with the District Court’s conclusion.

The District Court told the jurors that they could find Sylvester guilty only if they

found that he had possessed a weapon, and provided a definition of “weapon.” The

negative inference clearly flowing from that instruction was that the jury could not

convict Sylvester if it determined that the object Sylvester possessed was a can of

chewing tobacco, as he argued, or any other object that did not come within the definition

Case: 09-2863 Document: 003110023457 Page: 8 Date Filed: 02/17/2010
9

of a weapon as read by the District Court. By finding Sylvester guilty of violating §

1791(a)(2), the jurors necessarily found beyond a reasonable doubt that Sylvester

possessed a weapon, and that was all they needed to do under the circumstances. Put

another way, even assuming that Sylvester’s proposed instruction was correct, it was

substantially covered by the District Court’s other instructions. Cf. Hoffecker, 530 F.3d at

167; United States v. Weatherly, 525 F.3d 265, 270 (3d Cir. 2008); United States v.

Leahy, 445 F.3d 634, 651-52 (3d Cir. 2006). Accordingly, viewing the jury instructions

in their entirety and in context, we conclude that the District Court did not abuse its

discretion in rejecting Sylvester’s proposed jury instruction.

C. Career Offender Classification at Sentencing

Sylvester claims that the District Court erred in classifying him as a career

offender under § 4B1.1 of the United States Sentencing Guidelines. We exercise plenary

review over a district court’s determination that an offense constitutes a crime of violence

for purposes of determining career offender status under U.S.S.G. § 4B1.1. See United

States v. Shabazz, 233 F.3d 730, 731 (3d Cir. 2000); United States v. Williams, 176 F.3d

714, 715 (3d Cir. 1999).

Before sentencing, the United States Probation Office prepared a Presentence

Investigation Report, which assigned Sylvester a base offense level of 13 and classified

him as a career offender under U.S.S.G. § 4B1.1 based on both the conclusion that

Sylvester’s § 1791(a)(2) conviction was a crime of violence and his two prior felony

Case: 09-2863 Document: 003110023457 Page: 9 Date Filed: 02/17/2010
The two prior felony convictions were, respectively, for first-degree robbery and 2

manslaughter.

Sylvester’s Guidelines range was initially fifty-one to sixty-three months in 3

prison, but because a § 1791(a)(2) conviction imposes a five-year maximum prison

sentence, the upper end of his Guidelines range was reduced to sixty months pursuant to

U.S.S.G. § 5G1.1(a).

10

convictions for crimes of violence, thus resulting in a total offense level of 17 and a

criminal history category of VI. Based on these calculations, Sylvester’s advisory 2

Guidelines range was fifty-one to sixty months in prison. Sylvester objected to his 3

classification as a career offender on the ground that his conviction for possession of a

prohibited object did not qualify as a crime of violence. The District Court overruled that

objection and concluded that a § 1791(a)(2) conviction is a crime of violence. The Court

sentenced Sylvester to sixty months in prison.

On appeal, Sylvester renews his argument that a § 1791(a)(2) conviction does not

qualify as a crime of violence. As both parties recognize, in United States v. Polk, 577

F.3d 515 (3d Cir. 2009) – issued less than two months after the District Court sentenced

Sylvester – we held that “a § 1791(a)(2) conviction for possession of a prohibited object

designed to be used as a weapon in prison is not a ‘crime of violence’ for purposes of the

[c]areer [o]ffender Guidelines.” Id. at 520. In light of Polk, the government “concedes

this issue” and asks us to remand for resentencing. (Appellee’s Br. 26.)

Sylvester also argues that he cannot be classified as a career offender based on his

two prior felony convictions because those convictions, he asserts, occurred more than

Case: 09-2863 Document: 003110023457 Page: 10 Date Filed: 02/17/2010
11

fifteen years before his § 1791(a)(2) conviction. He acknowledges, however, that he did

not raise this issue before the District Court. Ordinarily, that omission would limit our

review to the plain error standard. See Polk, 577 F.3d at 517 (“Because Polk did not

object to his designation as a career offender for sentencing purposes in the District

Court, we review for plain error.” (citing Fed. R. Crim. P. 52(b)). “To grant the relief

requested under this standard, we would need to conclude not only that the District Court

erred in classifying [Sylvester] as a career offender, but that the error was plain, and it

affected adversely ‘substantial rights’ of [Sylvester] as well as the ‘fairness, integrity, or

public reputation of judicial proceedings.’” Id. (quotation omitted). Because we will

remand to the District Court for resentencing in light of Polk, we need not address

Sylvester’s other challenge to his career offender status, as he will be able to raise it in the

District Court on remand.

III.

For the foregoing reasons, we will affirm Sylvester’s conviction but vacate his

sentence and remand to the District Court for resentencing.

Case: 09-2863 Document: 003110023457 Page: 11 Date Filed: 02/17/2010