Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca9-11-10058/USCOURTS-ca9-11-10058-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Noshir S. Gowadia
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

FOR PUBLICATION

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Plaintiff-Appellee,

v.

NOSHIR S. GOWADIA,

Defendant-Appellant.

No. 11-10058

D.C. No.

1:05-cr-00486-

SOM-KSC-1

OPINION

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Hawai‘i

Susan Oki Mollway, Chief District Judge, Presiding

Argued and Submitted

February 18, 2014—Honolulu, Hawai‘i

Filed July 28, 2014

Before: Michael Daly Hawkins, M. Margaret McKeown,

and Carlos T. Bea, Circuit Judges.

Opinion by Judge McKeown

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2 UNITED STATES V. GOWADIA

SUMMARY*

Criminal Law

The panel affirmed a conviction for violations of the

Arms Export Control Act of 1976, the Espionage Act of

1917, and related provisions on charges that the defendant

unlawfully exported defense services and technical data

related to the design of the B-2 stealth bomber and other

classified government projects to the People’s Republic of

China, and that he disclosed related classified information to

persons in Switzerland, Israel, and Germany.

The defendant argued that evidence obtained during his

interrogations should have been suppressed because of an

unnecessary or unreasonable delay in presentment to a

magistrate judge. The panel rejected the defendant’s

contention that the words “arrest or other detention” in

18 U.S.C. § 3501(c) expand the right to prompt presentment

beyond the contours of Fed. R. Crim. P. 5(a), meaning that

the right to presentment may attach even absent formal arrest. 

Assuming without deciding that “other detention” and formal

“arrest” in § 3501(c) have different meanings, the panel held

that the defendant cannot invoke the McNabb-Mallory rule

– which generally renders inadmissible confessions made

during periods of detention that violate the prompt

presentment requirement of Fed. R. Crim. P. 5(a) – because

he was not, during the period in question, either formally

arrested or in “other detention” within the meaning of § 3501.

* This summary constitutes no part of the opinion of the court. It has

been prepared by court staff for the convenience of the reader.

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UNITED STATES V. GOWADIA 3

The panel held that there was no error in the district

court’s jury instructions on the government’s burden with

respect to information in the public domain and basic

marketing information.

COUNSEL

Georgia K. McMillen (argued), Wailuku, Hawai‘i, and

Harlan Y. Kimura, Honolulu, Hawai‘i, for DefendantAppellant.

Stephan E. Oestreicher, Jr. (argued), Attorney, Appellate

Section, Criminal Division, United States Department of

Justice, Washington, D.C.; Florence T. Nakakuni, United

States Attorney, Kenneth M. Sorenson, Assistant United

States Attorney, District of Hawai‘i, Honolulu, Hawai‘i;

Mythili Raman, Acting Assistant Attorney General, Denis J.

McInerney, Acting Deputy Assistant Attorney General,

Criminal Division; John P. Carlin, Acting Assistant Attorney

General, Virginia M. Vander Jagt, Robert E. Wallace, Jr.,

Attorneys, National Security Division, United States

Department of Justice, Washington, D.C., for PlaintiffAppellee United States.

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4 UNITED STATES V. GOWADIA

OPINION

McKEOWN, Circuit Judge:1

Noshir Gowadia appeals his conviction for violations of

the Arms Export Control Act of 1976 [“AECA”], the

Espionage Act of 1917, and related provisions on charges that

he unlawfully exported defense services and technical data

related to the design of the B-2 stealth bomber and other

classified government projects to the People’s Republic of

China, and that he disclosed related classified information to

persons in Switzerland, Israel, and Germany. See 22 U.S.C.

§ 2778; 18 U.S.C. §§ 793(e), 794(a).

At issue is Gowadia’s claim that his right to prompt

presentment before a magistrate judge was triggered before

he was actually arrested, and that the inculpatory statements

he made to federal agents investigating his activities should

have been suppressed. Gowadia also challenges the jury

instructions as unconstitutional on the ground that the

government was wrongly relieved of its burden to prove that

the information Gowadia exported was not in the public

domain and was not “basic marketing information” exempted

from the definition of “technical data” under the AECA.2

1 This opinion is based on the publicly-filed documents and excerpts of

record and does not incorporate or reference any classified material.

2 Gowadia does not appeal his convictions on the money laundering and

tax fraud counts, 18 U.S.C. § 1957 or 26 U.S.C. § 7206(1).

In a letter filed with the court before oral argument, Gowadia

withdrew his challenge to the district court’s determination that he was

“not allowed to challenge the classification decisions of the executive

branch.”

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UNITED STATES V. GOWADIA 5

Because these arguments fail as a matter of law, we affirm

Gowadia’s conviction.

BACKGROUND

Gowadia is a naturalized American citizen who worked

for nearly twenty years as an engineer at the Northrop

Corporation on the design of the B-2 stealth bomber and other

highly classified projects. The B-2 became the United

States’s “premier strategic bomber,” in part because it was

designed to be “low-observable.” Gowadia was a lead

engineer of a system designed to enable the B-2 to avoid

detection by suppressing the infrared signature emanating

from the aircraft. The United States maintains a “significant

operational lead” in the manipulation of aircraft signatures.

Because of its strategic importance, information relating to

this system and other stealth technologies is especially tightly

controlled.

Shortly after leaving Northrop, Gowadia started a

business, N.S. Gowadia, Inc. (“NSGI”), to provide consulting

services to the aerospace engineering industry. At NSGI,

Gowadia developed and marketed a system called AIRSS

(Advanced Infrared Suppression System), which, like the

systems he designed at Northrop, was intended to reduce the

infrared signature of aircraft.

Through NSGI, Gowadia sent a series of letters and

emails to three foreign individuals revealing information that

he later admitted was classified. In October 2002, for

example, Gowadia sent a letter to an official at the Swiss

Ministry of Defense detailing Gowadia’s success in

suppressing the infrared signature of the B-2 and offering his

services to help reduce the signature of Swiss military

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6 UNITED STATES V. GOWADIA

helicopters. He sent similar communications to individuals

working for defense contractors in Germany and Israel. None

of the individuals Gowadia contacted was authorized to

receive classified information.

Around the same time, Gowadia began a working

relationship with the Chinese government. Gowadia

exchanged a series of emails with a Chinese operative, and

agreed to brief Chinese officials on aircraft “propulsion” and

“survivability” and to design, for a fee, certain aircraft parts. 

Between 2003 and 2005, Gowadia made six trips to China,

paid for by the Chinese government, often entering and

exiting China without a visa or stamp in his passport and

communicating while there via pseudonymous email

accounts.

Among other things, Gowadia gave Chinese officials a

presentation and a computer file that analyzed how a Chinese

cruise missile, if modified with Gowadia’s designs, would

perform against a United States AIM-9 class missile. The

Chinese government paid Gowadia more than $100,000 for

his work. Gowadia would later admit that he “shared military

secrets . . . [and] technical knowledge” with China that he

“had acquired over many years working with US systems[]

like [the] B-2,” and would surmise that his activities

amounted to “espionage and treason.”

The United States government began to suspect Gowadia

of unlawful activities, and secured a search warrant for

Gowadia’s house. Federal agents arrived at Gowadia’s house

in Maui on October 13, 2005, executed the search warrant,

and asked Gowadia whether there was a private place where

they could talk. After adjourning to the crafts room, they

reviewed an Advice of Rights form with Gowadia, informing

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UNITED STATES V. GOWADIA 7

him of his rights, among others, to seek the advice of counsel

and to terminate the interview at any time, and advised him

on more than one occasion that he was not under arrest and

was free to leave. Gowadia signed the form, and the agents

then interviewed him for roughly six hours. The agents

completed their search late that evening and seized

computers, papers, his passport, foreign currency, and other

materials. Before departing, the agents and Gowadia agreed

to meet the following day.

The group met at a coffee shop the next day but, because

it was impossible to discuss classified information there, the

agents asked Gowadia if there was another location where

they could talk. Gowadia did not suggest an alternative site,

and the agents proposed continuing their conversation at the

Maui County Police Department. Gowadia agreed to

accompany them in his own vehicle. After Gowadia signed

another Advice of Rights form, he and the agents spoke for

about six and a half hours. During this session, Gowadia

stated that he had retained classified material and used it for

business purposes3and that he had disclosed classified

information to foreign individuals and governments,

including China. In a pattern that would continue throughout

the following several days of interrogation, Gowadia

“volunteered to write down” detailed handwritten statements

describing his activities. Gowadia agreed to continue the

conversation at another time and returned home.

3 Among the classified documents seized from Gowadia were classified

charts on signature suppression, an altered document from which he had

cut the word “secret,” and other documents that he had “cut up and

modified” to conceal their source.

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8 UNITED STATES V. GOWADIA

The next day, October 15, 2005, Agent Mohajerin

contacted Gowadia and requested that he “consider flying to

Honolulu for further discussions” with federal agents at the

government’s expense. Gowadia agreed to do so and arrived

in Honolulu on October 16. The agents interviewed Gowadia

in seven sessions between Monday, October 17, and Monday,

October 24, at the FBI office in Honolulu. Gowadia signed an

Advice of Rights form before each interrogation session. The

seven Honolulu sessions lasted between 6.5 and 7.5 hours

each day. During these sessions, Gowadia wrote out copious

notes—the record contains seventy-odd pages of them—for

the agents, detailing his activities and his motivations, and

admitting wrongdoing. Gowadia also acknowledged on each

occasion that he was free to leave.

On Wednesdaymorning, October 26, Gowadia arrived by

taxi at the Honolulu Federal Building. Federal agents met him

there and escorted him to the FBI office, where he was

arrested pursuant to a warrant obtained earlier in the day.

Gowadia was assigned an attorney from the Federal Public

Defender’s office and appeared before a magistrate judge

later that day.

Following a 41-day jury trial, Gowadia was convicted on

fourteen counts related to charges that, in the course of

conducting his business activities at NSGI, he disclosed

protected national security information to foreign

governments and individuals. Specifically, Gowadia was

convicted of (a) conspiring to violate, and violating, the

AECA and its implementing regulations4by exporting

defense services and technical data to China without a license

4 The International Traffic in Arms Regulations, 22 C.F.R. §§ 120 et

seq., and the United States Munitions List, 22 C.F.R. §§ 121.1 et seq.

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UNITED STATES V. GOWADIA 9

(Counts 1 and 2); (b) violating the Espionage Act, 18 U.S.C.

§§ 793(e) and 794(a), and aiding and abetting violations of

that Act, by giving the Chinese a presentation and a computer

file that, among others, predicted how well China’s cruise

missile would perform against a counter-attacking American

missile when fitted with the infrared signature-reducing

exhaust nozzle Gowadia had designed (Counts 6 and 8);

(c) violating the Espionage Act and aiding and abetting

violations of that Act by sending classified infrared-reduction

information about the B-2 bomber to persons not authorized

to receive it in Switzerland, Israel, and Germany (Counts

9–11); (d) violating the AECA and its implementing

regulations and aiding and abetting AECA violations by

wilfullyexporting defense services and technical data to these

three countries without a license (Counts 12–14); (e) retaining

classified documents without authorization (Count 15);

(f) laundering money (Count 19); and (g) filing false tax

returns (Counts 20–21). Gowadia was sentenced to thirty-two

years’ imprisonment.

ANALYSIS

I. PRESENTMENT: FEDERAL RULE OF CRIMINAL

PROCEDURE 5(a)

We first consider whether evidence obtained during

Gowadia’s repeated interrogations should have been

suppressed because of an unnecessary or unreasonable delay

in presentment.5

5 We note that Gowadia seeks only to suppress his statements as a

consequence of a claimed delay in presentment and does not contend

either that they were made involuntarily or that they should be suppressed

under Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 (1966).

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10 UNITED STATES V. GOWADIA

The right to prompt presentment, in its contemporary

form, is found in Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 5(a),

which provides that “[a] person making an arrest within the

United States must take the defendant without unnecessary

delay before a magistrate judge.” FED.R.CRIM.P. 5(a)(1)(A).

Where the right to prompt presentment has been violated, two

sources—18 U.S.C. § 3501(c) and what we have termed the

McNabb-Mallory rule—govern the admissibility of any

resulting confessions. See Corley v. United States, 556 U.S.

303, 322 (2009).

Some history is helpful as context for the relationship

between the right to presentment and the remedy of

suppression. See id. at 306–10. At common law, the

presentment requirement “tended to prevent secret detention

and served to inform a suspect of the charges against him.”

Id. at 306. In McNabb v. United States, 318 U.S. 332 (1943),

the suspects were arrested and then interrogated for several

hours before being brought before a magistrate. Id. at 334–42.

The Court held that “confessions [are] inadmissible when

obtained during unreasonable presentment delay.” Corley,

556 U.S. at 307 (explaining the holding of McNabb). Rule

5(a) was adopted following McNabb, “pull[ing] the several

statutory presentment provisions together in one place.” Id. In

Mallory v. United States, 354 U.S. 449 (1957), the Court

applied Rule 5(a) and held that a confession given seven

hours after an arrest was inadmissible for “extended delay.”

Id. at 455. “Thus,” as the Court explained in Corley, “the rule

known simply as McNabb-Mallory ‘generally render[s]

inadmissible confessions made during periods of detention

that violat[e] the prompt presentment requirement of Rule

5(a).’” 556 U.S. at 309 (quoting United States v. AlvarezSanchez, 511 U.S. 350, 354 (1994)) (alterations in original).

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UNITED STATES V. GOWADIA 11

In part to address concerns with the broad application of

McNabb-Mallory, Congress enacted 18 U.S.C. § 3501(c),

which establishes a six-hour safe harbor for voluntary

confessions.6 Section 3501(c) provides that:

. . . a confession made or given by a

[defendant] . . . while such person was under

arrest or other detention in the custody of any

law-enforcement officer or law-enforcement

agency, shall not be inadmissible solely

because of delay in bringing such person

before a magistrate judge or other officer . . .

if such confession is found by the trial judge

to have been made voluntarily and if the

weight to be given the confession is left to the

jury and if such confession was made or given

by such person within six hours immediately

following his arrest or other detention. . . .

18 U.S.C. § 3501(c).

The rule as it stands today is relatively simple to apply.

When a criminal defendant brings a suppression motion based

on McNabb-Mallory, the district court looks to see whether

the confession was obtained within six hours of arrest. If so,

McNabb-Mallory does not bar its admission. (Of course, the

confession could be inadmissible for other reasons.) If,

however, the “confession occurred before presentment and

beyond six hours, . . . the court must decide whether delaying

6

“Subsections (a) and (b) of § 3501 were meant to eliminate Miranda.” 

Corley, 556 U.S. at 309. The Court later held that Congress may not

legislatively supersede Miranda. Dickerson v. United States, 530 U.S.

428, 444 (2000).

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12 UNITED STATES V. GOWADIA

that long was unreasonable or unnecessary . . . and if it was,

the confession is to be suppressed.” Corley, 556 U.S. at 322.

As the Court explained in Corley, the starting point for

claims under § 3501 is “whether the defendant confessed

within six hours of arrest.” Id. (emphasis added). In other

words, “[section] 3501 modified McNabb-Mallory without

supplanting it.” Id. The language and analysis of the section

focus on the time of arrest, a point that makes sense because

Rule 5(a) applies only in situations involving formal arrest on

specific charges. FED.R.CRIM.P. 5(a)(1) (“Appearance Upon

an Arrest”). By its own terms, the Rule governs the conduct

of “person[s] making an arrest,” and dictates that those

persons bring “the defendant” before a magistrate judge. FED.

R. CRIM. P. 5(a)(1)(A). Rule 5(a) interacts with subsections

5(d) and 5(e), which specify that the magistrate judge must

conveycertain information to the “defendant”: the “complaint

against [him],” for instance, and the right to counsel. FED.R.

CRIM. P. 5(d); 5(e) (citing Rule 58(b)(2)). Without specific

pending criminal charges, the directives of Rules 5(d) and

5(e) would make no sense; the magistrate would have nothing

to tell a person not yet accused or arrested. FED. R. CRIM. P.

5(d); 5(e); see also BLACK’S LAW DICTIONARY 482 (9th ed.

2009) (defining a “defendant” as the “accused in a criminal

proceeding”).

Gowadia contends that the words “arrest or other

detention” in § 3501(c) expand the right to prompt

presentment beyond the contours of Rule 5(a), meaning that

the right to presentment may attach even absent formal arrest. 

Gowadia claims that the right attached in his case because he

was under detention during the interrogation and so his

statements are inadmissible under § 3501(c). We reject this

formulation.

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UNITED STATES V. GOWADIA 13

Section 3501(c) and McNabb-Mallory do not expand the

right to presentment established by Rule 5(a), but instead

provide that “the remedial framework for . . . violations of

th[at] right” is suppression. United States v. McDowell,

687 F.3d 904, 910 (7th Cir. 2012). Section 3501(c) was

intended to limit McNabb-Mallory, not to expand it. See

Corley, 556 U.S. at 318 (noting that “[i]n its original draft,

subsection (c) would indeed have done away with McNabbMallory completely”). Reading § 3501(c) to expand the

presentment clause to persons not covered by Rule 5(a)

would contravene this intent.

The Court’s analysis in Alvarez-Sanchez underscores our

interpretation of the interplay between Rule 5(a) and

§ 3501(c): the “terms of [§ 3501(c)] can apply only when

there is some ‘delay’ in presentment,” and “there can be no

‘delay’ in bringing a person before a federal magistrate until,

at a minimum, there is some obligation to bring the person

before such a judicial officer in the first place.” 511 U.S. at

357–58. Looking to Rule 5(a), the Court held that the

obligation to “present a person to a federal magistrate does

not arise until the person has been arrested for a federal

offense,” id. at 358 (citing FED. R. CRIM. P. 5(a)), or

“detained for a federal crime,” id. (emphasis added). We read

this latter mention of detention so that it is consistent with the

remainder of the paragraph: the only persons required to be

brought before the magistrate judge are those “charged with

offenses against the laws of the United States,” whether

arrested or detained. 18 U.S.C. § 3501(c). The words

“detained” or “detention,” as they are used in § 3501, cannot

be understood without this context. Cf. FED.R.CRIM. P. 5(d)

(requiring that the magistrate judge inform a defendant

charged with a felony of “the complaint against [him]”); 5(e)

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14 UNITED STATES V. GOWADIA

(citingRule58(b)(2)).In short,theCourtties§ 3501 toRule 5(a).

How and why the words “other detention” found their

way into § 3501(c) is a mystery not solved by reading the

case law or statutory history. Where, in cases dealing with the

presentment requirement, the Court has referred to both arrest

and detention, it has specifically tethered its holding to Rule

5(a), which requires an arrest. See, e.g., Alvarez-Sanchez,

511 U.S. at 358. The words “arrest” and “detention” could be,

in this context, either duplicative or independent. To the

extent that the words have essentially the same meaning, this

superfluity is not fatal. As Justice Souter once noted, even

where Congress “indulged in a little redundancy,” such

“inelegance may be forgiven,” because “Congress could

sensibly have seen some practical value in the redundancy.”

Gutierrez de Martinez v. Lamagno, 515 U.S. 417, 445–46

(1995) (Souter, J., dissenting). Alternatively, Congress may

have wanted to preserve the “traditional rule that a confession

will be suppressed” in the “presumably rare scenario of

improper collaboration or a working arrangement between

local and federal law enforcement” hoping to skirt the

presentment requirement by arresting a person on state, but

not federal, charges, United States v. Rowe, 92 F.3d 928, 933

n.2 (9th Cir. 1996) (quoting Alvarez-Sanchez, 511 U.S. at

359) (internal quotation marks omitted), or to preserve a

remedy for the extreme scenario, not present here, in which

the detention is legally tantamount to an arrest, see, e.g.,

United States v. Robinson, 439 F.2d 553, 563–64 (D.C. Cir.

1970) (holding that a confession should be suppressed where

an institutionalized mental patient was detained for eight

months, without access to counsel, because “even if not

technically arrested, he was as though arrested”).

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UNITED STATES V. GOWADIA 15

We reserve judgment on whether the term “other

detention” might have independent meaning from “arrest”

upon formal charges in an extraordinary situation. For

purposes of this appeal, we assume without deciding that the

two terms have different meanings. We need not resolve this

potentially far-reaching question here. Instead, we hold that

Gowadia cannot invoke McNabb-Mallory because he was

not, during the period in question, either formally arrested or

in “other detention” within the meaning of § 3501. The

interviews between October 13 and 25 did not amount to

“detention.”

Gowadia voluntarily accompanied the agents to each

interview, first to the craft room, then to the coffee shop, then

to the police station in Maui, and then to Honolulu.7 He was

told, at his house, that he was free to leave, and during each

interview, was told that he was “free to leave,” that he could

“terminate” the interviews, that he was “not under arrest.” No

restrictions were placed on his movement, as he

acknowledged, and he was never handcuffed. Gowadia did

terminate interviews when he was tired, and at the end of

each day in Honolulu he left the FBI offices and returned to

his hotel room. (At one point, when he complained about the

quality of his hotel, the government made arrangements to

relocate him to a nicer hotel.)

Though not dispositive, it is notable that Gowadia, who

was given fresh Miranda warnings before each session, not

7 Gowadia challenges the district court’s factual findings pertaining to

his motion to suppress. Reviewing for clear error, United States v.

Zakharov, 468 F.3d 1171, 1179 (9th Cir. 2006), we affirm the district

court’s factual findings, which are amply supported by the record

developed at the suppression hearing.

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16 UNITED STATES V. GOWADIA

only willingly but enthusiastically shared information with

authorities, writing out extensive notes each day—some

seventy pages in total—describing his activities in pinpoint

detail. He drew diagrams for agents, relayed the contents of

conversations and travels, and reflected daily about his

wrongdoings. He ended his notes with assurances that they

had been written voluntarily, and that he had been informed

of his rights.8 We agree with the district court that Gowadia

was neither arrested nor under “other detention.” Whatever

“other detention” may encompass, it does not include the

scenario described by these facts. Gowadia’s inculpatory

statements were properly admitted.

II. JURY INSTRUCTIONS

We next address Gowadia’s challenge that certain jury

instructions were deficient because they relieved the

government of its burden to prove that the “defense services”

and “technical data” Gowadia exported were not in the public

domain, and because they omitted the government’s burden

to prove that the technical data at issue were not basic

marketing information.

Although Gowadia’s counsel affirmatively agreed to the

instructions, we give Gowadia the benefit of the doubt and

8 He wrote, for example: “On reflection what I did was wrong . . . . I

made the above statements so that I can correct the harm I have caused &

move on to the next phase of my life, which is retirement. The agents have

made no threats or promises about the outcome. I acknowledge that I

would be held accountable. I was explained that I could call a lawyer, stop

talking or leave.”

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UNITED STATES V. GOWADIA 17

review for plain error.9 United States v. Perez, 116 F.3d 840,

846 (9th Cir. 1997) (distinguishing forfeiture from waiver).

There was no error here, let alone plain error, because the

court properly instructed the jury on the government’s burden

with respect to information in the public domain and “basic

marketing information.” Accordingly, we need not reach the

other prongs of the plain error test. See generally United

States v. Olano, 507 U.S. 725, 732 (1993).

The substantive counts under AECA were counts 2 and

12–14. As to Count 2, the instructions specified that the

government was required to prove beyond a reasonable doubt

that “the defense services and technical data were not in the

public domain,” and as to Counts 12, 13, and 14, that “the

technical data was [sic] not in the public domain.” The

instructions defined “public domain” at length. The

instructions specified that the AECA “includes and

incorporates the International Traffic in Arms Regulations,”

and that those regulations define “defense article” to include

“technical data” but specifically to exclude “basic marketing

information,”10and further define “technical data” itself to

exclude “basic marketing information.”

In United States v. Chi Mak, 683 F.3d 1126 (9th Cir.

2012), we upheld instructions that were effectively the same

as those given here. In that case, the defendant argued that the

9 After multiple exchanges, instructions 2, 12, 13, and 14, the

instructions now challenged by Gowadia, were characterized by the

district court as agreed-upon instructions. Gowadia did not object.

10 The definition of “public domain” appeared between the descriptions

of Count 2 and Counts 12, 13, and 14, which immediately followed. The

sentences defining “technical data” to exclude “basic marketing

information” preceded the descriptions of the individual counts.

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18 UNITED STATES V. GOWADIA

jury instructions “relieved the Government of its burden to

prove the documents were not in the public domain,” because

one of the instructions could have been read to say that

certain information that Mak allegedly exported was

“technical data” as a matter of law.11Id. at 1136–37. The

challenge was unsuccessful because the district court

“specifically instructed the jury that any information in the

public domain cannot be ‘technical data.’” Id. at 1137.

Here, as in Chi Mak, the district court “specifically

instructed the jury” that the government had to prove that any

defense services or technical data “were not in the public

domain,” and that defense services and technical data by

definition excluded “basic marketing information.” It is not

important, under Chi Mak, that the “basic marketing

information” caveat in Gowadia’s case appeared in

instructions separate from the instructions listing the elements

of the counts in question. In Chi Mak, the definition of

11 The instruction in Chi Mak read as follows (text in italics is identical):

All technical data is subject to export control.

Technical data is information required for the design,

development, production, manufacture, assembly,

operation, testing, or modification of defense articles.

Technical data does not include information in the

public domain.

You are instructed that the information in the Solid

State document and the Q.E.D. document is required

for the design, development, production, manufacture,

assembly, operation, testing, or modification of defense

articles. You must accept this fact as true, regardless of

whether you heard any witness testify to the contrary.

683 F.3d at 1132 (emphasis added).

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UNITED STATES V. GOWADIA 19

“technical data” and the caveat regarding information “in the

public domain” appeared in an instruction distinct from the

instruction laying out the elements of the offense. See id. at

1132. The “public domain” instruction in Gowadia’s case

was arguably even clearer than the one approved in Chi Mak,

since it appeared in the lists of elements for the various

charges.

Reviewing the jury instructions “as a whole,” United

States v. Frega, 179 F.3d 793, 806 n.16 (9th Cir. 1999), we

hold that there was no error as to the “public domain” or

“basic marketing information” instructions.

Gowadia’s conviction is AFFIRMED.

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