Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-92-03223/USCOURTS-caDC-92-03223-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Reggie Eugene May
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

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United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued September 8, 1995 Decided October 31, 1995

No. 92-3223

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

APPELLEE

v.

REGGIE EUGENE MAY,

APPELLANT

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Columbia

(92cr00093-01)

Mary E. Davis, appointed by the court, argued the cause and filed the brief for appellant.

Nancy B. Bukas, Assistant United States Attorney, argued pro hac vice for appellee, with whomEric

H. Holder, Jr., United States Attorney, John R. Fisher and Roy W. McLeese, III, Assistant United

States Attorneys, were on the brief. Elizabeth Trosman, Assistant United States Attorney, entered

an appearance.

Before: GINSBURG, HENDERSON, and RANDOLPH, Circuit Judges.

Opinion for the court filed by Circuit Judge RANDOLPH.

RANDOLPH, Circuit Judge: Officers seeking to execute an arrest warrant for Jermaine

Thomas, who had been charged with first degree murder, proceeded to the address given in the

supporting affidavit. There they encountered the defendant May and others, but not Thomas. The

weapons and drugs found on the premises resulted in May's indictment and conviction, after a jury

trial, for possession with intent to distribute cocaine; and for using and carrying a firearm in

connection with that offense, for possessing a firearm with an altered serial number, and for

possessing an unregistered firearm.

As to the validity of the search, May recognizes that the Fourth Amendment permits law

enforcement officers to search the dwelling of the subject of an arrest warrant provided they have

reason to believe the suspect is there. See Payton v. New York, 445 U.S. 573, 603 (1980). May's

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complaint is twofold: the officers had no reason to believe that Thomas lived at the address or that

he would be there when the police entered. There is nothing to either point. Police records disclosed

Thomas's address. Two witnesses placed Thomas at that address after the murder. One witness said

Thomas slept there on the evening of the murder. Thomas had a criminal history. The murder

occurred on a Saturdayafternoon, the warrant issued onMonday, and the police entered the premises

on Tuesday morning. Thomas slept somewhere on Sunday and Monday. The police reasonably

could suppose that the somewhere was the address on the affidavit and that Thomas would still be

inside at 11:20 a.m. when they arrived. The police could not be certain of this but certainty is not

required. See United States v. Terry, 702 F.2d 299, 319 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, 461 U.S. 931, and

cert. denied, 464 U.S. 992 (1983); see also United States v. Woods, 560 F.2d 660, 665 (5th Cir.

1977), cert. denied, 435 U.S. 906 (1978). Thomas must have felt safe at his dwelling, having

returned there after committing a murder in broad daylight. Given the gravity of his crime, the police

would have been remiss if they had not attempted to apprehend him as quickly as possible. And the

logical place one would expect to find Thomas on that Tuesday morning was at his home.

May's next contention has more substance. The district court instructed the jury that "[p]roof

beyond a reasonable doubt is proof that leaves you with a strong beliefin a defendant's guilt" and that

"[i]f based on your consideration of the evidence you have a strong beliefthat the defendant is guilty

of one or more of the crimes charged, it is your duty to find him guilty." In United States v. Merlos,

984 F.2d 1239 (D.C. Cir.) [Merlos I], vacated in part sub nom. United States v. Loriano, 996 F.2d

424 (D.C. Cir.), reh'g denied, 8 F.3d 48 (D.C. Cir. 1993) [Merlos II], cert. denied, 114 S. Ct. 1635

(1994), we held that identical jury instructions given by the same district judge equating reasonable

doubt with a "strong belief " were unconstitutional. 984 F.2d at 1242.

Because an unconstitutionalreasonable-doubt instruction can never constitute harmless error

under Rule 52(a), FED. R. CRIM. P. (Sullivan v. Louisiana, 113 S. Ct. 2078, 2082 (1993); United

States v. Purvis, 21 F.3d 1128, 1130 (D.C. Cir. 1994); Loriano, 996 F.2d at 424), everything turns

on whether May's counsel interposed a timely and sufficient objection. Rule 30, FED. R. CRIM. P.,

provides that "[n]o party may assign as error any portion of the charge or omission therefrom unless

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1Merlos I, decided in February 1993, was our first decision holding unconstitutional a jury

instruction equating reasonable doubt with a strong belief. May's trial took place in June 1992. 

United States v. Washington, 12 F.3d 1128, 1138-39 (D.C. Cir.), cert. denied, 115 S. Ct. 98

(1994), and Merlos II, 8 F.3d at 50-51, held that before Merlos I, the erroneous instructions did

not constitute "plain error" under Rule 52(b), as interpreted in United States v. Olano, 113 S. Ct.

1770, 1777-78 (1993). 

that party objects thereto before the jury retires to consider its verdict, stating distinctly the matter

to which that party objects and the grounds of the objection." See also FED.R.CRIM. P. 51. If May's

counsel complied withRule 30, May is entitled to a new trial. If May's counsel did not comply, May's

conviction will stand.1

Before the court charged the jury in this case, it held an off-the-record conference on the

instructions and then told counsel to place their objections on the record. May's counsel, James R.

Holloway, Esq., stated: "We had requested in our requested instructions that Your Honor give the

standard reasonable doubt instruction in the Redbook Instruction, 2.09." The court responded:

As I told you informally, I've been giving for some time the reasonable doubt

instruction from the Pattern Criminal Instructions prepared by a subcommittee on

pattern jury instructions of the judicial conference of the United States.

I haven't seen a reasonable doubt instruction yet that I think is ideal. I keep

thinking I'll take a day sometime and try to blend everything together into what seems

to be a better one, but I don't have it yet.

So I give the one from the judicial conference instruction book.

In order to preserve the issue for appeal, Rule 30 required defense counsel to identify

distinctlythe "strong belief" portion ofthe instruction and to state whyhe considered it objectionable.

See, e.g., United States v. Logan, 998 F.2d 1025, 1030 (D.C. Cir.), cert. denied, 114 S. Ct. 569

(1993). Holloway did neither in the exchange just quoted. All that appears is a restatement of his

request for one version of a reasonable doubt instruction and the district court's rejoinder that it

would give a different version. That fulfilled the court's obligation under Rule 30 to "inform counsel

of its proposed action upon the requests [for instructions] prior to their arguments to the jury." It

did not discharge defense counsel's duty to object to the court's decision.

Nevertheless, this court has twice determined that colloquies almost identical to the one just

quoted, colloquies with the same judge relating to the same instruction, amounted to a sufficient

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objection to preserve the issue for appeal. See Purvis, 21 F.3d at 1130; Loriano, 996 F.2d at 424

(discussed in Purvis, 21 F.3d at 1130). The trial in Purvis took place several months after May's,

with attorney Holloway representing the defendant before the same district judge. We presumed in

Purvis that during the off-the-record conference, Holloway communicated his objection to the

"strong belief " portion of the instruction, although he said nothing specific on the record. 21 F.3d

at 1130. The district judge, we wrote in Purvis, "customarily gave the constitutionally deficient

"strong belief ' " instruction and "already knew of [Holloway's] objections to the "strong belief '

reasonable doubt instruction." Id.

Because Rule 30 requires counsel to put their objections on the record and to spell out the

reasons for them (see, e.g., United States v. Agnes, 753 F.2d 293, 301 n.11 (3d Cir. 1985); United

States v. Henderson, 645 F.2d 569, 577-78 (7th Cir.), cert. denied, 454 U.S. 850 (1981)), Purvis

must have rested on a factual assumptionthat the district judge understood the defense attorney's

recorded remarks to mean far more than otherwise appears, that the attorney was speaking in a sort

of code, repeating what he had said explicitly at conference. That assumption, and the narrow

holding in Purvis, depend on the relationship of this particular defense attorney to this particular

district judge with respect to this particular portion of the judge's customary reasonable doubt

instruction. To bring May's case within Purvis we too would have to conclude that attorney

Holloway told the judge, off the record, of his objection to the "strong belief " language and the

reasons for it. But we have absolutely nothing in this case, not even a representation in May's brief,

to indicate that Holloway ever did so. Rather than speculating about what transpired in the

conference, a conference predating the one in Purvis, we will return the case to the district judge for

a determination of what actually occurred.

The case is remanded. The district court, upon consideration of whatever submissions

defendant's attorney and the attorney for the government maywish to make,shalldetermine whether,

in the off-the-record conference on instructions in this case, attorney Holloway stated an objection

to the "strong belief " portion of the court's proposed reasonable doubt instruction and the grounds

of the objection. In making that determination the court may consider submissions from attorney

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Holloway and from the government attorney who attended the conference. If the court finds that

attorney Holloway made the objection and sufficiently stated the grounds for it, the court shall enter

an order vacating May's conviction and setting the case down for a new trial. If the court finds that

attorney Holloway did not make the objection or sufficiently state the grounds for it in the

conference, the court shall enter a final judgment so stating.

Remanded.

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