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Parties Involved:
United States of America
Appellee
Antonio L. Venable
Appellant

Document Text:

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United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued September 13, 2001 Decided November 6, 2001

No. 00-3089

United States of America,

Appellee

v.

Antonio L. Venable,

Appellant

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Columbia

(No. 00cr00038-01)

Lisa B. Wright, Assistant Federal Public Defender, argued

the cause for appellant. With her on the brief was A.J.

Kramer, Federal Public Defender. Valencia R. Rainey,

Assistant Federal Public Defender, entered an appearance.

Suzanne Grealy Curt, Assistant U.S. Attorney, argued the

cause for appellee. With her on the brief were Wilma A.

Lewis, U.S. Attorney at the time the brief was filed, and John

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R. Fisher, Roy W. McLeese III, and James G. Flood, Assistant U.S. Attorneys.

Before: Tatel and Garland, Circuit Judges, and

Williams,* Senior Circuit Judge.

Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge Garland.

Garland, Circuit Judge: A jury found Antonio Venable

guilty of one count of unlawful possession of a firearm by a

convicted felon, in violation of 18 U.S.C. s 922(g)(1). Venable

challenges his conviction on the ground that, during closing

argument, the prosecutor improperly suggested that the jury

could acquit Venable only if it disbelieved three government

witnesses. Because defense counsel did not object to the

prosecutor's statement, and because the statement did not

rise to the level of reversible error under Federal Rule of

Criminal Procedure 52(b), we affirm.

I

On January 4, 2000, Talmadge Watson, the manager of a

youth recreation center in the District of Columbia, made a

911 call to the Metropolitan Police Department. Watson

reported that a man with a gun was inside the center. He

described the person as a black male, wearing a black leather

jacket, a baseball cap with the letter "P" on it, and dark

trousers. That description was broadcast over the police

radio.

Officer James Thomas responded to the broadcast and

reached the recreation center at approximately 6:00 p.m. At

trial, Thomas testified that, while walking toward the center,

he saw a man leave the building who appeared to match the

broadcast description. After noticing other police officers

arrive on the scene, the man turned around and reentered the

building. Officer Thomas then went into the center and,

together with Officer Christopher Baxa, began to search for

exits through which the suspect might have fled.

__________

* Senior Circuit Judge Williams was in regular active service at

the time of oral argument.

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At this point, Watson, the manager who had made the

original 911 call, approached Baxa and told him that the

suspect was at the front door. Officers Thomas and Baxa

went back to the front of the building and detained defendant

Venable, who was standing at the door. Venable was wearing

dark jeans and a baseball cap with the letter "P," but not the

black leather jacket that Thomas had seen on the man

previously standing outside. While the cold and misty weather warranted a coat, Venable was wearing only a T-shirt.

Both Thomas and Baxa testified that, although they had not

said a word about a black jacket, Venable spontaneously told

them that he did not have one and that he had not worn a

coat to the recreation center that day.

The officers then began searching the center for the black

leather jacket. Thomas soon found one, slightly wet, in a pile

of coats on a pool table in the center's game room. According

to Thomas' testimony, the jacket appeared to be the one worn

by the man he had seen outside the center; Thomas did not,

however, definitively identify Venable as that man. Wrapped

inside the jacket, which contained no identifying information,

was a loaded semi-automatic pistol.

At trial, Venable's prior felony conviction was the subject of

a stipulation between the parties. The chief witnesses

against the defendant were the two police officers, who

testified as set forth above, and Watson, who testified that he

had seen Venable with the gun. The jury was told that

Watson himself had two prior convictions: for making a false

statement or misrepresentation to the police involving the use

of a false driver's license, and for attempted possession of

PCP. The principal defense witnesses were two recreation

center employees, who described themselves as friends of

Venable. Derrall Joyner, an assistant manager at the center,

testified that Venable had come into the center without a

jacket and had never entered the game room. Jenine Davis,

a recreation specialist, testified that, at a meeting she attended with Watson and defense counsel, Watson agreed that

Venable had not been wearing a black jacket and had not

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been in the game room. Upon cross-examination, Watson

denied making such a statement.

During closing argument, the prosecution maintained that

Watson, despite his run-ins with the law, was a courageous

man who deserved praise for his concern about the recreation

center's safety, and who had no motive to notify the police

falsely that Venable had a gun. The prosecution further

suggested that, by contrast, the defense witnesses had motives to fabricate because they were friends of Venable and

because Joyner resented the police's intrusion into the center.

The defense countered that Watson had lied in the past, and

that the jury should instead believe Joyner and Davis.

In rebuttal, the Assistant United States Attorney continued

to stress the credibility of the government's witnesses. He

then made the statement that is at issue on this appeal: "For

you to find Mr. Venable not guilty, you must disbelieve the

testimony of Mr. Watson, Officer James Thomas, and Officer

Baxa." Defense counsel did not object, and the jury convicted Venable of violating 18 U.S.C. s 922(g)(1).

II

Because defendant's counsel did not object to the challenged statement, we review it only for plain error under

Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 52(b). See Johnson v.

United States, 520 U.S. 461, 466 (1997). That standard

requires: "(1) 'error,' (2) that is 'plain,' and (3) that 'affect[s]

substantial rights.' " Id. at 467 (quoting United States v.

Olano, 507 U.S. 725, 732 (1993)). The third condition "in

most cases ... means that the error must have been prejudicial: It must have affected the outcome of the district court

proceedings." Olano, 507 U.S. at 734. Moreover, it is "the

defendant rather than the Government who bears the burden

of persuasion with respect to prejudice." Id. Finally, "[i]f all

three conditions are met, an appellate court may then exercise its discretion to notice a forfeited error, but only if (4) the

error 'seriously affect[s] the fairness, integrity, or public

reputation of judicial proceedings.' " Johnson, 520 U.S. at

467 (quoting Olano, 507 U.S. at 732) (other citations omitted).

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A

Venable contends that the prosecutor's remark was plain

error because it had the effect of "diluting" the government's

burden of proof.1 Read with a grammarian's eye, the prosecutor's statement was surely error. Telling the jury that in

order to acquit Venable it would have to disbelieve Watson,

Thomas, and Baxa was logically equivalent to saying that the

jury would have to convict Venable if it believed Watson,

Thomas, or Baxa. That proposition was false. The testimony of Thomas or Baxa alone might well have been insufficient

to find the defendant guilty and, in any event, would certainly

not have compelled a guilty verdict. Moreover, the prosecutor was wrong not just in using the conjunction "and," but

also in using the verb "disbelieve." The jury did not need to

disbelieve Watson or any other witness to acquit Venable.

Reasonable doubt about Venable's guilt was all that was

required. Cf. United States v. Rawlings, 73 F.3d 1145, 1148-

49 (D.C. Cir. 1996) ("[T]he jurors were not, as the court

erroneously instructed, required to decide whom to believe.... They had to determine only whether the Government proved what it alleged had happened beyond a reasonable doubt.").

To conclude that the prosecutor's statement was technically

erroneous, however, is not to conclude that the error was

plain--i.e., "clear" or "obvious," Olano, 507 U.S. at 734.

Neither courts nor juries parse extemporaneous remarks in

closing argument as closely as sentences in carefully drafted

legal documents. Indeed, even in such documents authors

sometimes use the word "and" to convey the meaning of

"or"--and vice versa. See, e.g., Varel v. Banc One Capital

Partners, Inc., 55 F.3d 1016, 1020-21 (5th Cir. 1995) (holding

that the word "and" in a contract may mean "or"); see also,

e.g., De Sylva v. Ballentine, 351 U.S. 570, 573 (1956) ("We

start with the proposition that the word 'or' is often used as a

__________

1 The defendant concedes "that the prosecutor did not set out to

intentionally dilute the government's burden of proof, and would

surely not have made the misstatement if he had thought it

through." Appellant's Reply Br. at 5.

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careless substitute for the word 'and.' "). Likewise, the word

"disbelieve" may be used loosely to indicate doubt rather than

actual disbelief. In fact, in their written brief in this case,

defendant's appellate counsel used the word in just that way.

Focusing on the prosecutor's error in stating that the jury

could not acquit unless it disbelieved Watson, Thomas, and

Baxa, appellate counsel erroneously conceded that it was,

however, "essentially correct to say that the jury could not

acquit unless it disbelieved Watson." Appellant's Br. at 13.

Appellate counsel's inaccurate formulation, contained in a

brief they had ample time to craft, only underscores why

statements made in the heat of oral argument are not and

cannot be read with an editor's red pencil in hand. Cf.

Donnelly v. DeChristoforo, 416 U.S. 637, 646-47 (1974) (cautioning that a court should not lightly infer that a jury will

draw the most damaging meaning from a prosecutor's remark

in closing argument).

In assessing the import of a statement made in closing

argument, context is key. And in the context of the prosecutor's entire argument in this case, it is not clear that the jury

would have understood his statement to mean that crediting

the testimony of any of the three witnesses would compel

conviction. To the contrary, the prosecutor stressed the

centrality of Watson's testimony, acknowledging that without

Watson the government would not have had a case against

Venable. Tr. at 270. Similarly, we hesitate to find that the

jury would clearly have understood the prosecutor to say that

acquittal required the jury's "disbelief" in the literal sense--

rather than reasonable doubt on the ultimate question of

Venable's guilt--since the prosecutor also noted the government's burden of proving guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

Id. at 258; cf. United States v. Spencer, 25 F.3d 1105, 1110

(D.C. Cir. 1994) (holding that where a district court instructed

the jury that it must decide whether the government's or the

defendant's witnesses were lying, but had earlier given a

proper instruction regarding the burden of proof, the "jury

could not have construed the court's remark to mean that the

defendant had the burden of proof, unless it ignored the

court's other instructions"). Accordingly, we conclude that

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although the prosecutor's statement was erroneous, in context

it was not plainly so.

B

Even if the prosecutor's error were plain, to warrant

reversal of Venable's conviction it would also have to have

prejudiced the outcome of the trial. See Olano, 507 U.S. at

734. In evaluating the potential prejudice from an improper

statement in closing argument, this court typically looks to

the centrality of the issue affected, the severity of the prosecutor's misconduct, the steps taken to mitigate the misconduct, and the closeness of the case. See United States v.

Gartmon, 146 F.3d 1015, 1026 (D.C. Cir. 1998); United States

v. North, 910 F.2d 843, 895 (D.C. Cir. 1990). Considering

those factors, we do not find the kind of prejudice necessary

to justify vacating Venable's conviction.

Although the issue affected by the prosecutor's comment,

the government's burden of proof, was as central to this case

as it would be to any case, the prosecutor's misstatement

cannot be characterized as severe. As noted above, in context it is not clear that the jury would have understood the

prosecutor as misstating (or diluting) the government's burden. Moreover, the offending comment consisted of a single

sentence in the course of a closing that was otherwise devoted

to proper argument regarding why the government witnesses

were believable and the defense witnesses were not. As we

held in United States v. North, "[w]ithout other compelling

factors, a single misstatement confined to a closing argument

rarely amounts to severe misconduct." 910 F.2d at 897.

There are no such compelling factors here. To the contrary, the prosecutor's misstatement was mitigated by the

court's twice-delivered instructions that the "law doesn't require a defendant to prove his innocence, produce evidence or

testify," and that the burden of proof "is on the Government

to prove the defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt and

that burden of proof never shifts throughout the trial," Tr. at

19 (initial instructions); id. at 275 (final instructions). See

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United States v. Catlett, 97 F.3d 565, 573 (D.C. Cir. 1996)

(holding that the same burden-of-proof instruction as that

used here cured any confusion caused by a prosecutor's

remark that the jury could have understood as burdenshifting); United States v. Trapnell, 638 F.2d 1016, 1026 (7th

Cir. 1980) (finding no plain error where, although the prosecutor made a remark similar to that challenged here, "the

trial court's instructions unambiguously place[d] the burden

of proof on the government"). The impact of the misstatement was still further reduced by the judge's instructions that

it was the court's responsibility to apprise the jury as to the

law, and that the lawyers' statements were merely argument.

See generally Gartmon, 146 F.3d at 1026; United States v.

Gatling, 96 F.3d 1511, 1524 (D.C. Cir. 1996).

Finally, although the evidence against Venable was not

overwhelming, it was sufficiently strong, in light of the foregoing factors, to undermine the assertion that the outcome of

the trial was affected by the prosecutor's statement. Watson's eyewitness testimony regarding Venable's possession of

the weapon (together with the stipulation that Venable had a

felony conviction) established all of the elements of the crime.

And while Watson was not an unimpeachable witness, the

defense did not suggest any motive for him to accuse Venable

falsely. Moreover, Watson's testimony was corroborated in

important parts by both the officers' testimony and Venable's

own spontaneous utterance. The officers' observations supported the prosecution's theory that Venable removed his

jacket--wet from the mist outside--and wrapped the gun in it

when he saw them coming. And Venable's declaration that

he had not worn a black jacket that day--at a time when the

officers had not yet said a word about a jacket--was a classic

example of "protesting too much."

Weighing all these factors, we conclude that the defendant

has not met his burden, under the third prong of the plain

error standard, to establish prejudice arising from the prosecutor's error. Thus, there is no need for us to consider how

Venable would fare under the fourth prong of the standard,

which further requires him to establish that the error "seriously affect[s] the fairness, integrity, or public reputation of

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judicial proceedings." Johnson, 520 U.S. at 467 (quoting

Olano, 507 U.S. at 732) (other citations omitted).

III

In the context in which it was made, the prosecutor's

erroneous misstatement of the standard for acquittal was

neither plain nor prejudicial. Accordingly, the defendant's

conviction is

Affirmed.

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