Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca10-88-02657/USCOURTS-ca10-88-02657-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Robert Wayne Scroggins
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS 

TENTH CIRCUIT APR ·<J 1990 

ROBERT L. lIOECKER 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Clerk 

Plaintiff-Appellee, 

v. 

ROBERT WAYNE SCROGGINS, 

Defendant-Appellant. 

No. 88-2657 

(D.C. No. 88-19-CR) 

(E. Dist. Okla.) 

ORDER AND JUDGMENT* 

Before McKAY and SEYMOUR, Circuit Judges, and KANE,** District 

Judge. 

Robert Scroggins was convicted on two counts of illegal 

possession of firearms following a former felony conviction in 

violation of 18 u.s.c. App. § 1202(a)(l) (1982 & Supp. III 1985). 1 

He appeals, and we affirm. 

*This order and judgment has no precedential value and shall not 

be cited, or used by any court within the Tenth Circuit, except 

for purposes of establishing the doctrines of the law of the case, 

res judicata, or collateral estoppel. 10th Cir. R. 36.3. 

**Honorable John L. Kane, Jr., United States District Judge for 

the District of Colorado, sitting by designation. 

1 The statute was repealed effective November 19, 1986, and was 

recodified at 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(l). The acts underlying 

Scroggins' conviction occurred prior to repeal. 

Appellate Case: 88-2657 Document: 01019970872 Date Filed: 04/09/1990 Page: 1 
I • 

Scroggins, who had a previous California state court felony 

conviction for burglary, sold a shotgun to Alcohol, Tobacco, and 

Firearms Bureau agent Jeff Fulton. Thereafter, federal agents 

executed a search warrant on Scroggins' property and found five 

other weapons. 

Scroggins was arraigned on April 29, 1988. He waived his 

right to have counsel present at the arraignment but apparently 

indicated that he wanted counsel appointed. At the arraignment, 

the district court set a trial date of June 6 and gave Scroggins 

until May 6 to file pretrial motions. The court also gave 

Scroggins permission to travel to California and told him to 

communicate with the public defender who would be appointed. 

Stephan Greubel, the public defender, was not officially appointed 

to Scroggins' case until May 5. Nonethtless, on May 4 he signed a 

Reciprocal Memorandum of Discovery, two days before expiration of 

the deadline for motions. In mid-May, Scroggins telephoned Mr. 

Greubel and expressed his desire to plead guilty to the federal 

charges while in California pursuant to Fed. R. Crim. P. 20(b). 

On June 3, he surrendered himself to the authorities in California 

and entered into a Rule 20(b) plea agreement. 

For reasons that are unclear on the record, Scroggins later 

backed out of this agreement. He was detained in California until 

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Appellate Case: 88-2657 Document: 01019970872 Date Filed: 04/09/1990 Page: 2 
mid-September 1988, at which time he was transported back to 

Oklahoma to stand trial. The district court in Oklahoma reset the 

trial for October 3. Mr. Greubel was reappointed to represent 

defendant. 

Mr. Greubel filed various unsuccessful motions on behalf of 

Scroggins, including a request to file pretrial motions out of 

time, a request to subpoena a witness for trial pursuant to Fed. 

R. Crim. P. 17, and a motion to continue the trial date. The 

district court denied these motions. Just prior to trial, Mr. 

Greubel filed a motion to withdraw as counsel at Scroggins' 

request. Following a hearing, that motion was also denied. 

Scroggins was tried before a jury, and was found guilty on both 

counts of the indictment. He now appeals these convictions on 

various grounds. 

II. 

Scroggins first argues that the district court denied him the 

opportunity to prepare adequately for trial when it refused to 

grant his motion for continuance of the trial date. The decision 

to grant or deny a motion for continuance cannot be reversed 

except upon a showing of clear abuse of the trial court's 

discretion, resulting in manifest injustice to the defendant. 

United States v. Mitchell, 765 F.2d 130, 132 (10th Cir.), cert. 

denied, 474 U.S. 983 (1985). Scroggins was arraigned in April 

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Appellate Case: 88-2657 Document: 01019970872 Date Filed: 04/09/1990 Page: 3 
1988 with his trial set in June. He chose to travel to California 

and to plead guilty three days before trial. He then withdrew his 

plea, his trial was reset, and his federal public defender was 

reappointed. These facts show that Scroggins was responsible for 

significant delay arising from his absence from the district and 

his indecision about how to plead. Moreover, his counsel was 

reappointed over two weeks before trial, in sufficient time to 

prepare for the limited number of factual and le9al matters at 

issue. Accordingly, the district court acted within its 

discretion in denying the motion for a continuance. 

III. 

Scroggins next contends that the trial court denied him 

effective assistance of counsel by denying his various motions, 

thereby precluding his attorney from assisting him during a 

"critical stage" of the proceedings. See United States v. Cronic, 

466 U.S. 648, 659 n.25 (1984). Where counsel is prevented from 

assisting the accused during a critical stage of the trial, 

prejudice is presumed without inquiry into counsel's actual 

performance at trial. Id. The alleged prevention by the district 

court of effective assistance of counsel in the present case 

arises from the court's refusal to continue the trial and to reset 

the deadline date for filing pretrial motions, and from its denial 

of Scroggins' application to subpoena witnesses. 

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For cause, the district court could have granted relief from 

the failure to file pretrial motions within the prescribed time. 

See Fed. R. Crim. P. 12(f). However, the facts in the present 

case did not require the court to grant the motion to extend the 

time for filing pretrial motions. Upon arraignment, Scroggins was 

given five days within which to file pretrial motions. Scroggins' 

counsel was involved in the case and had access to Government 

files by May 4, two days before the pretrial motion filing 

deadline. Defense counsel did not hear from Scroggins in 

California until several days after the deadline had passed, at 

which time Scroggins told his attorney that he wished to plead 

guilty. If there were grounds to file a pretrial motion, 

defendant and his counsel could have made that determination in 

May and requested an extension of time then to file the motions. 

Thus, it was Scroggins' initial failure to contact his 

attorney and his subsequent determination to plead guilty that 

prevented counsel from assisting him at the pretrial stage, not 

the district court. Under these circumstances the court was 

justified in finding insufficient cause to grant a belated motion 

for extension of time to file pretrial motions. The court's 

ruling does not constitute an abuse of discretion, much less a 

denial of effective assistance of counsel under Cronic. See 

United States v. Smith, 692 F.2d 658, 662 (10th Cir. 1982) (trial 

court has discretion in granting relief for cause under Rule 

12(f)). Cf. United States v. West, 828 F.2d 1468, 1470 (10th Cir. 

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Appellate Case: 88-2657 Document: 01019970872 Date Filed: 04/09/1990 Page: 5 
' 1987) (diligence relevant in decision to grant or deny continuance}. 

Any error in the trial court's denial of the subpoena 

application is harmless, since it was sought in support of a due 

process defense that we hold below is unavailable to defendant. 

See infra part IV. Therefore, the assistance-of-counsel argument 

fails . 

IV. 

Scroggins' final arguments arise from his defense of 

"entrapment by estoppel." See United States v. Tallmadge, 829 

F.2d 767, 773 (9th Cir. 1987). He maintains that his conviction 

violates due process because he reasonably relied on his 

California parole officer's statement that he could legally own 

hunting rifles despite his status as a convicted felon. The 

district court gave an entrapment-by-estoppel instruction to the 

jury. Defendant argues, however, that the court erred in failing 

to instruct the jury that the Government had the burden of 

disproving the defense or, alternatively, if defendant had the 

burden of proof, that his burden was only to establish the defense 

by a preponderance of the evidence and not beyond a reasonable 

doubt. Defendant also contends the court erred when it denied his 

application for a subpoena to obtain evidence supportive of his 

entrapment-by-estoppel defense. 

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The Government points out that Scroggins failed to object 

below to the jury instruction omission and to the denial of the 

subpoena application, and contends we should not consider these 

issues. Alternatively, the Government asserts that the alleged 

errors are of no significance because the entrapment-by-estoppel 

defense should not have been available to Scroggins. 

We do not reach the difficult issue of whether an 

entrapment-by-estoppel defense was available. Because defendant 

failed to raise his objections below, we can only notice errors 

that meet the plain error test. See Fed. R. Crim. P. 52(b). We 

have reviewed the record and we conclude that the court did not 

commit plain error. 

The judgment is AFFIRMED. 

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Entered for the Court 

Stephanie K. Seymour 

Circuit Judge 

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