Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca9-15-50023/USCOURTS-ca9-15-50023-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
James Francis Murphy
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.

JAMES FRANCIS MURPHY, 

Defendant-Appellant.

No. 15-50023

D.C. No. 

3:12-cr-02497-AJB-1

OPINION

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Southern District of California

Anthony J. Battaglia, District Judge, Presiding

Argued and Submitted March 9, 2016

Pasadena, California

Filed June 9, 2016

Before: Richard R. Clifton and Sandra S. Ikuta, Circuit

Judges, and Frederic Block, District Judge.*

Opinion by Judge Block

* The Honorable Frederic Block, Senior U.S. District Judge for the

Eastern District of New York, sitting by designation.

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2 UNITED STATES V. MURPHY

SUMMARY**

Criminal Law

The panel affirmed a defendant’s conviction by jury trial

for interfering with the administration of the tax laws and

presenting false claims to the United States, and vacated his

conviction for presenting fictitious financial instruments, in

violation of 18 U.S.C. § 514.

The panel concluded that the evidence was sufficient to

preclude a judgment of acquittal on the § 514 counts. 

Nonetheless, reviewing the district court’s jury instructions

for plain error, the panel held that the evidence was not so

overwhelming that it negated the prejudice flowing from the

lack of any instruction that the financial instruments in

question had to be issued “under the authority of the United

States.” Accordingly, the panel vacated the conviction on the

§ 514 counts. 

Affirming as to other counts, the panel held that the

district court did not err in failing to instruct the jury that an

attempt to reduce tax liability is not a “claim” within the

meaning of 18 U.S.C. § 287. The panel held that the charge

for interfering with the administration of the tax laws in

violation of 26 U.S.C. § 7212(a) was timely. Agreeing with

the Fourth Circuit, the panel held that an interference charge,

like a charge of tax evasion under § 7201, is timely so long as

it is returned within six years of an act of interference. The

** 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. MURPHY 3

panel also held that the § 7212(a) charge was not duplicitous

and that the government’s rebuttal summation was proper.

The panel vacated the § 514 convictions and affirmed the

others. It vacated the district court’s judgment and remanded

for a new trial on the § 514 counts, as well as for resentencing

upon either the completion of the new trial or the

government’s election to dismiss those counts.

COUNSEL

Benjamin Lee Coleman (argued), Timothy A. Scott, and

Nicolas O. Jimenez, Coleman & Balogh LLP, San Diego,

California, for Defendant-Appellant.

Daniel Earl Zipp (argued), Assistant United States Attorney;

Peter Ko, Assistant United States Attorney, Chief, Appellate

Section, Criminal Division; Laura E. Duffy, United States

Attorney; United States Attorney’s Office, San Diego,

California, for Plaintiff-Appellee.

OPINION

BLOCK, District Judge:

James Francis Murphy appeals the district court’s

judgment convicting him of interfering with the

administration of the tax laws, presenting fictitious financial

instruments, and presenting false claims to the United States;

and sentencing him principally to four years’ imprisonment. 

For the following reasons, we vacate the fictitious financial

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4 UNITED STATES V. MURPHY

instrument convictions, affirm the remaining convictions, and

remand.

I

A. Murphy’s Interactions with the IRS

In 2001, Murphy, an osteopath, began diverting income

from his medical practice to a trust. The result was a drastic

reduction in income reported on his personal income tax

returns. Murphy’s adjusted gross income went from

approximately $100,000 in 2000 to $12,476 in 2001, $5,064

in 2002 and less than $0 in 2003. He did not file a personal

return at all in 2004 or 2005. The trust, meanwhile, reported

income of between $700,000 and $1 million, but virtually all

of it was offset by claimed deductions.

The IRS opened an audit of Murphy and his trust in 2006. 

Though initially cooperative, Murphy eventually stopped

communicating with the IRS examiner, who referred the case

for collection.

In February 2008, Murphy contacted the IRS in an

attempt to settle his tax liability. As payment, he offered four

“bonded promissorynotes.” Collectively, the notes purported

to satisfy Murphy’s tax liability for 2003–2005 and his trust’s

tax liability for 2003. Murphy was the “maker” of the notes,

each of which was payable “to the order of” the Secretary of

the Treasury and the IRS examiner “for credit to” the

Department of the Treasury and the IRS. Each note was

“secured” by a “private discharging and indemnity bond” and

“private offset bond” in the possession of “[Secretary of the

Treasury] Mr. Henry M. Paulson, Jr., holder in due course.”

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UNITED STATES V. MURPHY 5

With the notes, Murphy sent to the IRS a copy of a

“certified deposit order” directingSecretaryPaulson to “settle

all obligations” with the IRS by means of an “authorized

setoff from prepaid exemption account.” Murphy’s

“payment” was prefaced by the following explanation:

I am sending you payment in the form of a

Bonded Promissory Note along with

accepting for value each of the most recent

offers to expand funds under Public Policy

you have sent. The Secretary of Treasury has

been instructed via certified deposit order to

deposit the accepted for value offers to

expand funds under Public Policy. Please

forward payment immediately to The

Secretary of Treasury, Mr. Henry M. Paulson,

Jr., for settlement and closure as per terms

listed on each Bonded Promissory Notes. 

The IRS’s collection efforts continued. In response to the

agency’s attempt to levy his personal assets, Murphy

submitted personal returns for 2003–2007. The returns for

2003 and 2004 were blank. Those for 2005–2007 claimed

overpayments of approximately $462,000, $460,000 and

$314,000, respectively; each of those returns lists the full

amount of the reported overpayment as the “[a]mount . . . you

want refunded to you” and provides routing and account

numbers for that purpose. No money was refunded to

Murphy.

Murphy continued to correspond with the IRS over the

remainder of 2008. None ofthe correspondence included any

legitimate form of payment.

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6 UNITED STATES V. MURPHY

B. Murphy’s 2008 Conviction

Meanwhile, in February 2008, Murphy attempted to

bypass security at San Diego International Airport by

presenting fraudulent diplomatic papers. He was arrested and

charged with making false statements to federal officers and

related crimes. He proceeded to trial, waiving his right to a

jury, and testified in his own defense. District Judge Thomas

Whelan found Murphy guilty and sentenced him to time

served and three years’ supervised release.

C. The Present Proceedings

In June 2012, Murphy was charged with (1) one count of

interfering with the administration of the tax laws, in

violation of 26 U.S.C. § 7212(a); (2) four counts of

presenting fictitious financial instruments, in violation of

18 U.S.C. § 514; and (3) three counts of presenting false

claims to the United States, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 287. 

The § 7212(a) count was premised on a series of nine discrete

acts occurring between September 2000 and the date of the

indictment. The § 514 counts charged Murphy with

presenting fictitious documents “purporting to be an actual

security or financial instrument issued under the authority of

the United States”; each count concerned one of the “bonded

promissory notes” submitted to the IRS in February 2008. 

The three § 287 counts corresponded to Murphy’s personal

tax returns for 2005–2007.

Murphy moved, inter alia, to dismiss the § 7212(a) count

as time-barred and/or duplicitous. The district court denied

both branches of the motion.

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UNITED STATES V. MURPHY 7

The case proceeded to trial. Murphy offered character

witnesses to attest to his honesty and also testified in his own

defense. Evidence of Murphy’s 2008 conviction for making

false statements to federal officers was introduced during

cross-examination of one of the character witnesses and again

during cross-examination of Murphy.

Murphy moved for a judgment of acquittal, which was

denied. The district court then instructed the jury. As

pertinent here, Murphy raised no objections to the

instructions given.

The instructions on the § 7212(a) count informed the jury

that it “must agree that the defendant committed at least one

of the [nine acts listed in the indictment] and must agree on

which listed act he or she committed.” Although the

instructions did not make reference to the dates of the various

acts, the verdict form asked the jury to state whether it found

that Murphy has “committed at least one of the act or acts

charged after June 21, 2006, with all of us agreeing

unanimously as to at least one act after that date.”

With respect to the § 514 counts, the district court told the

jury that the government had to prove, inter alia, that “[t]he

defendant passed, uttered or made or possessed a specified

security that was false or fictitious.” It did not state that the

specified security had to purport to be issued “under the

authority of the United States,” or explain what that phrase

meant.

Finally, the instruction on the § 287 counts required the

government to prove that Murphy knowingly presented a

claim to the United States that was false, fictitious or

fraudulent as to a material fact. Although the instruction

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8 UNITED STATES V. MURPHY

emphasized that the claim had to be “against” the United

States, it did not inform the jury that an attempt to reduce tax

liability would not constitute a claim. 

During summation, defense counsel argued that Murphy

had a good-faith belief in the legality of his conduct. In

rebuttal, the government asked the jury to consider Murphy’s

credibility. In that regard, the prosecution offered the

following:

[Defense counsel] said no one would call

[Murphy] a liar. No one would call him

deceitful.

But you have now heard the evidence in this

case, and you know that that is just plain

wrong. That Dr. Murphy sat in that same

witness chair in another courtroom in this

building and testified at his prior trial about

his beliefs, about being a diplomat and an

ambassador and why he was at the airport. 

And you have heard the evidence that he was

convicted. He may have had those beliefs, but

at the end of the day he was found guilty of

making a false statement to a federal officer

. . . .

Now, as you heard in that other trial, there

was no jury. It was just a judge. That was the

person who had to decide whether to believe

Dr. Murphy, whether to find him guilty. But

in this trial you are that judge and you are the

ones who get to make that decision.

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UNITED STATES V. MURPHY 9

Defense counsel did not make a contemporaneous

objection, but moved for a mistrial after summations had

concluded. He characterized the prosecution’s rebuttal as

implying that Judge Whelan had explicitly found Murphy not

credible, and “us[ing] Judge Whelan, or a federal district

court judge, as vouching for their case.”

The district court denied the motion, but gave the jury the

following curative instruction:

For legal reasons that need not concern you,

no evidence—there is no evidence that the

judge in the 2008 case made an adverse

credibility finding, and that would not

necessarily have been a part of the prior

conviction under the circumstances of that

case.

A few hours later, the jury found Murphy guilty on all counts. 

With respect to the § 7212(a) count, it unanimously found

that Murphy had committed at least one act of interference

within six years of the indictment.

Murphy subsequently made various post-trial motions. 

He renewed his motions for dismissal of the § 7212(a) count,

for a judgment of acquittal, and for a mistrial. In addition, he

moved for a new trial based on claimed inadequacies in the

district court’s instructions on the § 514 and § 287 counts. 

The district court denied all motions and sentenced Murphy

principally to four years’ imprisonment.

On appeal, Murphy challenges each of his convictions. 

He argues that the evidence was insufficient to support the

§ 514 convictions and, alternatively, that the district court

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10 UNITED STATES V. MURPHY

erred by failing to instruct the jury on an element of that

offense. He likewise claims instructional error with respect

to the § 287 charges because the district court did not instruct

the jury that an attempt to reduce tax liability is not a “claim”

within the meaning of the statute. He argues that the

§ 7212(a) charge was untimely and duplicitous. Finally, he

argues that all of the convictions were tainted by improper

references to his 2008 conviction during the government’s

rebuttal summation.

As set forth in Part II, we conclude that the evidence was

sufficient to preclude a judgment of acquittal on the § 514

counts. Because, however, it was not so overwhelming that

it negated the prejudice flowing from the lack of any

instruction that the financial instruments in question had to be

issued “under the authority of the United States,” we remand

for a new trial. We address the remainder of Murphy’s

arguments in Part III. 

II

18 U.S.C. § 514 provides, in pertinent part, that

[w]hoever, with the intent to defraud[,]

passes, utters, presents, offers, brokers, issues,

sells, or attempts or causes the same, or with

like intent possesses, within the United

States[,] any false or fictitious instrument,

document, or other item appearing,

representing, purporting, or contriving

through scheme or artifice, to be an actual

security or other financial instrument issued

under the authority of the United States, a

foreign government, a State or other political

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UNITED STATES V. MURPHY 11

subdivision of the United States, or an

organization, shall be guilty of a . . . felony.

The indictment somewhat simplified this statutory string of

alternatives, alleging that Murphy

did, with the intent to defraud, pass, utter,

present, and offer, and attempt to pass, utter,

present, and offer a false and fictitious

document appearing, representing and

purporting to be an actual security or financial

instrument issued under the authority of the

United States.

The government concedes that the theory of guilt alleged in

the indictment is controlling.

As noted, Murphy argues that there was insufficient

evidence to support the convictions and, alternatively, that the

district court’s instructions omitted an element of the offense. 

Both arguments center on the element that the instruments in

question must purport to have been “issued under the

authority of the United States.”

A. Sufficiency of the Evidence

Murphy’s motion for judgment of acquittal preserves his

sufficiency challenge. See United States v. Navarro Viayra,

365 F.3d 790, 793 (9th Cir. 2004). We review the district

court’s denial of that motion de novo. See United States v.

Goyal, 629 F.3d 912, 914 (9th Cir. 2010). Substantively, our

review requires us “to determine whether ‘after viewing the

evidence in the light most favorable to the prosecution, any

rational trier of fact could have found the essential elements

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12 UNITED STATES V. MURPHY

of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt.’” United States v.

Nevils, 598 F.3d 1158, 1163–64 (9th Cir. 2010) (en banc)

(quoting Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 319 (1979)).

The “bonded promissory notes” that Murphy sent to the

IRS purport to be “negotiable instrument[s], tendered

lawfully by [Murphy] (“Maker”)” as evidence of “debt[s] to

the Payee.” As the government points out, the notes refer to

then-Secretary of the Treasury Henry Paulson, but the most

prominent of these references makes the notes payable to his

order. Another identifies him as the “co-payee.” In addition,

they are “for credit to” the Treasury and the IRS. Thus far,

Murphy’s notes appear to be what notes typically are:

promises by the maker (Murphy) to pay the payee (Secretary

Paulson) various debts (the tax liabilities of Murphy and his

trust). Nothing about that arrangement suggests that they

were issued by the United States.

The documents accompanying the notes, however, shed

at least some light on how Murphy expected the notes to

serve as payment for his tax liabilities. His cover letter to the

IRS explained that the notes evidenced that he was “accepting

for value each of the most recent offers to expand funds under

Public Policy you have sent.” His “certified deposit order”

then directed SecretaryPaulson to deposit the accepted offers

and credit them against an “authorized setoff from prepaid

exemption account.”

Murphy’s dense legalese makes it difficult to decipher his

meaning. However, the evidence—at least under the

standards of Jackson v. Virginia—does suggest that Murphy,

through a convoluted series of accounting devices, ultimately

sought to pay his taxes from an account created for him, and

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UNITED STATES V. MURPHY 13

held on his behalf, by the United States government.1 Thus

construing the evidence, a rational jury could find beyond a

reasonable doubt that the notes were issued under the

authority of the United States.

B. Instructional Error

Since Murphy did not object to the district court’s jury

instructions, we review them only for plain error. See United

States v. Alferahin, 433 F.3d 1148, 1154 (9th Cir. 2006). For

plain-error review to result in reversal, “[t]here must be an

‘error’ that is ‘plain’ and that ‘affect[s] substantial rights.’” 

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

Fed. R. Crim. P. 52(b)). “Moreover, Rule 52(b) leaves the

decision to correct the forfeited error within the sound

discretion of the court of appeals, and the court should not

exercise that discretion unless the error ‘seriously affect[s]

the fairness, integrity or public reputation of judicial

proceedings.’” Id. (quoting United States v. Young, 470 U.S.

1, 15 (1985)).

The government concedes that the district court’s

omission of anymention of “under the authority of the United

States” was both error and plain. The third prong “in most

1 Murphy was apparently invoking the common tax-protester argument

that “sovereign citizens” can access virtually unlimited sums from secret

accounts created for them when the United States went off the gold

standard in 1933. See, e.g., Monroe v. Beard, 536 F.3d 198, 203 n.4 (3d

Cir. 2008). We appreciate that the premises for this argument are farfetched. Section 514, however, “criminalizes even bogus obligations that

a prudent person might upon consideration be unlikely to accept as

genuine, so long as those documents bear a family resemblance to actual

financial obligations.” United States v. Howick, 263 F.3d 1056, 1068 (9th

Cir. 2001).

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14 UNITED STATES V. MURPHY

cases . . . means that the error must have been prejudicial.”

Olano, 507 U.S. at 734. Failure to submit an element of the

offense to the jury is potentially prejudicial because “[t]he

Constitution gives a criminal defendant the right to demand

that a jury find him guilty of all the elements of the crime

with which he is charged.” United States v. Gaudin, 515 U.S.

506, 511 (1995). It is not necessarily prejudicial, however,

see Neder v. United States, 527 U.S. 1 (1999), because “it

remains possible the jurymade the necessaryfinding,” United

States v. Perez, 116 F.3d 840, 847 (9th Cir. 1997) (en banc)

(citation and internal quotation marks omitted). The

likelihood that this happened increases with the strength of

the government’s evidence. See Alferahin, 433 F.3d at 1158

(“Other cases have also upheld convictions rendered on

incomplete or erroneous jury instructions, but like Neder,

these cases have relied on the existence of ‘strong and

convincing evidence’ that the missing element of the crime

had been adequately proved by the prosecution.” (quoting

Perez, 116 F.3d at 848)).

Although the evidence that the “bonded promissory

notes” were issued under the authority of the United States is

sufficient to avoid a judgment of acquittal, it is not sufficient

to convince us that “the jury made the necessary finding,”

Perez, 116 F.3d at 847, or that it would have done so had it

been asked. As noted above, the notes themselves—even as

elucidated byMurphy’s cover letter—are ambivalent, and the

ambiguity was not resolved by other evidence or counsels’

summations. The government faults Murphy for failing to

offer evidence or argument that the bonds did not purport to

be issued under the authority of the United States, but it was

not Murphy’s burden to do so. Rather, it was the

government’s burden to convince the jury, beyond a

reasonable doubt, that all elements of the crime were present. 

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UNITED STATES V. MURPHY 15

We are not satisfied that it did so, and therefore conclude that

Murphy has demonstrated prejudice.

We further conclude that we should exercise our

discretion to correct the error. The fourth prong of plain-error

analysis requires us to decide whether “the greater threat to

the integrity and fairness of judicial proceedings would arise

from the reversal of a conviction on flawed jury instructions

rather than from affirming an imperfect verdict.” Alferahin,

433 F.3d at 1159. Here, too, the strength of the evidence is a

factor. See Johnson v. United States, 520 U.S. 461, 470

(1997) (affirming denial of new trial because evidence of

materiality, an element of the offense, was “overwhelming”).

Murphy was undeniably denied his constitutional right to

have all elements of the crime submitted to the jury, while the

government was concomitantly relieved of its “obligation to

prove every element beyond a reasonable doubt.” Perez,

116 F.3d at 847. These are serious concerns, going to the

very heart of a criminal proceeding.

2 On the other side of the

ledger, the government’s evidence that the notes purported to

be issued under the authority of the United States was not

overwhelming, leaving the nature of the notes open to debate. 

As a result, the verdict of a properly instructed jury is not a

foregone conclusion. In these circumstances, we think

allowing the convictions to stand poses a greater threat to the

2 The government argues that § 514 covers a wide array of fictitious

instruments, and that Murphy was, at worst, convicted on a different

theory of guilt than that charged in the indictment. Such a conviction is

just as constitutionally infirm as a conviction on fewer than all elements. 

See, e.g., United States v. Choy, 309 F.3d 602, 607 (9th Cir. 2002)

(“[D]espite Choy’s failure to object to the erroneous instruction and

clarification, the variance constitutes another legal error, and a fatal one,

in Choy’s bribery conviction.”).

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16 UNITED STATES V. MURPHY

fairness and integrity of the proceeding and, therefore, vacate

them and remand for a new trial on those counts.

III

With respect to the other convictions, some of Murphy’s

claims of error were preserved; others were not. Regardless

of the standard of review, all are without merit.

A. § 287 Charges

It was not error for the district court not to instruct the

jury that an attempt to reduce tax liability is not a “claim”

within the meaning of 18 U.S.C. § 287. “[T]he filing of a

false tax return pursuant to a scheme to obtain an unjustified

tax refund is sufficient to establish a violation of presenting

a false claim against the United States.” United States v.

Miller, 545 F.2d 1204, 1212 n.10 (9th Cir. 1976), abrogated

on other grounds by Boulware v. United States, 552 U.S. 421

(2008). Murphy’s argument that he asked the IRS to credit

the amounts due to his tax liabilities for other years is belied

by the record: the returns in question included routing and

account numbers for payment to Murphy, and an IRS agent

testified that, had the returns been accepted, they would have

resulted in payments to Murphy. In any event, there is no

question that Murphy falsely claimed that the United States

owed him money; how he planned to spend it is irrelevant. 

Cf. United States v. Jackson, 845 F.2d 880, 882 (9th Cir.

1988) (“Our focus must be on the substance of the

transaction, the disbursement of government funds, and not

on the timing or form of the entry in the government’s

accounting ledgers.”).

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UNITED STATES V. MURPHY 17

B. § 7212(a) Charge

The § 7212(a) charge was timely. A charge of tax

evasion under 26 U.S.C. § 7201 “is timely so long as it is

returned within six years of an affirmative act of evasion,”

even if the evasion first began outside the period. United

States v. DeTar, 832 F.3d 1110, 1113 (9th Cir. 1987). We

agree with the Fourth Circuit that the same rule applies to

interference with administration of the tax laws under

§ 7212(a). See United States v. Wilson, 118 F.3d 228, 236

(4th Cir. 1997) (“The limitations period for a violation of

§ 7212(a) . . . begins to run on the date of the last corrupt

act.”). The jury found that Murphy committed at least one act

of interference less than six years before the indictment was

returned, and we reject the argument that earlier acts of

interference should immunize Murphy from liability for a

crime occurring within the limitations period.

The § 7212(a) charge was not duplicitous because the

nine discrete acts of interference alleged in the indictment

“merely state[d] multiple ways of committing the same

offense.” United States v. Arreola, 467 F.3d 1153, 1161 (9th

Cir. 2006) (citing United States v. UCO Oil Co., 546 F.2d

833, 835 (9th Cir. 1976)). In any event, the district court’s

special unanimity instruction ensured that the jury did not

find Murphy guilty “without having reached a unanimous

verdict on the commission of a particular offense.” UCO Oil

Co., 546 F.3d at 835. Because the district court listed the

charged acts of interference immediately after instructing the

jury that the government had to prove that Murphy “acted

corruptly [and] with the intent to impede or obstruct the due

administration of justice,” it is not plausible that the jury

unanimously found that Murphy committed a particular act

without also agreeing that he did so with the requisite intent.

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18 UNITED STATES V. MURPHY

C. Rebuttal Summation

Finally, with regard to the government’s rebuttal

summation, Murphy’s 2008 conviction for making false

statements to federal officers was relevant to his credibility,

a matter placed squarely in issue by Murphy’s testimony that

he held a good-faith belief that his actions were legal. The

prosecutor’s comments accuratelyrecounted the facts leading

up to the conviction, and she disclaimed what Murphy calls

the “clear implication” that the jury should defer to Judge

Whelan’s assessment of Murphy’s credibility. Finally, even

if the government’s rebuttal summation had been improper,

we are satisfied that it was harmless in light of the district

court’s curative instruction and the numerous other bases for

questioning Murphy’s bona fides.

IV

For the foregoing reasons, we vacate the § 514

convictions and affirm the others. Accordingly, we vacate

the district court’s judgment and remand for a new trial on the

§ 514 counts, as well as for resentencing upon either the

completion of the new trial or the government’s election to

dismiss those counts.

AFFIRMED in part, VACATED in part, and

REMANDED.

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