Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca5-15-40568/USCOURTS-ca5-15-40568-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Henry Gill
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT

No. 15-40568

Summary Calendar

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Plaintiff-Appellee

v.

HENRY GILL,

Defendant-Appellant

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Southern District of Texas

USDC No. 5:14-CR-120-1

Before WIENER, HIGGINSON, and COSTA, Circuit Judges.

STEPHEN A. HIGGINSON, Circuit Judge:*

A jury found Henry Gill guilty of one count of conspiracy to transport 

undocumented aliens for financial gain, in violation 8 U.S.C. § 1324(a)(1)(A)(ii) 

and (v)(I), and three counts of transporting illegal aliens for financial gain, in 

violation of 8 U.S.C. § 1324(a)(1)(A)(ii) and (v)(II). The district court sentenced 

Gill to 37 months of imprisonment on each count, to be served concurrently.

Gill appeals both his convictions and his sentence, arguing (1) that he was 

 

* Pursuant to 5TH CIR. R. 47.5, the court has determined that this opinion should not 

be published and is not precedent except under the limited circumstances set forth in 5TH 

CIR. R. 47.5.4.

United States Court of Appeals

Fifth Circuit

FILED

March 15, 2016

Lyle W. Cayce

Clerk

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entitled to a mistrial due to improper statements by the prosecutor and (2) that 

the district court erred in applying the “special skill” enhancement under 

U.S.S.G. § 3B1.3 based on Gill’s commercial driver’s license.

Gill first challenges his conviction. He argues that the magistrate judge 

(who conducted voir dire) and the district court (who conducted the trial)

abused their discretion by not granting his motions for “mistrial.” Gill moved 

for “mistrial” twice: first, during voir dire, after the prosecutor commented that 

three of Gill’s codefendants had pled guilty, and again during trial, after the 

prosecutor asked Gill’s testifying codefendant about the codefendant’s own 

guilty plea. “Prosecutorial misconduct, including impermissible statements 

during jury voir dire, is analyzed in two steps: (1) whether the prosecutor made 

an improper remark; and (2) whether the prosecutor's remarks prejudiced the 

defendant's substantive rights by casting serious doubt on the correctness of 

the jury verdict.” United States v. Jefferson, 432 F. App'x 382, 388 (5th Cir. 

2011) (unpublished). Here, during voir dire, the prosecutor told the jury panel:

Now, in this case, there was four co-conspirators charged with this 

crime, three have pled guilty, we have one remaining. He is 

presumed innocent right now in this court. You will hear Jury 

Instructions regarding co-conspirators in the Jury Charge. You can 

follow those Instructions, right?

Gill moved for a “mistrial,” arguing that even if the magistrate judge tried to 

give a curative instruction, “once that bell was run, we can’t un-ring it.” After

the panel was seated, he moved to “quash” the panel and for the panel to be 

dismissed and replaced with a new panel. The government concedes that the 

remark about the codefendants’ guilty pleas, at least as to the two codefendants 

who did not testify, was improper.

When a remark is improper, then we decide, under an abuse of discretion 

standard, “whether the remark affected the substantial rights of the 

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defendant.” United States v. McCann, 613 F.3d 486, 494 (5th Cir. 2010).1 In 

making that determination, we consider “(1) the magnitude of the statement’s 

prejudice, (2) the effect of any cautionary instructions given, and (3) the 

strength of the evidence of the defendant’s guilt.” United States v. Morganfield, 

501 F.3d 453, 467 (5th Cir. 2007).

Here, as the government notes, the improper remark by the prosecutor

during voir dire was a single “isolated and inadvertent” statement. The 

government did not repeat the statement about the nontestifying codefendant’s 

pleas, nor did it later attempt to link the pleas to any of the substantive 

evidence introduced against Gill or to argue the pleas to the jury. See United 

States v. Carraway, 108 F.3d 745, 756 (7th Cir. 1997) (holding that the 

improper admission of codefendant guilty pleas was harmless when the court 

gave a cautionary instruction, “there was no fanfare when the pleas were 

admitted, . . . the government made no improper arguments based on th[e] 

pleas,” and the evidence of guilt was overwhelming).

In addition, the jury received numerous cautionary instructions. 

Immediately after the improper statement, the magistrate judge instructed the 

 

1 Although the government states that “Gill preserved his objection and request for a 

mistrial as to the prosecutor’s statement during jury selection,” we find no indication in the 

record that Gill raised his objection to the prosecutor’s comment during voir dire to the 

district court. Although many courts, including the Supreme Court, seem to assume that a 

magistrate’s decisions during voir dire will be subject to district court supervision, see, e.g., 

Gonzalez v. United States, 553 U.S. 242, 251-52 (2008) (stating that when a magistrate 

conducts voir dire, “the district judge—insulated by life tenure and irreducible salary—is 

waiting in the wings, fully able to correct errors”), we have not located any decision by this 

court that addresses the consequences of a defendant’s failure to affirmatively seek the 

district court’s review of a magistrate’s adverse ruling during voir dire. Because the 

government does not argue the issue, and because Gill’s challenge fails even under the more 

favorable abuse-of-discretion standard, we do not decide whether plain error review would 

be warranted when a defendant fails to raise with the district court a magistrate’s adverse 

ruling during voir dire. See also United States v. Cervantes, 706 F.3d 603, 613 (5th Cir. 2013) 

(reviewing a magistrate’s ruling during voir dire under the same abuse-of-discretion standard 

applicable to district court rulings, without mention of whether the objection was raised to 

the district court).

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panel (1) that the prosecutor had been “discussing things that may or may not 

happen in this case,” (2) that after trial the judge would instruct the jury as to 

the proper treatment of particular types of testimony, and (3) that all 

statements by the attorneys made during voir dire were “simply arguments.” 

Thereafter, the district court, both in its preliminary instructions before trial 

and in the jury charge after trial, instructed the jury that the statements of 

attorneys were not evidence and that Gill was presumed innocent. Moreover, 

in the jury charge, the district court gave a near-pattern instruction that the 

“fact an accomplice has entered a plea of guilty is not evidence of the guilt of 

any other person.” As we stated in United States v. Ramos-Cardenas, “[t]he 

‘almost invariable assumption’ is that jurors follow such instructions.” 524 F.3d

600, 611 (5th Cir. 2008) (quoting Richardson v. Marsh, 481 U.S. 200, 206

(1987)).

In addition, the evidence of Gill’s guilt was substantial. It included, 

among other things, evidence that Gill confessed to the crime, text messages 

from Gill’s phone that corroborated his confession, and testimony from his 

codefendant and coconspirator Rivera-Blanco about Gill’s role as a driver for 

the scheme. Thus, all three factors support that the remark during voir dire 

did not affect Gill’s substantial rights. See Morganfield, 501 F.3d at 467.

Gill also argues that the district court erred by denying his motion for 

mistrial after the prosecutor asked Gill’s testifying codefendant, RiveraBlanco, about his own guilty plea. Generally, “evidence about the conviction of 

a coconspirator is not admissible as substantive proof of the guilt of a 

defendant.” Ramos-Cardenas, 524 F.3d at 610. But we recognize an exception 

to the general rule when a coconspirator testifies. Id. In that circumstance, 

“either the government or the defense may elicit evidence of a guilty plea for 

the jury to consider in assessing the codefendant’s credibility as a witness.” Id.

(quoting United States v. Baez, 703 F.2d 453, 455 (10th Cir. 1983)). Because 

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Rivera-Blanco testified at Gill’s trial, the prosecutor’s questioning of RiveraBlanco regarding his guilty plea was not improper and did not constitute 

prosecutorial misconduct. See id.

Gill also argues that the district court erroneously applied a two-level 

enhancement under § 3B1.3 because his special skill as a commercial truck 

driver did not significantly facilitate the commission of the offense. As the 

Government correctly points out, Gill did not object to the enhancement on this 

basis before the district court. Gill objected only that a commercial driver’s 

license was not a “special skill.” Thus, we review this issue for plain error. See 

United States v. McElwee, 646 F.3d 328, 338 (5th Cir. 2011).

Gill relies on United States v. Gallardo, 266 F. App’x 468 (7th Cir. 2008), 

in support of his argument that his special skill was not necessary to commit 

the offense because the 15 undocumented aliens could have been transported 

by a non-commercial driver in another type of vehicle (i.e., small cargo truck 

or panel van). Unlike Gallardo, the Government does not concede that Gill 

could have transported the 15 undocumented aliens in an ordinary vehicle.

Moreover, as noted by the district court, Gill did not transport the 

undocumented aliens in the cabin of his truck. See United States v. Ordonez, 

334 F. App’x 619, 624 (5th Cir. 2009) (distinguishing Gallardo because the 

drugs were hidden in the truck’s cabin and not the trailer). Rather, Gill 

directed them to the truck’s trailer, which gave the appearance that he was 

hauling a legitimate load and made it much more difficult to identify the aliens.

Given the facts of this case, the district court did not commit error, plain or 

otherwise, in applying the special-skills enhancement under § 3B1.3. See

United States v. Willett, 751 F.3d 335, 344 (5th Cir. 2014).

For the forgoing reasons, we AFFIRM.

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