Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca7-13-03096/USCOURTS-ca7-13-03096-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
David Pierotti
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

In the

United States Court of Appeals

For the Seventh Circuit ____________________

No. 13-3096

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Plaintiff-Appellee,

v.

DAVID PIEROTTI,

Defendant-Appellant.

____________________

Appeal from the United States District Court for the

Eastern District of Wisconsin.

No. 13-CR-42 — Lynn Adelman, Judge.

____________________

ARGUED SEPTEMBER 22, 2014 — DECIDED FEBRUARY 3, 2015

____________________

Before WOOD, Chief Judge, and EASTERBROOK and SYKES,

Circuit Judges.

WOOD, Chief Judge. A few weeks before the start of the 

2012 deer-hunting season in Wisconsin, David Pierotti decided to buy a .243-caliber Remington rifle at his local 

Walmart. There, a clerk asked him to sit down at a computer 

to fill out an electronic version of ATF form 4473, a required 

step in the firearm-purchase process. The form poses a series 

of questions for any potential gun buyer, including one that 

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asks whether the purchaser has ever been convicted of a 

misdemeanor crime of domestic violence. Pierotti’s initial 

response to this question was “Yes,” which was correct; in 

2011, he was convicted in Wisconsin of misdemeanor battery 

against his then-fiancée. When Pierotti clicked on a button to 

submit his completed form, however, a window popped up 

advising him to review his answers. He then changed his response to only one question—the one about domesticviolence misdemeanors—and submitted the form again. He 

did not seek further information before reviewing his answer, even though he could have done so by clicking on a 

link providing instructions for this question. Had he clicked, 

he would have seen that his prior offense was in fact a misdemeanor of domestic violence. Pierotti’s incorrect answer 

prompted the government to prosecute him for a violation of 

18 U.S.C. § 922(a)(6), which makes it a federal crime knowingly to make false statements in connection with the purchase of a firearm.

At Pierotti’s trial, the district court instructed the jury on 

the definition of the word “knowingly” in section 922(a)(6). 

In doing so, it included (over Pierotti’s objection) the ostrich

instruction, which informs the jury that one way to find that 

the defendant acted “knowingly” is if he strongly suspected 

his statement was false and deliberately avoided the truth in 

making it. The jury found Pierotti guilty, and he was sentenced to six months’ house arrest and one year of supervised release. He now appeals, arguing that the district court

erred by providing the ostrich instruction, that his actions 

did not meet its definition of “knowingly,” and thus that he 

is entitled to a new trial. We conclude that the instruction 

was proper, however, and so we affirm the conviction.

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I

In October 2011, Pierotti pleaded no contest in Wisconsin 

Circuit Court to the crime of battery upon a woman who 

was his fiancée at the time. This was a misdemeanor offense. 

Just over a year later, Pierotti decided that he wanted to hunt 

for deer during the upcoming fall season. He first obtained a 

rifle hunting license at a local sporting goods store. At some 

point soon afterward, he ran into a friend who was a local 

sheriff. Pierotti informed the friend that his probation from 

his battery misdemeanor had expired, and asked him 

whether Pierotti could legally go gun hunting from that 

point forward. The friend asked if Pierotti’s prior conviction 

was for a felony; because it was not, the friend (mistakenly) 

told Pierotti that he was “good to go,” but advised him to 

ask his probation officer as well. Pierotti did so, and received 

the same answer. In Pierotti’s retelling, the officer also based 

her response on the fact that Pierotti had not previously been 

charged with a felony.

Following these conversations, Pierotti visited the 

Walmart in Berlin, Wisconsin, on November 8, 2012. He selected a rifle and spoke to a clerk about buying it. After taking Pierotti’s driver’s license, the clerk instructed Pierotti to 

fill out ATF form 4473 at a computer kiosk in the store. (This 

is a form required by the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, 

Firearms and Explosives.) After answering several other 

questions, he arrived at question 11-i, which asked: “Have 

you ever been convicted in any court of a misdemeanor 

crime of domestic violence?” Pierotti clicked “Yes.” At trial, 

he explained that he knew at the time that he had been convicted of a misdemeanor, and “that’s why I just instinctively 

just clicked on ‘yes.’” After responding to the remaining

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questions, Pierotti submitted the form; a pop-up window 

then appeared. It said, “We recommend reviewing Section A 

at this time to make any changes/corrections that may be 

necessary.” After seeing this message, Pierotti went back 

through his answers, and changed only one—his response to 

question 11-i. At the time, he recalled later, that question was 

“the only one that’s bugging me now,” and it suggested to 

him that the computer “knows something that I don’t 

know.” Pierotti also thought back to his probation officer’s 

opinion that he could legally go hunting with a gun given 

his lack of a felony conviction. So he changed his “Yes” answer to “No,” and submitted the form again. He did not, 

however, click on a blue link (labeled “Click to See Instructions for Question 11.i”) below question 11-i before doing so. 

If he had, a long definition of “misdemeanor crime of domestic violence” would have appeared in a sidebar on the 

side of the screen. The text in the sidebar would have shown 

clearly that Pierotti’s prior conviction was in fact a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence. The same information 

was available on the paper copy of the form, which Pierotti 

signed.

Pierotti was indicted for violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(a)(6)

in March 2013. At trial, no one disputed that one element of 

the charge required the government to show that Pierotti 

had acted knowingly, and so the court prepared an instruction telling the jury that:

A person acts knowingly if he realizes what 

he is doing and is aware of the nature of his 

conduct, and does not act through ignorance, 

mistake, or accident. In deciding whether the 

defendant acted knowingly, you may consider 

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all of the evidence, including what the defendant did or said.

That is where Pierotti argues the instructions should 

have stopped. The government, however, contended that the 

court should also include an ostrich instruction, which amplifies the definition of “knowingly.” The district court 

agreed to do so, and added the following paragraph to the 

language set out above:

You may find that the defendant acted 

knowingly if you find beyond a reasonable 

doubt that he had a strong suspicion that the 

statement he made was false and that he deliberately avoided the truth. You may not find 

that the defendant acted knowingly if he was 

merely mistaken or careless in not discovering 

the truth, or if he failed to make an effort to 

discover the truth.

This language was taken from Seventh Circuit Pattern Instruction 4.10. Pierotti has not objected to the particular language of the instruction the court gave, and thus we have no 

need to decide whether the definition in Global-Tech Appliances, Inc. v. SEB S.A., 131 S. Ct. 2060, 2070–71 (2011), requires a fresh look at our pattern instruction. See United 

States v. Salinas, 763 F.3d 869, 880–81 (7th Cir. 2014) (reserving that question because the result in the case would not 

have been affected). He decided instead to take an all-ornothing approach.

The court provided several reasons for giving the instruction. It first discussed Pierotti’s conversations with his sheriff 

friend and his probation officer. The court noted that alCase: 13-3096 Document: 41 Filed: 02/03/2015 Pages: 11
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though Pierotti had asked each of them whether he could 

hunt, he did not ask a lawyer or someone with knowledge of 

federal gun laws, nor did he ask specifically whether his battery conviction constituted a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence. “[T]he question here is not whether he could 

hunt,” the district court said, “or even whether he could possess a gun.” The court also pointed to Pierotti’s failure to 

read the instructions that accompanied the computer version 

of question 11-i or the paper version of form 4473, which 

likewise provided the relevant definition. “So all that is sufficient to give the instruction,” the district court said. 

Pierotti had introduced substantial evidence at the trial 

that his incorrect answer to question 11-i was, at worst, mistaken, careless, or the result of insufficient diligence. Had the 

jury accepted any of those explanations, it would have had 

to acquit under the court’s instruction. But it did not. It instead found Pierotti guilty, meaning that it must have found 

either that he realized what he was doing and had not acted 

through “ignorance, mistake, or accident,” or that he had “a 

strong suspicion that the statement he made was false and 

that he deliberately avoided the truth.”

II

As he did at trial, Pierotti now argues that the district 

court erred as a matter of law by giving the ostrich instruction, because (he says) the facts cannot support a finding that 

he deliberately avoided knowledge in the manner the instruction describes. We review a district court’s decision to 

give an ostrich instruction for abuse of discretion, and in doing so we view the evidence in the light most favorable to 

the government. United States v. Green, 648 F.3d 569, 582 (7th 

Cir. 2011). If Pierotti can show that the district court erred in 

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providing the instruction, we will reverse his conviction unless the government shows that the error was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. United States v. Malewicka, 664 F.3d 

1099, 1108 (7th Cir. 2011).

Pierotti was indicted under 18 U.S.C. § 922(a)(6), which 

makes it illegal “knowingly to make any false or fictitious 

oral or written statement” in connection with the purchase 

of a firearm or ammunition from a licensed dealer, such as 

Walmart in this case. The ostrich instruction describes one 

way in which the prosecution may prove a “knowing” act. 

Before including an ostrich instruction, a district court must 

ensure that two preconditions are satisfied: first, the defendant must be claiming a lack of guilty knowledge; and second, there must be evidence in the record that would permit 

a jury to conclude that the defendant deliberately avoided 

learning the truth. Salinas, 763 F.3d at 879. The instruction 

should not be given lightly, lest it lead the jury to believe that 

it may convict the defendant solely on the basis of his negligence. United States v. Tanner, 628 F.3d 890, 904–05 (7th Cir. 

2010). 

Deliberate avoidance as described in an ostrich instruction comes in two forms: physical and psychological. The 

former is simple enough, as it involves a defendant’s going 

out of her way to avoid seeing or learning something she 

knows will confirm that her actions are illegal. See United 

States v. Gonzalez, 737 F.3d 1163, 1168–69 (7th Cir. 2013). Psychological avoidance, in contrast, is often defined “as the 

cutting off of one’s normal curiosity by an effort of will,” 

United States v. Pabey, 664 F.3d 1084, 1092 (7th Cir. 2011) (internal quotation marks omitted); it does not encompass ordinary ignorance or lack of curiosity. United States v. Ramirez, 

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574 F.3d 869, 877 (7th Cir. 2009). The district court is permitted to investigate the context of a defendant’s actions. That 

inquiry can inform its assessment of whether the evidence 

would permit the jury to infer that a defendant deliberately 

avoided the truth about her criminal activity, and hence acted “knowingly.” United States v. Carani, 492 F.3d 867, 873 (7th 

Cir. 2007).

Question 11-i on the ATF form was not a tricky one. Indeed, Pierotti initially answered it correctly. As he admitted 

at his trial, he recalled his misdemeanor conviction when 

first considering how to answer the question. He confirmed 

this on cross-examination:

Q And you answered it “yes” because you knew 

that you had been convicted of a misdemeanor 

crime of domestic violence, isn’t that true?

A I had the battery charge that was a misdemeanor, yes.

Only after the computer prompted Pierotti to review his answers did he decide to make a change, but the only change 

he made was his response to question 11-i. He did so in direct contravention of his knowledge of his prior crime, a battery upon his fiancée. A rational jury could decide that his 

considered act of changing the correct answer to the wrong 

answer demonstrated either direct knowledge (as reflected 

in the first part of the instruction) or deliberate avoidance of 

the truth (as reflected in the second part). (We note that after 

Pierotti’s conviction, the Supreme Court held that a misdemeanor battery conviction for a crime of domestic violence, 

very much like Pierotti’s, disqualifies a person from possession of a firearm under 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(9). United States v. 

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Castleman, 134 S. Ct. 1405 (2014). In so ruling, the Court rejected the position of the Sixth Circuit panel, which had understood the statute to apply only to violent encounters.)

At trial, Pierotti testified that the computer prompt 

caused him to wonder whether his response to question 11-i 

was correct, and that he mentally referred back to his conversations with his sheriff friend and his probation officer, 

who “said it was okay” and that Pierotti was “good to go.” 

But his descriptions of those conversations make clear that 

their advice was based on the fact that Pierotti’s prior crime 

was not a felony. Pierotti may not have known why question 

11-i was on the form, but he certainly knew that it was about 

prior misdemeanors. Nothing his friend and his probation officer said implied that Pierotti was entitled to misrepresent 

something on the form. The advice he received, in short, was 

irrelevant to a question about misdemeanors. 

Had Pierotti felt any doubt about whether his battery 

was covered by question 11-i, it would have been easy for 

him to resolve it. The clickable link to the instructions was

located directly under the question itself; had Pierotti clicked 

the link, the instructions would have appeared on the same 

page as the question. The jury was not required to believe 

his protestations at trial that he lacked sufficient computer 

skills to know how to click on a link, even though he could 

manage the computer well enough to complete the form 

and, when prompted, to go back and revise an answer. 

Clicking on the “more information” link would have provided information showing that his initial response to the question on the very same page of the electronic form was correct. Instead, he skipped the instructions and changed his 

answer. On cross-examination at trial, Pierotti admitted he 

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did not read the instructions. His counsel contended at oral 

argument that this behavior was lazy, not criminal. Had the 

jury believed this account, it would have had to acquit under 

the court’s instruction. But it obviously did not. Putting the 

facts together, Pierotti’s admitted knowledge of his prior 

crime, his initial “Yes” answer, his decision not to read the 

readily available instructions, and his decision to change the 

answer to “No” provided an adequate predicate for the district court to give the instruction. 

Our conclusion should not be taken as a wholesale endorsement of the district court’s reasoning. We have placed 

no weight, for example, on the court’s comment that Pierotti 

should have consulted “his lawyer or someone with authority on Federal gun laws” about whether he could legally purchase a firearm before attempting to do so. That is the sort of 

above-and-beyond behavior the absence of which cannot 

support an ostrich instruction, which, after all, focuses on 

deliberate avoidance, not an independent duty to do something. There is no evidence that Pierotti went out of his way 

not to speak to a lawyer or a person with similar legal 

knowledge. We have similarly steered clear of the district 

court’s criticism of Pierotti for not reading the print version 

of form 4473. It is true that, had he done so, he would have 

seen the definition of “misdemeanor crime of domestic violence.” In fact, however, the computer-screen link was far 

more accessible. The section of the hard-copy form to which 

the district court referred is a blur of fine print: at a glance, 

the font size appears to be about 6 (this opinion is written in 

12). It is difficult to find deliberate avoidance in Pierotti’s 

failure to wade through the small-type information on the

printed form after he filled out the computerized version.

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By contrast, the computerized version of the form invited 

Pierotti to learn more about question 11-i once the computer 

sent the form back to him for his review. The instructions 

link was clearly presented, in regular-size type, and located 

immediately below the question Pierotti claims gave him so 

much trouble. Given the context of his choice to change his 

answer—recall his statement that he initially clicked “Yes” 

because he remembered his prior misdemeanor—and viewing this evidence in the government’s favor, it was not error

for the district judge to provide the ostrich instruction over 

Pierotti’s objection.

III

In sum, we find that the district court did not abuse its 

discretion in providing the jury at Pierotti’s trial with an ostrich instruction, and we AFFIRM his conviction.

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