UNPUBLISHED

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Plaintiff-Appellee,

v. No. 98-4114

BIJAN KIANI,

Defendant-Appellant.

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Eastern District of Virginia, at Alexandria.

Albert V. Bryan, Jr., Senior District Judge.

(CR-97-360)

Submitted: October 30, 1998

Decided: August 5, 1999

Before ERVIN, NIEMEYER, and WILLIAMS, Circuit Judges.

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Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.

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COUNSEL

John Edwards Harrison, HARRISON & HUGHES, P.C., Alexandria,

Virginia, for Appellant. Helen F. Fahey, United States Attorney,

LeDora Knight, Assistant United States Attorney, Alexandria, Virginia, for Appellee.

_________________________________________________________________

Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit. See

Local Rule 36(c).
OPINION

PER CURIAM:

Bijan Kiani appeals his conviction and sentence following a jury

trial for his role in a conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute

cocaine. See 21 U.S.C. § 846 (1994). The evidence at trial established

that Kiani was a significant supplier of cocaine in Northern Virginia,

Maryland and Washington, D.C. For his part in the conspiracy, the

district court sentenced Kiani to 262 months in prison and five years

of supervised release. This appeal followed.

At trial, the Government offered the testimony of several of Kiani's

co-conspirators to prove the existence of the conspiracy and the extent

of Kiani's involvement therein. In general, the district court granted

Kiani's counsel significant latitude in the conduct of crossexamination of the Government's witnesses. However, on several

occasions, the district court sustained the Government's objections to

counsel's line of questioning. Primarily, the court limited the inquiry

to testimony directly relating to Kiani's role in the conspiracy. At the

close of Kiani's defense, the district court rejected Kiani's proposed

jury instruction defining conspiracy in favor of its own instruction.

On that charge, the jury returned its guilty verdict.

In this appeal, Kiani makes two assignments of error. Kiani first

suggests that the district court abused its discretion by impermissibly

limiting his opportunity to cross-examine the witnesses against him.

He contends that the court's rulings hampered his ability to impugn

the credibility of the Government's witnesses with their motivation

for fabricating testimony against Kiani. This appeal also attacks the

district court's jury instructions. Specifically, Kiani argues that the

district court erred in its definition of the elements of conspiracy for

the jury and that this error confused the jury and encouraged them to

convict Kiani on something less than sufficient evidence to support

the conspiracy charge. Because we find no merit to either of these

claims, we affirm the district court's judgment in this criminal case.

Kiani challenges the district court's rulings limiting the scope of

counsel's cross-examination of the prosecution's witnesses. In this

appeal, Kiani suggests that the district court limited counsel to ques-

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tions about Kiani's role in the conspiracy and curtailed counsel's

exploration of the contents of the government witnesses' plea agreements. Restrictions on the scope of cross-examination are within the

sound discretion of the trial judge, and trial courts are generally given

wide latitude to set reasonable limits to prevent harassment, prejudice,

or confusion of the issues. See United States v. Ambers, 85 F.3d 173,

176 (4th Cir. 1996); United States v. McMillon , 14 F.3d 948, 956 (4th

Cir. 1994). The district court retains this discretion even "when crossexamination pertains to the motivation of a witness testifying for the

government," including, as here, the potential sentences faced by the

witness. Ambers, 85 F.3d at 176. An abuse of the court's discretion

regarding the conduct of the criminal trial occurs when the court fails

or refuses to exercise its discretion or when the court's exercise of

discretion is flawed by an erroneous legal or factual premise. See

James v. Jacobson, 6 F.3d 233, 239 (4th Cir. 1993).

This court must determine whether the jury possessed sufficient

evidence to enable it to make a "discriminating appraisal" of bias and

incentives to lie on the part of a witness. See United States v. Cropp,

127 F.3d 354, 359 (4th Cir. 1997), cert. denied , ___ U.S. ___, 66

U.S.L.W. 3491 (U.S., Jan. 26, 1998) (No. 97-7265). The defendant

must be allowed an opportunity to examine a witness's understanding

of the government's offer of leniency "for it is this understanding

which is of probative value on the issue of bias." Hoover v. Maryland,

714 F.2d 301, 305 (4th Cir. 1983). There is no evidence on the record

that Kiani was denied such an opportunity. Kiani has identified no

ruling on the part of the district court that approaches an abuse of discretion. Our review of counsel's cross-examination of the Government's witnesses, including the government's objections that were

sustained by the district court, reveals that the jury was presented with

sufficient evidence to make an appropriate appraisal of each witness's

motivation to testify falsely. As a result, we find no merit to Kiani's

contention that the district court abused its discretion with regard to

the scope of counsel's cross-examination of the government's witnesses.

Kiani next asserts that the district court's instruction to the jury on

the conspiracy charge erroneously suggested that the jurors did not

need to consider all the elements of the offense to return a guilty verdict. Kiani further contends that the district court did not so much as

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charge the jury regarding the definition of conspiracy as "ramble[] on

about it." In addition, Kiani suggests that the jury could have been

sufficiently confused to convict Kiani of the uncharged substantive

offense rather than the charged conspiracy.

Our review of the record reveals that the district judge's instruction, when reviewed as a whole, see United States v. Hester, 880 F.2d

799, 803-04 (4th Cir. 1989), adequately and correctly explained how

the jury should determine whether Kiani was a culpable participant in

a conspiracy. The court described the elements of conspiracy, including: 1) the existence of an agreement to effectuate a criminal act

between at least two people; 2) Kiani's knowledge of the conspiracy;

and 3) Kiani's knowingly and voluntarily became a part of the conspiracy. See United States v. Burgos, 94 F.3d 849, 857 (4th Cir.

1996), cert. denied, ___ U.S. #6D6D 6D#, 65 U.S.L.W. 3586 (U.S., Feb. 24,

1997) (No. 96-6868). The court then explained each of the elements

and made clear that the government had the burden of proving all elements beyond a reasonable doubt.

The district court's thorough charge in no manner suggested to the

jury that it need not consider all the elements of the offense. The court

specifically instructed the jury regarding each of the elements of the

offense and the government's burden of proof with respect to each of

them. Moreover, there is no evidence of record that would suggest

that the jury was confused by the district court's charge. Contrary to

Kiani's contention, the jury instructions as given did not suggest to

the jury that it was permitted to return a conviction on the substantive

offense alone. Finally, we cannot say on our review of the transcribed

jury instructions that the district court was impermissibly verbose in

describing the legal definition of conspiracy. There is no merit to

Kiani's challenge to the jury instructions.

Kiani's assignments of error give us no cause to disturb the district

court's judgment. Accordingly, we affirm Kiani's conviction and sentence. We dispense with oral argument because the facts and legal

contentions are adequately presented in the materials before the Court

and argument would not aid the decisional process.

AFFIRMED

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