United States Court of Appeals 

For the First Circuit 

No. 17-1721 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 

Appellee, 

v. 

LYNROLTE CEZAIRE, 

Defendant, Appellant. 

APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 

FOR THE DISTRICT OF MASSACHUSETTS 

[Hon. George A. O'Toole, Jr., U.S. District Judge] 

Before 

Thompson, Kayatta, and Barron, 

Circuit Judges. 

 James M. Falvey for appellant. 

 Robert E. Richardson, Assistant United States Attorney, with 

whom Andrew E. Lelling, United States Attorney, was on brief, for 

appellee. 

September 23, 2019 
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BARRON, Circuit Judge. Lynrolte Cezaire challenges her 

2017 convictions, after trial in the United States District Court 

for the District of Massachusetts, for disclosure of social 

security numbers, in violation of 42 U.S.C. § 408(a)(8), and 

aggravated identity theft, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1028A. She 

was sentenced to one day of imprisonment for the first conviction 

and to twenty-four months of imprisonment for the second. Cezaire, 

who is Haitian American, raises only one issue on appeal: whether 

the District Court abused its discretion by refusing her "request 

for generalized and public race-based voir dire." 

In arguing that the District Court abused its 

discretion, Cezaire relies on Rosales-Lopez v. United States, 451 

U.S. 182 (1981). There, the Supreme Court of the United States 

held that, under the federal Constitution, a trial judge in a 

criminal case must ask prospective jurors, at least as a group, 

about their potential racial biases during voir dire when "racial 

issues [are] 'inextricably bound up with the conduct of the 

trial,'" such as when a defendant asserts that he was framed 

because of his race. Id. at 189. The Court also held pursuant to 

its supervisory powers over the federal judiciary that "federal 

trial courts must [voir dire prospective jurors, at least as a 

group, regarding racial bias] when requested by a defendant accused 

of a violent crime and where the defendant and the victim are 

members of different racial or ethnic groups," id. at 192, but 
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that, otherwise, a federal district court's "[f]ailure to honor [a 

defendant's] request . . . will be reversible error only where the 

circumstances of the case indicate that there is a reasonable 

possibility that racial or ethnic prejudice might have influenced 

the jury," id. at 191. 

Cezaire contends that, under Rosales-Lopez, her 

convictions cannot stand. She asserts that she requested that the 

District Court ask the prospective jurors as a group a question 

during voir dire about whether any of them harbored racial bias, 

the District Court denied that request, and there was a "reasonable 

possibility" that racial bias might have affected the jury.1 Id. 

To support that last contention, Cezaire notes that her "Haitian 

background came up throughout the trial," as both Cezaire and the 

government's main witness, Emeline Lubin, offered testimony 

regarding their shared Haitian heritage and the Haitian practice 

of establishing "sols" with family members in Haiti. 

According to Cezaire, a "sol" is a "Haitian term that 

refers to 'a short-term money saving method among a group of 

people.'" Cezaire's testimony about "sols" was key, she claims, 

because it helped to show that potentially incriminating text 

messages between Cezaire and Lubin were actually about money she 

 1 Cezaire did not request that the District Court ask the 

prospective jurors individually about their possible racial 

biases, and so we do not address that issue. 
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needed to withdraw from a "sol" she shared with an associate of 

Lubin's brother. 

To assess the merits of Cezaire's challenge, we begin by 

reviewing the following colloquy between Cezaire's counsel and the 

District Court that occurred during voir dire:

DEFENSE COUNSEL: Okay. I –- I didn’t ask 

for this, but I wonder if the Court would 

consider giving a race question to the jury. 

My client’s Haitian American. I note that 

the cooperating witness is also Haitian 

American, but there obviously are going to be 

witnesses who are not. I’m wondering if the 

Court would give that type of instruction.

THE COURT: I don’t see anything in the case 

that would make it necessary. It’s not that 

kind -– you know, it’s not a -–

DEFENSE COUNSEL: It is not that kind of case, 

but I just given the current climate in the 

–-

THE COURT: I think –-

DEFENSE COUNSEL: -- country, I always think 

it’s prudent to err on the side of caution to 

the extent that any jurors might give –-

THE COURT: I think that the issue will be 

–- anyone who would answer the question 

adversely to their public image would answer 

one of my other questions that way, I think.

DEFENSE COUNSEL: Okay.

THE COURT: So let’s see.

DEFENSE COUNSEL: Thank you.

 

Cezaire contends that this colloquy shows that she 

requested that a question concerning racial bias be asked of the 

group of prospective jurors during voir dire and that the District 

Court denied her request, such that her challenge is preserved and 

our review is for abuse of discretion. But, we do not agree. 
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The District Court did not respond to the initial 

suggestion by Cezaire's counsel to ask a question about racial 

bias during voir dire by simply refusing to grant it. The District 

Court instead stated that, although it did not see anything about 

the case that indicated a need to ask such a question, it would be 

willing to consider that request after it had an opportunity to 

question the prospective jurors about their biases in general. As 

the District Court put it, "anyone who would answer the [race] 

question adversely to their public image would answer one of my 

other questions that way, I think." 

But, at that point, Cezaire's counsel did not then object 

to the proposed course of action. Instead, she simply said, 

"[o]kay," to which the District Court then added, "let's see." 

And Cezaire's counsel then brought the exchange to a close by 

saying only, "[t]hank you." 

The record further shows that, after the District Court 

asked the prospective jurors about whether they harbored any biases 

that might affect their impartiality, Cezaire's counsel did not 

then request that the District Court ask an additional question 

that probed specifically for racial bias. Instead, Cezaire's 

counsel chose not to raise the issue at all until she did so in 

her opening brief to us on appeal. 

Accordingly, we conclude that, even if the record does 

not suffice to show that Cezaire waived the objection to the 
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District Court's failure to ask a question about racial bias during 

voir dire, it does suffice to show that the objection was at least 

forfeited.2 Our review, therefore, is only for plain error. United 

States v. Espinal-Almeida, 699 F.3d 588, 600 (1st Cir. 2012) 

(citing United States v. Rivera-Rodríguez, 617 F.3d 581, 600–04 

(1st Cir. 2010)).3 And, as Cezaire fails to make any argument as 

to how she can meet that demanding standard, her claim must fail. 

To be sure, there is precedent to indicate that jurors 

will be forthcoming in some instances in disclosing their racial 

biases, even when asked in a group setting. See United States v. 

Casanova, 886 F.3d 55, 59 (1st Cir. 2018) (noting that three jurors 

stood up to answer "yes" when asked if they "had 'any feelings of 

any kind that may affect [their] ability in any way to be a fair 

and impartial juror in the trial of an African American 

defendant'"); State v. Long, 575 A.2d 435, 469 (N.J. 1990) 

(Handler, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part) (stating 

 2 "Forfeiture is the failure to make the timely assertion of 

a right, an example of which is an inadvertent failure to raise an 

argument. Waiver, in contrast, is the intentional relinquishment 

or abandonment of a known right." Barna v. Bd. of Sch. Dirs. of 

Panther Valley Sch. Dist., 877 F.3d 136, 147 (3d Cir. 2017) 

(alteration omitted) (internal quotation marks omitted) (citations 

omitted). 

3 United States v. Bates, 590 F. App'x 882 (11th Cir. 

2014) -- on which Cezaire relies in contending that she properly 

objected during voir dire -- is not to the contrary, as there the 

district court was faced with a request to ask a question 

concerning bias on the basis of sexual orientation in "clear and 

simple" terms and "specifically denied it." Id. at 885 n.2. 
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that "[f]our jurors answered 'yes'" when asked "[w]ould the fact 

that the defendant is black and one of the victims is white affect 

or influence your judgment in this case?"). But, while this 

precedent would appear to confirm the value of asking questions 

specifically probing for racial bias, Cezaire fails to show that 

the District Court's decision not to ask such a question here was 

a clear or obvious error. In fact, far from making out that case, 

Cezaire states in her reply brief that her challenge, on this 

record, is "inconsistent" with our prior ruling in United States 

v. Gelin, 712 F.3d 612 (1st Cir. 2013). 

There, the criminal defendants, who were also Haitian 

Americans being tried for federal health-care fraud charges, 

objected to the district court's failure to ask prospective jurors 

about racial bias during voir dire. See id. at 615-16. On appeal, 

the defendants challenged the district court's failure to ask about 

racial bias on the ground that "race became a highly relevant issue 

through the trial because extensive portions of the testimony 

pointed to their Haitian heritage 'in [a] very inflammatory 

manner.'" Id. at 621 (alteration in original). We rejected that 

challenge, notwithstanding that the testimony of one government 

witness did contain "racial overtones." Id. at 622. We explained 

that the defendants did not address the relevant case law in their 

briefs, including Rosales-Lopez, see id. at 621, and that most of 
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the trial "concentrated exclusively on the details of the 

underlying fraudulent scheme," id. at 622. 

Cezaire makes no argument that Gelin itself is 

distinguishable. Instead, she contends only that it may not 

control because we have decided other cases since Gelin that have 

considered challenges to a district court's decision regarding the 

asking of prospective jurors about racial bias, such as United 

States v. Parker, 872 F.3d 1 (1st Cir. 2017), cert. denied, 138 S. 

Ct. 936 (2018), and Casanova, 886 F.3d 55. But, neither case in 

any way suggests that, given Gelin, it was clear or obvious error 

for the District Court in this case to refuse to ask such a 

question.

 Accordingly, the judgment is affirmed.