Source: https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/F2/699/853/231793/
Timestamp: 2019-12-06 06:16:32
Document Index: 30694493

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 371', '§ 1984', '§ 1341', '§ 1984', '§ 2', '§ 1341', '§ 1341']

United States of America, Plaintiff-appellee, v. John Cina, Defendant-appellant, 699 F.2d 853 (7th Cir. 1983) :: Justia
Justia › US Law › Case Law › Federal Courts › Courts of Appeals › Seventh Circuit › 1983 › United States of America, Plaintiff-appellee, v. John Cina, Defendant-appellant
United States of America, Plaintiff-appellee, v. John Cina, Defendant-appellant, 699 F.2d 853 (7th Cir. 1983)
US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit - 699 F.2d 853 (7th Cir. 1983) Argued Nov. 10, 1982. Decided Jan. 24, 1983
Defendant-appellant John Cina appeals from his conviction in a jury trial of one count of conspiracy to willfully reset and alter the odometer on a motor vehicle in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 371 and 15 U.S.C. §§ 1984 and 1990c; one count of mail fraud, in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 1341 and 1342; and two counts of willfully resetting and altering the odometer on a motor vehicle in violation of 15 U.S.C. §§ 1984 and 1990(C) (8) (b) and 18 U.S.C. § 2. This appeal raises three issues: whether the trial court erred in permitting an amendment of the indictment on the conspiracy count to allege the commencement of the conspiracy two years earlier than indicated in the initial indictment; whether the trial court erred in denying defendant's motion to dismiss count four for its failure to allege an offense under 18 U.S.C. §§ 1341 and 1342; and whether the trial court erred in refusing to submit to the jury certain instructions proffered by the defendant. Because we conclude that the trial court erred in refusing to dismiss count four but that the court acted properly in allowing the amendment of the conspiracy count and in refusing to tender to the jury certain of the defendant's proposed instructions, we reverse defendant's conviction under the mail fraud count but affirm his conviction under the conspiracy and tampering accounts.
After the jury found defendant guilty under counts one, four, six and eleven, the defendant moved under Fed. R. Crim. P. 29(c) for acquittal on the bases, inter alia, that the court's amendment of count one was in error, that count four failed to allege an offense under the mail fraud statute, and that the trial court's excision of certain portions of the defendant's proposed jury instructions deprived him of his right to have his defense theory heard. Defendant's motion was denied. Defendant then appealed to this court, requesting a reversal of his conviction for the same reasons set forth in his post-trial motion.
The defendant first argued that the trial court's amendment of count one to antedate the commencement of the conspiracy by two years violated the Fifth Amendment which provides, inter alia, "No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury...." The government, by contrast, seeks to characterize the present situation as a mere "variance" between allegation and proof which is permissible in the absence of "substantial prejudice" to the defendant. The trial court itself apparently rejected the government's categorization, ruling that the change was "more than in the nature of a variance ... it is a substantive amendment of the indictment." The trial court, however, embraced the government's basic rationale, holding the amendment permissible in view of the defendant's failure to demonstrate "any prejudice" resulting from the amendment, and citing the liberal amendment policy embodied in United States v. Reece, 547 F.2d 432 (8th Cir. 1977), and United States v. Powell, 564 F.2d 256 (8th Cir. 1977), cert. denied, 435 U.S. 904, 98 S. Ct. 1449, 55 L. Ed. 2d 495 (1978). Although the trial court's expression of its rationale was somewhat imprecise, we believe that it applied the correct test and properly found no prejudice sufficient to bar the amendment in the particular circumstances.
We note at the outset that, while the existing jurisprudence delineating the boundaries of permissible amendments and variances is far from fully systematized, there has been a distinct merging of the standards governing both. In general, either an amendment or a variance will be allowed to stand if it does not change an "essential" or "material" element of the charge so as to cause prejudice to the defendant. Russell v. United States, 369 U.S. 749, 763-64, 82 S. Ct. 1038, 1046-47, 8 L. Ed. 2d 240 (1962); United States v. Nicosia, 638 F.2d 970, 976 (7th Cir. 1980); United States v. Joyner, 539 F.2d 1162, 1164 (8th Cir. 1976), cert. denied, 424 U.S. 983, 97 S. Ct. 499, 50 L. Ed. 2d 593 (1976); United States v. Goldstein, 502 F.2d 526, 528 (3d Cir. 1976); Wharton's Criminal Procedure, Sec. 503 (12th ed. 1975).
It was not always the case that amendments were amenable to "materiality" and "prejudice" analysis. The seminal case, Ex Parte Bain, 121 U.S. 1, 7 S. Ct. 781, 30 L. Ed. 849 (1886), relied on a strict construction of the Fifth Amendment and appeared to forbid any express or tacit variation from the initial indictment, holding that the accused "party can only be tried upon the indictment as found by such grand jury, and especially upon all its language found in the charging part." Ex Parte Bain, 121 U.S. 1, 9-10, 7 S. Ct. 781, 785-86, 30 L. Ed. 849. Later, the Supreme Court in Berger v. United States, 295 U.S. 78, 82, 55 S. Ct. 629, 630, 79 L. Ed. 1314 (1935), carved out an exception for a literal "variance" between the proof offered at trial and the unamended charging terms of the indictment. Where the variance is not "material" and does not "affect the substantial rights" of the accused, the Court held, there is no violation of the Fifth Amendment. Berger, 295 U.S. at 81, 82, 55 S. Ct. at 630. The Court indicated that "material" or "substantial" variances were those which trammeled the defendant's rightful expectations (1) that he be "definitely informed as to the charges against him, so that he may be enabled to present his defense and not be taken by surprise by the evidence offered at the trial; and (2) that he may be protected against another prosecution for the same offense." Id. at 82, 55 S. Ct. at 630.
The boundaries of the Berger "variance" exception were somewhat more narrowly defined in the Supreme Court's later decision in Stirone v. United States, 361 U.S. 212, 217, 80 S. Ct. 270, 273, 4 L. Ed. 2d 252 (1960), which articulated the "constructive amendment" and "essential elements" doctrines. Under these doctrines, even where the "trial court did not permit a formal amendment of the indictment, [but] the effect of what it did was the same," the variance would not be permitted. Id. at 217, 80 S. Ct. at 273. And a constructive amendment will be held to have occurred where the variance involved an "essential element" of the crime; in Stirone, the "essential element" was the allegation of an effect on interstate commerce which provided the court with jurisdiction. Id. at 218, 80 S. Ct. at 274.
Soon thereafter, the Supreme Court appeared to moderate the strictness of Ex Parte Bain and moved towards allowing a "materiality" and "prejudice" analysis to govern actual amendments as well as variances. Russell v. United States, 369 U.S. 749, 82 S. Ct. 1038, 8 L. Ed. 2d 240 (1962), stated in dictum that "an indictment may not be amended except by resubmission to the grand jury, unless the change is merely a matter of form." Id. at 770, 82 S. Ct. at 1050 (emphasis added). Russell appeared to consider the permissibility of amendments and variances as one problem, whose solution was guided by the test of whether the changes "amount to no more than a technical deficiency of no prejudice to the defendant." Russell, 369 U.S. at 763, 82 S. Ct. at 1046.
Subsequent cases in the various circuits, including our own, have continued to apply the Supreme Court's Berger, Stirone, and Russell standards to both amendments and variances with equal force; all changes, express or tacit, are scrutinized according to whether they affect a "substantial" or "material" element of the offense sufficiently to cause prejudice to the defendant. See United States v. Nicosia, 638 F.2d 970, 976 (7th Cir. 1980); Jervis v. Hall, 622 F.2d 19, 21-23 (1st Cir. 1980); United States v. Powell, 564 F.2d 256, 259 (8th Cir. 1977), cert. denied, 435 U.S. 904, 98 S. Ct. 1449, 55 L. Ed. 2d 495 (1978); Krana v. United States, 546 F.2d 785, 786 (8th Cir. 1976); United States v. Goldstein, 502 F.2d 526, 528 (3d Cir. 1976). See also Wharton's Criminal Procedure, Sec. 503 (12th ed. 1975) ("unless the inconsistency is material and prejudicial, the variance will be disregarded or the trial judge will allow the indictment or information to be amended to conform to the proof.").
The defendant has cited language in Gaither v. United States, 134 U.S.App.D.C. 154, 165, 413 F.2d 1061, 1072 (1969), and United States v. DeCavalcante, 440 F.2d 1264, 1271 (3d Cir. 1971), suggesting that an actual "amendment" of an indictment is prejudicial per se, and that only a "variance" between written allegations and proof is amenable to a "materiality" and "prejudice" analysis. But the term "amendment" as used in those cases invokes a conceptual category rather than a literal description: an "amendment" occurs when the basic "charging terms" of the indictment are altered either literally or in effect. Gaither, 134 U.S.App.D.C. at 165, 413 F.2d at 1072; DeCavalcante, 440 F.2d at 1271. In other words, the distinction between amendment and variances as articulated in these decisions is simply another way of stating the question of whether the modification worked to "change the basic theory" of the offense or instead "did not alter the crime charged, nor unfairly surprise the defendants, nor create an opportunity for the government to prosecute the defendants again for substantially the same offense." DeCavalcante, 440 F.2d at 1272. In any event, even if Gaither and DeCavalcante could be interpreted to bar a "materiality" or "prejudice" inquiry into any actual amendments, such an interpretation would be flatly at odds with the Supreme Court's analysis in Russell, 369 U.S. at 770, 82 S. Ct. at 1050 and this circuit's holding in United States v. Nicosia, 638 F.2d at 976 (7th Cir. 1980). We believe that our decision in Nicosia reflects a sound judicial policy, for if we were to depart from our previous refusal to scrutinize actual amendments more strictly than variances, we would simply discourage the government from forthrightly admitting to formal mistakes at the start of trial and encourage it instead to simply wait until later in the trial to offer proof inconsistent with the indictment's facial allegations, even though the latter course of conduct obviously contains a greater potential for prejudice to the defendant.
Turning now more directly to the case at bar, we note that within the parameters of the "essential elements" and "prejudice" tests, corrections of misprinted offense dates are frequently permitted. In United States v. Nicosia, for example, this court permitted an amendment to correct a typographical error in the indictment which placed the consummation of the alleged witness-tampering scheme two months earlier than it actually occurred, on the basis that the "changes are immaterial to the charge" and the "defendant showed no prejudice to his defense." Nicosia, 638 F.2d at 976. See also United States v. Powell, 564 F.2d 256, 259 (8th Cir. 1977) (indictment may be amended to extend time of conspiracy as time is not an essential element of conspiracy and no prejudice shown); Jervis v. Hall, 622 F.2d 19, 22-23 (1st Cir. 1980) (amendment of date of alleged larceny by several weeks permissible where defendant failed to demonstrate that he would have altered his defense had the indictment read differently); Krana v. United States, 546 F.2d 785, 786 (8th Cir. 1976) (change of one year in date of alleged offense permissible where defendant failed to show that he was prejudiced thereby or that the date was material to the offense); Stewart v. United States, 395 F.2d 484, 487, 488 (8th Cir. 1968) (amendment of date of alleged theft permissible where time "is not of the essence" in establishing the offense and the defendant was unable to show that he was not fully apprised of the charges against him).
For example, in the two cases cited by the defendant, United States v. Goldstein, 502 F.2d 526 (3d Cir. 1976), and United States v. Annoreno, 460 F.2d 1303 (7th Cir. 1972), cert. denied, 409 U.S. 852, 93 S. Ct. 64, 34 L. Ed. 2d 95, the precise date of the behavior was determinative of the very existence of the crime. In Goldstein, the defendant was charged with failing to file a tax return by April 15; when it had established that no such duty to file accrued until May 7, the court was held to be without the power to permit a concomitant amendment of the indictment. As the court noted on appeal,
Although the defendant strenuously argues that time was a crucial element in the establishment of a conspiracy, given the necessity of establishing the temporal coexistence of overt acts and the requisite unlawful intent, it does not appear that the failure to establish the simultaneity of existence of these conditions between 1975 and 1977 would have altogether eliminated the criminality of the conspiracy as a whole, thus denying the court of jurisdiction over the offense; in this sense, the precise temporal scope of the conspiracy was not an "essential element" necessary to constitute the offense. Cf. Stirone, 361 U.S. at 219, 80 S. Ct. at 274. We believe the better rule to be as stated in United States v. Powell, 564 F.2d 256 (8th Cir. 1977), where, as here, a "clerical" amendment of the dates within which a conspiracy was alleged to have occurred was permitted. There, the court amended the indictment to extend the alleged pendency of the conspiracy in order to encompass government-offered proof of later overt acts. Id. at 259. The court held as matter of law that the terminal date of the conspiracy was not a "material element of the crime charged." Id.
In count four, the defendant was charged with violating the mail fraud statute, 18 U.S.C. §§ 1341, 1342,3 between September, 1977 and July 28, 1978 by mailing to the Wisconsin Department of Transportation official registration and title documents containing the fraudulent odometer information. However, as the defendant noted to the court in his motion to dismiss the count, the indictment alleged that the mailing itself occurred on August 22, 1978, or nearly two months after the violation was alleged to have been completed. The defendant maintained that count four therefore failed to allege the occurrence of a crucial element of the offense, i.e., the mailing, during the period of the offense, thus denying the court of jurisdiction on that count. As a result, the defendant maintains, the court erred in failing to dismiss the count.
On appeal, the government appears to offer two wholly contradictory and thus mutually exclusive theories upon which to base the court's jurisdiction over count four. Under one theory, set forth in the government's brief on appeal, the government affirms that the actual mailing date was August 22, 1978 as alleged but claims that this mailing contained a "lulling letter" which need not be mailed during the pendency of the scheme, under our decision in United States v. Galloway, 664 F.2d 161 (7th Cir. 1981); alternatively, under this first theory, the government argues that the allegation of a mailing outside the alleged period of the violation can be permitted as a non-prejudicial variance. Under a second theory, articulated by the government at oral argument, the actual date of the mailing was August 22, 1977, and appears differently on the face of the indictment only due to a typographical error. Since the government did not specify at oral argument the full legal consequence of this fact, we can only interpolate that it intended to argue that the proof of the August 22, 1977 mailing should be accepted as a harmless variance, which is then encompassed by a putative amendment of count four which places the start of the scheme in 1975. We conclude that the first theory fails as matter of logic and that the second theory fails on logic, proof and policy.
In proffering its first, "lulling letter" theory, the government relies upon cases establishing that jurisdiction under the mail fraud statute may lie even where letters designed to assure victims are mailed subsequent to the actual fraud. But here the government has alleged more: it alleged that the crucial mailing took place outside of the period of the alleged statutory violation. This allegation plainly does not support jurisdiction. As noted in United States v. Brown, 583 F.2d 659 (3rd Cir. 1978), even where a lulling letter constitutes the crucial mailing, "The completion of the scheme must depend in some way upon the mailings charged." 583 F.2d at 659. Here, the government, by indicating on the face of the indictment that all acts necessary to the completion of the offense had occurred by July 28, 1978, foreclosed its option of relying on subsequent mailings. This is not a case, as in United States v. Sampson, 371 U.S. 75, 83 S. Ct. 173, 9 L. Ed. 2d 136 (1962), where the indictment specifically alleged that the span of the offense included within it the mailing of the lulling letters subsequent to the underlying fraud. Id. at 80, 83 S. Ct. at 175. By contrast, here the government indicated that all unlawful acts triggering the invocation of the statute had ended before the crucial letter was mailed. Similarly, the defendant's reliance on United States v. Mandel, 415 F. Supp. 997 (D. Md. 1976), aff'd in part en banc, 591 F.2d 1347 (4th Cir. 1979), cert. denied, 445 U.S. 961, 100 S. Ct. 1647, 64 L. Ed. 2d 236 (1979), is misplaced, for there, unlike here, the indictment specified that the period of statutory violation extended to the time of the filing of the indictment, thus encompassing all mailings subsequent to the underlying fraud. Mandel, 415 F. Supp. at 1003.
It would simply defy logic to permit the maintenance of jurisdiction, as the government urges here, over an offense whose crucial jurisdictional act the government concedes occurred outside of the period in which the offense took place. Nor can this lapse be justified as a permissible "variance" of proof, for the occurrence of the mailing within the period of the offense is a predicate for the very existence of the crime, and is thus an "essential element" of the offense. Stirone v. United States, 361 U.S. 212, 218, 80 S. Ct. 270, 273, 4 L. Ed. 2d 252 (1959); United States v. Nicosia, 638 F.2d 970, 976 (7th Cir. 1980).
For the government to attempt to attach a variance, apparently undiscovered until oral argument on appeal, to the coattails of an amendment, apparently never requested, crosses the threshold of sloppiness and enters into the realm of prejudice to the defendant. Indeed, we fault the government's attempt to amend and vary its indictment and proof piecemeal, relying on mutually contradictory factual predicates and theories all the way to the appellate level. This is the sort of conduct which the Supreme Court found violative of the defendant's Fifth Amendment rights in Russell v. United States, 369 U.S. 749, 82 S. Ct. 1038, 8 L. Ed. 2d 240 (1962) where
Id. at 768, 82 S. Ct. at 1049. At the first sign of error in its indictment the government should have carefully scrutinized the entire indictment, gathered all the errors and gone back to the grand jury for a correct supplemental indictment. By not doing so, the government has wasted the resources of all concerned and forfeited a conviction by the careless drafting of the fundamental document in the whole criminal process. We reverse defendant's conviction on count four.
Defendant's instruction pertaining to the jury's obligation to acquit the defendant of the conspiracy count if it found that the actual mileage of the automobiles was concealed from him or that he could have relied upon the misrepresentation of others, for example, merely restates the detailed knowledge and intent requirement spelled out by the trial court.6 Perez v. United States, 297 F.2d 12 (5th Cir. 1961), cited by defendant, is inapposite, for there, unlike here, the trial court refused to charge the jury with any instruction pertaining to the requisite knowledge and willfulness of the defendant. Perez, 297 F.2d at 15.
Defendant's final instruction which would have required acquittal on count four if defendant was found to have used the mails for the purpose of complying with state law was properly eliminated, for it flatly misstated the law. See United States v. Galloway, 664 F.2d 161, 164 n. 4 (7th Cir. 1981).
In short, the full substance of the defendant's theory of the case was before the jury, unlike in Strauss v. United States, 376 F.2d 416 (5th Cir. 1967), where the court omitted language relating to the legal and factual basis of the defendant's position. Strauss, 376 F.2d at 418. Here, by contrast, only surplusage or incorrect statements of the law were omitted. We find no abuse of discretion in the trial court's judicious pruning of the proffered instructions. Consequently, we find no reversible error to have occurred in connection with the jury instructions on counts one, four, six or eleven.
In view of the crucial jurisdictional significance of the time of the mailing, we could not in any event permit a variance in relation to such an "essential" element of the offense. Stirone v. United States, 361 U.S. 212, 218, 80 S. Ct. 270, 273, 4 L. Ed. 2d 252 (1959)