Source: http://openjurist.org/129/f3d/1293
Timestamp: 2015-10-04 07:32:15
Document Index: 639499940

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 1962', '§ 1962', '§ 501', '§ 1341', '§ 1866', '§ 501', 'in fine', '§ 1861', '§ 1867', '§ 1867', '§ 1867', '§ 1867', '§ 1861', '§ 1866', '§ 1866', '§ 1341']

129 F3d 1293 United States v. Defries | OpenJurist
129 F. 3d 1293 - United States v. Defries HomeFederal Reporter, Third Series129 F.3d
129 F3d 1293 United States v. Defries 129 F.3d 1293
156 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2999, 327 U.S.App.D.C. 181
UNITED STATES of America, Appellee,v.Clayton Eugene DEFRIES, a/k/a Gene, et al., Appellants.
Nos. 96-3015, 96-3016.
District of Columbia Circuit.Argued Sept. 12, 1997.Decided Dec. 2, 1997.
Appeals from the United States District Court for the District of Columbia (No. 93cr00117-01) (No. 93cr00117-02).
Stuart A. Levey, Washington, DC, appointed by the court, and Lisa B. Wright, Assistant Federal Public Defender, argued the cause for appellants. With them on the briefs were A.J. Kramer, Federal Public Defender, R. Stan Mortenson, Scott L. Nelson, Daniel J. Cloherty, Gerard F. Treanor, Jr., and Judith L. Wheat, appointed by the court.
Frank J. Marine, Deputy Chief, U.S. Department of Justice, Washington, DC, argued the cause for appellee. With him on the briefs was Sotiris A. Planzos, Trial Attorney.
Two former elected officials of a maritime union challenge their convictions for Racketeer Influence and Corrupt Organizations Act ("RICO") violations, RICO conspiracy, embezzlement, and mail fraud. We reverse their convictions.
District No. 1-Pacific Coast District, Marine Engineers' Beneficial Association ("PCD/MEBA," or the "pre-merger union") was a national union made up of mostly licensed marine engineers who manned American merchant vessels. Under the union's by-laws, an elected District Executive Committee governed the union's operations. In 1984, PCD/MEBA elected appellant Clayton Eugene DeFries president and appellant Clyde E. Dodson executive vice president and branch agent for the Port of San Francisco. The membership also elected twenty-one individuals as delegates to the convention of the National MEBA, an umbrella organization of various unions, which in 1986 elected DeFries National MEBA President and Dodson National MEBA secretary-treasurer. In the union's 1987 election, the membership reelected DeFries and Dodson to their Committee positions.
Just prior to the 1987 election, DeFries negotiated, on behalf of the Committee, an agreement to merge PCD/MEBA with the National Maritime Union ("NMU"), a much larger, predominantly blue-collar union made up of unlicensed seamen. In March 1988, PCD/MEBA approved the merger agreement in a membership referendum, as did NMU. As specified in the merger agreement, a six-person committee consisting of three former NMU officials and three former PCD/MEBA officers, including DeFries and Dodson, governed the new union, MEBA/NMU (the "post-merger union").
At the time the merger became effective, appellants and other former officers of the pre-merger union received severance payments totaling almost $2 million, even though they immediately assumed roughly equivalent positions in the newly merged union's leadership. The pre-merger union's bylaws authorized the Committee to establish compensation levels for all union officers and employees, "unless otherwise directed by a majority vote of the membership." Pursuant to that authority, the Committee adopted a formal, written severance plan, later amending it to make its triggering date the merger of the two unions. With regard to both the adoption and amendment of the severance plan, the Committee sought the advice of the firm's outside counsel, Angelo Arcadipane, a member of the law firm of Dickstein, Shapiro & Morin, who advised appellants that the severance plan was legal and that the Committee had authority to adopt it.
At trial, government witnesses testified that between the time of the severance plan's adoption in 1986 and the distribution of the payments in 1988, DeFries, Dodson, and other Committee members took steps to conceal from the union membership the adoption, terms, and triggering event of the plan. These witnesses testified that Committee members failed to mention the plan in the minutes of the meeting at which they adopted it, directing the union's controller not to reveal any details of the plan. According to these witnesses, the Committee also failed to disclose the plan's existence to the union's independent auditor until more than a year after its adoption. When the union membership eventually learned of the severance payments, a group filed suit to recover the money.
As part of the merger, the post-merger union was divided into two divisions--the Licensed Division, which consisted of the former PCD/MEBA members, and the Unlicensed Division, which was made up of former NMU members. The Licensed Division held an election in 1989 to select its delegates to the National MEBA Convention; those elected included DeFries and Dodson. The Licensed Division held another election in 1990, this time electing officers as well as delegates to the National MEBA Convention. This was the first time that appellants and their supporters faced substantial opposition. In a hotly contested election, the challengers defeated the incumbents, including Dodson (DeFries was not up for reelection).
According to the evidence at trial, in the 1988, 1989, and 1990 elections appellants and other union leaders solicited and collected unmarked and unsealed ballots, voting them in favor of appellants' interests. The evidence also showed that some tampering of collected ballots occurred, including opening sealed ballots and replacing those ballots voted against appellants' interests with new ballots voted in their favor.
A federal grand jury returned a ten-count indictment against DeFries, Dodson, and fourteen other former union officials. The indictment charged appellants with one count of racketeering in violation of RICO, 18 U.S.C. § 1962(c) (1994); one count of conspiracy to violate RICO, 18 U.S.C. § 1962(d) (1994); one count of embezzlement with respect to the severance payments, 29 U.S.C. § 501(c) (1994); and three counts of mail fraud, 18 U.S.C. § 1341 (1994), with regard to the 1988 merger referendum, the 1989 national delegate election, and the 1990 union officers' election. The RICO count included two charges of mail fraud with regard to the 1984 and 1987 elections as two of the alleged racketeering acts; it also incorporated the other mail fraud counts and the embezzlement count as racketeering acts. A seventh racketeering act incorporated one count of extortion but did not apply to appellants. The RICO conspiracy count incorporated all seven racketeering acts of the RICO count.
The district court severed the case against appellants and five others from that of the other nine defendants, and also dismissed the 1988 merger referendum mail fraud count as failing to allege a scheme to defraud "property" under McNally v. United States, 483 U.S. 350, 107 S.Ct. 2875, 97 L.Ed.2d 292 (1987). After the government took an interlocutory appeal challenging the dismissal, this court reversed the district court and reinstated the count, issuing our opinion on January 13, 1995, and ultimately our mandate on March 1.
In the meantime, on February 1, the deputy clerk swore the ninety-one individuals on the jury venire for this case, who then completed an extensive juror questionnaire. Two days later, just prior to the prospective jurors' return to the courtroom for formal, in-person questioning by counsel, appellants moved to stay jury selection on the grounds that self-selection tainted the jury panel summoned in this case in violation of the Jury Selection and Service Act, 28 U.S.C. § 1866(a) (1994), and that white jurors were systematically underrepresented on the panel in violation of the Sixth Amendment's fair-cross-section requirement, U.S. Const. amend. VI. Refusing to stay jury selection, the district court allowed discovery of the juror summonses and juror qualification forms for all jurors summoned for service for the period of February 1-15, including any requests for deferral. Ruling that appellants failed to show that the Jury Office's granting of hardship deferrals was either motivated by discrimination or arbitrary and capricious, the district court denied the jury selection motions.
At the end of the government's case-in-chief and again at the close of all evidence, appellants moved for judgment of acquittal on the embezzlement count, arguing that lack of authorization is an essential element of 29 U.S.C. § 501(c) and that the government failed to present any evidence showing that the severance payments were unauthorized. Faced with a circuit split over whether lack of authorization is an element of a section 501(c) violation, the district court denied the motion on both occasions, electing to treat authorization as one factor for the jury to consider when evaluating whether appellants had the requisite fraudulent intent to commit the crime.
After the district court denied the motions for judgment of acquittal, appellants requested an advice-of-counsel instruction on the embezzlement count. Specifically, they asked the district court to instruct the jury that if it found that appellants, in creating the severance plan and taking the severance payments, had relied in good faith on the advice of the union's outside counsel, then they must be acquitted under section 501(c) because they would not have had the requisite fraudulent intent to embezzle the union's funds. Ruling that appellants had not presented sufficient evidence that they had relied on their attorney's advice, the district court refused to give the requested instruction.
Appellants also objected to the district court's instructions on the RICO and RICO conspiracy counts, as well as on the mail fraud counts. Although appellants presented evidence disputing whether a single enterprise of the pre-merger and post-merger unions constituted a single RICO enterprise, as the indictment alleged, the district court instructed the jury to "regard the two unions as a single enterprise." In addition, the district court instructed the jury that it could convict appellants of mail fraud based on their participation in a scheme to defraud union members of their right to secret ballots and fair elections, which appellants now contend is not within the reach of the mail fraud statute.
The jury found appellants guilty on all counts. After appellants waived their right to a trial by jury on RICO forfeiture and following an evidentiary hearing, the court ordered forfeiture of the severance payments and all salaries earned by appellants from 1985 to 1990. The court sentenced DeFries to concurrent terms of sixty-three months of imprisonment on the RICO and RICO conspiracy counts and sixty months of imprisonment on the embezzlement and mail fraud counts, with three years of supervised release. Dodson received concurrent terms of fifty-seven months of imprisonment on all six counts, with three years of supervised release. The court ordered appellants to pay certain fines, restitution, and costs of confinement. Appellants now appeal their convictions and the district court's forfeiture ruling. A third appellant, Claude W. Daulley, passed away the day before we heard oral argument. In response to the "suggestion of death" filed by Daulley's counsel, we have dismissed Daulley's appeal.
II. Jury Venire Issues
Appellants raise both a statutory and a constitutional challenge to the racial composition of their jury venire. They maintain that white jurors were systematically underrepresented in the juror pool they received. According to appellants, white jurors constitute roughly a third of the population in the District of Columbia eligible to serve on juries, yet constituted only 23% of the jurors drawn for appellants' venire. This disparity, appellants maintain, is due in part to the fact that potential white jurors were more likely than nonwhites to obtain hardship deferrals of their jury service--at least half of the fifty-four deferrals in the jury pool used by the district court for the venire in appellants' trial were white. Appellants therefore contend that the low number of white people in their venire violated both the Jury Selection and Service Act ("Jury Selection Act"), which codifies the right to a jury "selected at random from a fair cross section of the community," 28 U.S.C. § 1861 (1994), and the Sixth Amendment, which guarantees criminal defendants the right to trial "by an impartial jury." We conclude that appellants have failed to meet their evidentiary burden to show their rights were violated.
Jury Selection and Service Act Claim
The government argues for the first time on appeal that appellants' Jury Selection Act contention is untimely. Relying on cases stating that the timeliness requirement "is to be strictly construed," United States v. Bearden, 659 F.2d 590, 595 (5th Cir. Unit B 1981); accord United States v. Contreras, 108 F.3d 1255, 1266 (10th Cir.1997); United States v. Paradies, 98 F.3d 1266, 1277 (11th Cir.1996); United States v. Young, 822 F.2d 1234, 1239 (2d Cir.1987), the government notes that "voir dire" began on February 1, 1995, but appellants did not file their motion objecting to the venire until February 3, 1995.
The Jury Selection Act requires that any motion to dismiss the indictment or stay the proceedings on the ground of a substantial failure to comply with the statute must be filed no later than "before the voir dire examination begins." 28 U.S.C. § 1867(a) (1994).1 Appellants filed their motion to stay proceedings on Friday morning, February 3, 1995, and promptly brought it to the attention of the district court. This was two days after they had first seen the members of the jury venire in person, on Wednesday, February 1, 1995, and after the members of the jury venire had responded in writing to a detailed written questionnaire. That questionnaire consisted of questions that the district court had approved after receiving suggested questions from appellants' counsel and the prosecutor. Because the questionnaire, particularly in view of appellants' participation in determining its content, could be viewed as the initial phase of voir dire examination, see, e.g., United States v. George (In re Washington Post ), 20 Media L. Rep. (BNA) 1511, 1511 (D.D.C.1992), appellants' motion would appear to be untimely.
The difficulty with this conclusion arises from the fact that the Jury Selection Act and the jury selection procedures utilized by the district court effectively foreclosed the filing of appellants' motion at an earlier time. The Jury Selection Act required appellants both to file their motion before the voir dire examination began, and to support it with a sworn statement of facts that, if true, would demonstrate a substantial failure to comply with the statute.2 See 28 U.S.C. § 1867(d); Bearden, 659 F.2d at 597; United States v. Kennedy, 548 F.2d 608, 613 (5th Cir.1977). Yet, appellants did not see a list of the jurors who would be in their venire until the members of the jury venire were brought into the courtroom on Wednesday, February 1, 1995. Even if they could have seen the list of venire jurors in the jury office, see 28 U.S.C. § 1867(f), prior to that date, the list would not have included information on the ethnicity or gender of the jurors. Nor is it clear on this record that appellants could have obtained the information from another source prior to trial. The absence of such information precluded appellants from providing a detailed and supported motion outlining their jury concerns at the moment they first learned, at least by eyesight, of the ethnic and gender composition of the jury on February 1, 1995.
The Fifth Circuit has indicated that it might waive a procedural requirement of the Jury Selection Act if circumstances indicated that "counsel could not reasonably have been expected to comply with the procedural prerequisites to a statutory challenge to the jury." Kennedy, 548 F.2d at 613. Assuming that the government has not waived its timeliness objection, we need not decide whether appellants would be entitled to such an exception, because appellants' Jury Selection Act claim is unsupported by the evidence necessary for the court to conclude that there has been a "substantial" violation of the Jury Selection Act.3 28 U.S.C. § 1867(a); United States v. Spriggs, 102 F.3d 1245, 1251 (D.C.Cir.1996); United States v. Barnette, 800 F.2d 1558, 1567 (11th Cir.1986).
To succeed on their Jury Selection Act contention, appellants must demonstrate a substantial violation of the two related goals of the statute: random selection and objective disqualifications. See 28 U.S.C. §§ 1861, 1866(c); Spriggs, 102 F.3d at 1251; United States v. North, 910 F.2d 843, 909 (D.C.Cir.1990). Appellants maintain that the jury office in this district grants hardship deferments more liberally than the Jury Selection Act permits, see 28 U.S.C. § 1866(c)(1), and then recalls deferred jurors en masse, rather than distributing them evenly among the venires. As a result of the combination of these two practices, appellants contend, some venires are disproportionately white because they are composed in part of disproportionately white deferred jurors.
Although such a practice would be cause for concern, see 28 U.S.C. § 1866(c), appellants have produced almost no evidence of its existence, let alone evidence that it was a regular occurrence that produced a substantial violation of the Jury Selection Act. They rely solely on counsel's declaration that "[o]n February 13, 1995, I learned that no previously deferred jurors have been added to any jury group in this Court since approximately October, 1994." Such hearsay information does not demonstrate that the jury office deferral practices in this district substantially violate the statute. See, e.g., United States v. Layton, 519 F.Supp. 946, 955 (N.D.Cal.1981).
Appellants' Sixth Amendment contention fares no better. The Sixth Amendment guarantees a criminal defendant the right to a trial "by an impartial jury." The Supreme Court has held that an "impartial jury" is one drawn from a "representative cross-section of the community." Taylor v. Louisiana, 419 U.S. 522, 528, 95 S.Ct. 692, 697, 42 L.Ed.2d 690 (1975).
In order to establish a prima facie violation of the fair-cross-section requirement, the defendant must show (1) that the group alleged to be excluded is a "distinctive" group in the community; (2) that the representation of this group in venires for which juries are selected is not fair and reasonable in relation to the number of such persons in the community; and (3) that this underrepresentation is due to systematic exclusion of the group in the jury-selection process.
Duren v. Missouri, 439 U.S. 357, 364, 99 S.Ct. 664, 668, 58 L.Ed.2d 579 (1979).4 Appellants contend that the disparity between the percentage of whites in their venire and the percentage of eligible white jurors in the District of Columbia suggests that whites are systematically excluded from juries in the district court. They point to the evidence that although whites comprise approximately one-third of the eligible jurors in the district, they comprised only 23% of the venire in their case. Yet appellants cannot show on the basis of this single instance of disparity that there has been a systematic exclusion of whites from the jury. Cf., e.g. Duren, 439 U.S. at 366, 99 S.Ct. at 669-70 (reversing conviction on the basis of jury selection practices over a year); Castaneda v. Partida, 430 U.S. 482, 496 n. 17, 97 S.Ct. 1272, 1281 n. 17, 51 L.Ed.2d 498 (1977) (same, over a decade). Underrepresentation of a cognizable group in a single venire, without evidence of a greater pattern, is insufficient to establish the "systematic exclusion of the group" required by Duren, 439 U.S. at 364, 99 S.Ct. at 668. See, e.g., United States v. Ruiz-Castro, 92 F.3d 1519, 1527 (10th Cir.1996); United States v. Hardwell, 80 F.3d 1471, 1486 (10th Cir.1996); Ford v. Seabold, 841 F.2d 677, 685 (6th Cir.1988); Timmel v. Phillips, 799 F.2d 1083, 1086-87 (5th Cir.1986); United States v. Jones, 687 F.2d 1265, 1269-70 (8th Cir.1982). From a small sample size based on one venire it is difficult to determine whether the disparity is random or systemic.
Accordingly, because appellants have not produced evidence that would demonstrate either a substantial violation of the Jury Selection Act or a substantial underrepresentation as would violate their Sixth Amendment right, their jury venire contentions fail.5
III. Mail Fraud Issues
Jurisdiction over the 1988 Merger Referendum Mail Fraud Count
The federal mail fraud statute makes it unlawful to use the U.S. mails in furtherance of "any scheme or artifice to defraud, or for obtaining money or property by means of false or fraudulent pretenses, representations, or promises." 18 U.S.C. § 1341. One count of the indictment charged appellants under section 1341 for using the mails to advance a scheme (1) to defraud the union of its property--that is, the ballots for the 1988 merger referendum--and (2) to defraud union members of their right to secret ballots and to participate in a fair and honest election regarding the merger referendum. Ruling that this count failed to allege a fraudulent scheme to obtain "property," the district court dismissed it, relying on McNally v. United States, which overturned a mail fraud conviction that rested on the theory that the defendants deprived a state's citizens and government of the right to have the state's affairs conducted honestly. 483 U.S. at 361, 107 S.Ct. at 2882. In McNally, the Court held that when enacting the mail fraud statute, Congress intended to prevent the use of the mails in furtherance of schemes to defraud others of money or "property" as traditionally defined, not of the "intangible" right to an honest and impartial government. 483 U.S. at 356-59, 107 S.Ct. at 2879-81.
The government filed an interlocutory appeal, challenging the district court's dismissal of the mail fraud count. On January 13, 1995, we reversed the district court and reinstated the count, ruling that the referendum ballots and the information they contained did in fact constitute "property" protected under section 1341. United States v. DeFries, 43 F.3d 707, 711 (D.C.Cir.1995). Pursuant to D.C. Circuit Rule 41, we withheld issuance of our mandate until seven days after disposition of any timely petition for rehearing. See D.C.CIR. R. 41.
Three weeks later, on February 7, the government moved for expedited issuance of our mandate, pointing out that the district court was almost ready to swear a jury. The next day, appellants filed an opposition to the government's motion to expedite as well as a petition for rehearing and a suggestion for rehearing en banc. Rather than issuing our mandate on February 10, we ordered the government to respond to appellants' pending rehearing petitions. On February 10, the government filed its reply to appellants' opposition to expedited issuance of the mandate, and on February 14 asked the district court to consider delaying empaneling the jury until this court issued its mandate. The district judge and counsel for the government discussed the implications of the fact that this court had not issued its mandate, expressing uncertainty as to the district court's ability to proceed to trial on that count prior to the mandate's issuance. When asked by the court, counsel for appellants said he thought the district court lacked jurisdiction absent the mandate, explaining that "the mandate is key here. And ... the court of appeals understands that." Appellants' counsel also explained why he thought this court delayed issuing the mandate: "[W]hat the court of appeals, I think, is looking at is the prospect that if it sends the mandate back and the case goes forward and then you're in the midst of trial and they have to recall the mandate, then you have got real problems." The district court took no action on the government's request, but on February 21, once jury selection was completed, the district court again raised the question of our mandate. After confirming that the mandate had not issued, counsel for the government, citing United States v. Salerno, 868 F.2d 524 (2d Cir.1989), argued that the court could proceed. The next day, the district court empaneled and swore the jury. On February 24, the government filed its reply to appellants' rehearing petition. On March 1, after the trial had been