Case Name: UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. James Harry RAND, also known as Harry Rand, Defendant-Appellant
Court: United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit
Jurisdiction: United States
Decision Date: 2007-04-06
Citations: 482 F.3d 943
Docket Number: No. 06-2374
Parties: UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. James Harry RAND, also known as Harry Rand, Defendant-Appellant.
Judges: Before FLAUM, ROVNER, and EVANS, Circuit Judges.
Reporter: Federal Reporter 3d Series
Volume: 482
Pages: 943–952

Head Matter:
UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. James Harry RAND, also known as Harry Rand, Defendant-Appellant.
No. 06-2374.
United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit.
Argued Feb. 7, 2007.
Decided April 6, 2007.
Rehearing and Rehearing En Banc Denied June 4, 2007.
Felicia Moncrief (argued), Office of the United States Attorney, Chicago, IL, for Plaintiff-Appellee.
Robert G. Clarke, Gareth G. Morris (argued), Chicago, IL, for Defendant-Appellant.
Before FLAUM, ROVNER, and EVANS, Circuit Judges.
Circuit Judges Ripple, Rovner, Wood, and Williams voted to grant the petition.

Opinion:
EVANS, Circuit Judge.
An incredibly bizarre plot — seemingly doomed to failure from the start — unraveled with tragic consequences: the death of an innocent man and a life sentence for the defendant in this case, James Rand.
Rand, unfortunately, was a friend of a fellow named Joseph Kalady. And Kalady was in hot water. To extricate himself, he hatched a plan he thought would allow him escape from both the heat and the country. Kalady recruited Rand to help him pull it off. Nothing but trouble followed: on this appeal, Rand challenges his conviction for violating 18 U.S.C. § 1512(a)(1)(C), a statute entitled "Tampering with a witness, victim, or an informant." Although Rand maintains his innocence to this day, we start our consideration of his appeal with the facts, which we must accept as true, that were established during his 2005 jury trial.
In the fall of 2001, Kalady was arrested for executing an identity fraud scheme in which he counterfeited U.S. birth certificates to obtain passports for illegal aliens. He was released on bond but confined to his home and monitored by an electronic bracelet around his ankle. Under the terms of his release, he had to remain within 500 feet of his residence unless he had permission from a Pretrial Services officer to go beyond that distance. Kala-dy's arraignment was delayed due to problems with his health, but it was ultimately scheduled for December 6, 2001.
Kalady was a huge man, weighing in at 450 pounds, and he suffered serious health problems as a result of his weight. Like most all defendants facing federal criminal charges, he did not want to go to prison. So in November 2001, as the date for his arraignment drew close, he told his brother, Michael, that he wanted to fake his own death so he could get out of his predicament. Kalady's plan, ultimately, was to kill another person and use the corpse as a double for himself.
Kalady discussed his plan with Rand, who had previously lived with him. During the discussion, Kalady told Rand to "get a homeless guy, kill him, and pretend that he's me." Kalady also asked Rand to find a homeless man who looked like Kala-dy, someone who visited "soup kitchens or missions" so Kalady could use the body to "replace" his own. Kalady suggested that Rand go to places where "bums go" since they didn't have families looking after them. Rand agreed to find someone Kala-dy could use to pull off his scheme.
Kalady also discussed his plan with Michael, asking him to do several things. First, Kalady said that if Michael came to his residence and found a dead body in his chair, he should tell everyone that the corpse was Joseph Kalady. Next, Kalady asked Michael to call the police, paramedics, and funeral directors to report his discovery of the dead body. Finally, on November 27, 2001, Kalady asked Michael to come to his house and serve as a witness on documents provided by the Cremation Society of Illinois. The execution of these documents, with a witness, ensured that the body would be cremated after it was removed from Kalady's house. This was a crucial part of Kalady's plan because if the body found in his chair was cremated, "it would become [Kalady] and they wouldn't be able to send him back to prison."
On December 1, 2001, 5 days before the scheduled arraignment, Rand brought a fellow named William White to Kalady's house. Kalady told White that he needed a body double because the FBI was watching him. He asked White if, at a later time, he would be willing to put on Kala-dy's clothes and sit in his chair for a couple of hours so Kalady could leave without alerting federal authorities. White agreed, and Kalady then gave White and Rand $150 in cash. After White and Rand left the apartment, Kalady told Michael that he thought his plan "would work" and that White's body would be a good "re-plaee[ment]" for Kalady's. The next day, Michael went to Kalady's house and found White dead, wearing Kalady's clothing and sitting in Kalady's oversized recliner. Rand was seen leaving Kalady's residence around that time.
As Robert Burns observed, the best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry. And this plan, which was hardly best-laid, quickly unraveled when the authorities realized the body, by then at the morgue, was not Joseph Kalady. This apparently was not all that difficult as White, at 185 pounds, was less than half of Kalady's size.
After Rand was arrested, he admitted that Kalady wanted somebody to take his place and sit in his chair while Kalady left the house. Rand also admitted Kalady told him to get a homeless guy, kill him, and have that guy take Kalady's place.
Rand was charged and went to trial on two counts. Count 1 charged him with aiding and abetting Kalady in the murder of White, under § 1512(a)(1)(C). The statute provides:
Whoever kills . another person, with intent to . prevent the communication by any person to a law enforcement officer or judge of the United States of information relating to the commission or possible commission of a Federal offense or a violation of conditions of . release pending judicial proceedings; shall be punished [according to law].
Count 2 charged Rand with conspiring with Kalady and others "to commit an offense against the United States; namely, the failure by defendant Joseph Kalady to appear . for arraignment . as required by the conditions of Joseph Kala-dy's release order, in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 3146(a)(1)." A jury found Rand guilty on both charges. He was sentenced to a life term on the first count and a concurrent 5-year term on the second count. His appeal is limited to challenging his conviction on the first count.
The government's theory of the case was that Kalady, aided and abetted by Rand, killed White intending to prevent a Pretrial Services officer from communicating to the court that he violated his conditions of release by leaving his house. Rand argues that § 1512 does not apply to these facts — it is plainly addressed, he says, to what is commonly understood to be witness tampering. He argues that because White was not "a witness, victim or informant," his killing by Kalady is not a violation of the statute.
Rand also argues that even if Kalady's scheme is seen as an effort to prevent the fact of his flight from being known, § 1512(a) only deals with efforts to conceal information as to prior crimes. It is not violated where a killing is actually a new crime. Finally, Rand argues that flawed jury instructions led to his conviction.
Kalady clearly murdered White and, viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the government, Rand clearly aided and abetted that nefarious act. But did Rand violate § 1512? We think the answer is "yes."
Rand argues that the statute, on these facts, only prohibits the killing of victims, witnesses, and informants, and because White does not fall into any of these categories, his killing does not fit under the statute. This argument, we think, ignores the plain language of the statute.
We repeat, this time with emphasis, the text of the statute:
(a)(1) Whoever kills or attempts to kill another person, with intent to—
(C) prevent the communication by any person to a law enforcement officer or judge of the United States of information relating to the commission or possible commission of a Federal offense or a violation of conditions of . release pending judicial proceedings;
Count 1 of the indictment against Rand tracked the language of § 1512(a)(1)(C). It charges that Rand (with Michael Kalady and others) aided and abetted the violation:
with the intent to prevent the communication by a United States Pretrial Services Officer to a law enforcement officer and judge of the United States of information relating to the commission and possible commission of a Federal offense and a violation of defendant Joseph Kalady's conditions of release pending judicial proceedings, which killing was a murder in the first degree, as defined in Title 18, United States Code, Section 1111.
We believe that a plain reading of § 1512(a)(1)(C) demonstrates that the murder victim does not have to be a witness or an informant. The statute makes it a federal crime to kill or attempt to kill "another person " — regardless of who that person is — in order to prevent the communication of information by "any person" to the court. The statute does not only provide that it is a federal crime to kill another person in order to prevent that person from communicating information to the court.
Rand's two principal contentions are that there must be some relationship between the person killed and the person whose "communication" is prevented, and that the statute's title — Tampering with a witness, victim, or an informant — cabins its scope. Both claims must be rejected. Because the plain language of the statute — killing "another person" to prevent a communication by "any person" — -is not limited, Rand turns to a variant of the old legislative history argument to support his claim. He says: "While extrinsic material may not modify an unambiguous statute, it should be considered in determining the meaning of the statute." We cannot em brace this notion. When a statute is clear, any consideration of legislative history is improper. See, e.g., Holder v. Hall, 512 U.S. 874, 932 n. 28, 114 S.Ct. 2581, 129 L.Ed.2d 687 (1994) ("Resort to legislative history is only justified where the face of the [statute] is inescapably ambiguous.") (quotation omitted); see also United States v. Hayward, 6 F.3d 1241, 1245 (7th Cir.1993) (holding that "when the language of a statute is clear and unambiguous, no need exists for the court to examine the legislative history, and the court must give effect to the plain meaning of the statute").
Rand claims that the title of the statute, again "Tampering with a witness, victim or an informant," reveals that its sole purpose is preventing harm to witnesses, victims, and informants. However, while a statute's title can inform the meaning of ambiguous text, it is well-settled that it does not "limit the plain meaning of the text." See United States v. Krilich, 159 F.3d 1020, 1028 (7th Cir.1998), citing Pennsylvania Dep't of Corr. v. Yeskey, 524 U.S. 206, 212, 118 S.Ct. 1952, 141 L.Ed.2d 215 (1998); see also Lyons v. Georgia-Pacific Corp. Salaried Employees, 221 F.3d 1235, 1246 (11th Cir.2000) ("[Reliance upon headings to determine the meaning of a statute is not a favored method of statutory construction.").
Our view is consistent with the position taken by the Eleventh Circuit in United States v. Veal, 153 F.3d 1233 (1998). In Veal, three police officers were charged under 18 U.S.C. § 1512(b)(3) with trying to head off federal charges by misleading state authorities concerning the circumstances of a victim's death in order to prevent state authorities from providing the FBI and a federal judge with information concerning the killing. On appeal, the officers argued that § 1512 was directed solely at the direct victim or witness, rather than third parties such as the state authorities, and that they therefore could not be charged with violating the statute. In partial support of their argument, the officers pointed to the statute's title.
The Veal court held that it did not need to reach the statute's legislative history because "there [was] no ambiguity in [§ 1512(b)(3)'s] 'another person,' which is easily and commonly understood to mean any person, regardless of whether he possessed knowledge of the commission or possible commission of a federal crime from being an eyewitness or investigating official." Id., at 1245 (emphasis in original); see also United States v. Diaz, 176 F.3d 52, 91 (2d Cir.1999) (relying on an opinion analyzing § 1512(a)(1)(C) in considering claims under § 1512(b)(3) because the elements of the subsections of § 1512 are similar), cited in United States v. Baldyga, 233 F.3d 674, 680 n. 5 (1st Cir.2000) (comparing § 1512(b)(1) to § 1512(a)(1)(C)).
Rand cites United States v. Arocho, 305 F.3d 627, 639 (7th Cir.2002), and United States v. LaShay, 417 F.3d 715, 718 (7th Cir.2005), for the contention that a person killed under a § 1512 prosecution must also be a witness. While both cases held that a witness killing qualifies for prosecution under § 1512, neither went so far as to mandate that the victim must be a witness. Likewise, Rand argues that United States v. Murphy, 406 F.3d 857 (7th Cir.2005), held that § 1512 only "reaches crimes against a person where the defendant knew the person harmed was a witness or informant." We disagree.
In Murphy, one of the defendants' — -a woman named Baker- — confronted a confidential informant, but she did not know that the person held that status. We agreed in that case that the jury could not convict Baker when she did not know the person she confronted was an informant. But our reasoning was very particular. Since Baker did not know the person she confronted was an informant, she lacked the required intent under § 1512 of acting to prevent a communication to a federal law enforcement officer or judge. Our case is fundamentally different because Kalady had the requisite intent required under the statute. He killed White pursuant to a plan to make the authorities think the dead person was him so that the Pretrial Services officer would not communicate to the judge that he had fled to avoid prosecution. By aiding Kalady, Rand exposed himself to prosecution under the statute as well.
Rand's argument that § 1512 only relates to "prior" crimes is similarly unavailing. The statute includes potential crimes by punishing whoever kills another person with the intent to prevent the communication by any person to a law enforcement officer or judge "relating to the commission or possible commission" of a federal crime. Rand says that if the statute reaches future crimes, it will create "an absurdly broad" scope, such that every killing of any person during any crime could be a violation of § 1512. This argument ignores the intent requirement that distinguishes § 1512. In order to fall under the statute, a defendant must kill (or attempt to kill) another person with the intent to "prevent the communication" of information "by any person" to a law enforcement officer or judge. So limited, every murder of any person will not lead to a charge under § 1512.
Rand's challenge to the jury instructions regarding the elements of the charge against him is an offshoot of his contention about the limited scope of § 1512. The judge's instructions, however, appropriately tracked the statute and the indictment. Since White's killing, which Rand aided and abetted, was a murder, § 1512(a)(3), which establishes the punishment, provides:
(3) The punishment for an offense under this subsection is—
(A) in the case of murder (as defined in section 1111 [18 USCS § 1111]), the death penalty or imprisonment for life, and in the case of any other killing, the punishment provided in section 1112 [18 USCS § 1112];
(B) in the case of—
(i) an attempt to murder; or
(ii) the use or attempted use of physical force against any person;
imprisonment for not more than 20 years; and
(C) in the case of the threat of use of physical force against any person, imprisonment for not more than 10 years.
18 U.S.C. § 1512(a)(3). The government proceeded under subsection (3)(A), and as a result, the instructions had to provide a definition of murder. That definition came from 18 U.S.C. § 1111, .the federal murder statute.
As charged, the government had to prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, three elements to secure a conviction. First, that Rand aided and abetted in White's killing. This element is reflected in instruction 18 ("the government must prove . that the defendant aided and. abetted the murder of William White") as given.
Second, the government had to prove that White was killed in order to prevent a communication by "any person" to a law enforcement official or judge. This element is reflected in instruction 18 as well ("the government must prove . that Joseph Kalady killed William White with the intent to prevent the communication by a United States Pretrial Services Officer to a law enforcement official and judge of the United States of information relating to the commission and possible commission of a Federal Offense and a violation of Joseph Kalady's conditions of release pending judicial proceedings.").
Lastly, for sentencing purposes, the government had to prove that White's killing was "murder," as defined in § 1111, in order to subject Rand to a sentence of life imprisonment. This element was reflected in instruction 18 ("the government must prove . that Joseph Kalady's killing of William White was murder in the first degree.... ").
Admittedly, the charge in this case and the instructions formulated and given by the experienced district court judge (the Honorable Joan B. Gottschall) are not run-of-the-mill. And that's certainly not unusual in a case that was anything but run-of-the-mill. We think these instructions are clear and did not, as Rand colorfully claims, toss the jury into an "instructional briar patch."
Rand, of course, would have preferred his proposed elements instruction:
[T]hat defendant intentionally "aided and abetted" Joseph Kalady in killing William White and that this was done with the intent to prevent William White from communicating information as described in the previous (SECOND) paragraph.
This proposed instruction would have been wrong on the law and would certainly have confused and misled the jury. . When all is said and done, we think the instructions as given by Judge Gottschall, when viewed as a whole, were error-free on the elements of the charge against Rand in count 1.
For these reasons, the judgment of the district court is Affihmed.
. This plan was not even as bizarre as two others Kalady discussed but rejected: one was to buy a cadaver, place it in his house, and then set the house on fire; another was to have a Nigerian friend (this was soon after 9-11) crash a small airplane into Kalady's house.
. Although we are not moved by Rand's argument that we should turn to legislative history to discern the meaning of the statute, we note that the history certainly is not a slam dunk in his favor. As the government notes, the Senate Report seems to urge a wide reach for the law:
[T]he obstruction of justice statute is an outgrowth of the Congressional recognition of the variety of corrupt methods by which the proper administration of justice may be impeded or thwarted, a variety limited only by the imagination of the criminally in-dined. In the Committee's view, this observation leads to the condusion that the purpose of preventing an obstruction or miscarriage of justice cannot be fully carried out by a simple enumeration of the commonly prosecuted obstruction offenses. There must also be protection against the' rare type of conduct that is the product of the inventive criminal mind and which also thwarts justice.
Victim & Witness Protection Act of 1982, S.Rep. No. 97-532, at 18 (1982).