Opinion ID: 1314537
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: The Jury Instructions Regarding Obstruction of Justice

Text: Spadoni argues that even if the evidence was sufficient to support his conviction, the district court's instructions allowed the jury to convict him on a theory inconsistent with Aguilar 's mens rea requirement. He challenges the instruction that in order to convict, the jury had to find that in the defendant's mind, his or its conduct had the natural and probable effect of obstructing or interfering with the grand jury proceeding. Trial Tr. vol. 16, 123. The district court rejected the defendant's request to insert the words he knew that after in the defendant's mind. Def.'s Exceptions to Jury Instructions 7. Spadoni argues that the instruction as given allowed the jury to convict him if it merely found that he had a belief or impression that his conduct was likely to affect the grand jury investigation, a mental state that falls short of § 1503's requirements. We are not persuaded. Courts have long struggled to determine, in the § 1503 context and elsewhere, precisely what level of certainty is necessary to constitute knowledge. The issue has not been fully resolved, [18] but Aguilar makes clear that § 1503 is not violated if the defendant merely has the impression that his conduct will have the natural and probable effect of obstructing justice. See Aguilar, 515 U.S. at 601-02, 115 S.Ct. 2357. The jury in that case heard evidence that the agent had told Aguilar that a grand jury would be hearing evidence about the investigation, 515 U.S. at 600, 115 S.Ct. 2357, and Aguilar himself testified that, at the end of the interview, it was his impression that his remarks would be conveyed to the grand jury. Id. at 614, 115 S.Ct. 2357 (Scalia, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part). The jury could reasonably have inferred that Aguilar, at the time he made false statements, had the impression that those statements would be conveyed to the grand jury. Yet the Supreme Court found the evidence insufficient to support a finding that he had the requisite mental state for a § 1503 conviction. That element necessarily requires more than a showing that the defendant merely had the impression that his conduct would have the natural and probable effect of obstructing justice. In this case, the district court instructed the jury that the government must prove that in the defendant's mind, his or its conduct had the natural and probable effect of obstructing or interfering with the grand jury proceeding. Trial Tr. vol. 16, 123. The court's language was taken from our opinion in United States v. Schwarz, 283 F.3d 76 (2d Cir.2002), where we explained that under Aguilar, the conduct offered to prove § 1503's intent element must be conduct that is directed at the court or grand jury and that, in the defendant's mind, has the `natural and probable effect' of obstructing or interfering with that entity. Schwarz, 283 F.3d at 109 (quoting Aguilar, 515 U.S. at 599, 115 S.Ct. 2357). We conclude that it sufficiently conveyed the high degree of certainty § 1503 requires. The district court did not tell the jury that § 1503 required a finding that in Spadoni's mind, his conduct might have had the natural and probable effect of obstructing justice, but rather a finding that in his mind, his conduct did have the natural and probable effect of obstructing justice. That is, the instruction adequately conveyed that Spadoni must be certain enough of his conduct's natural and probable obstructive effect that, to him, the effect was a fact, not a mere possibility. The district court's charge thus imposed on the government a burden substantially more demanding than merely proving that Spadoni had the impression that his conduct would have the natural and probable effect of obstructing justice, a formulation that connotes a highly tentative belief. See, e.g., American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (4th ed.2000), available at http:// www.bartleby.com/61/57/I0065700.html (defining impression as, inter alia, 2. A vague notion, remembrance, or belief). Without resolving the difficult question of precisely what degree of certainty amounts to knowledge under § 1503, we can say that the formulation at issue here sufficed to convey the requisite certainty. It is true that our reference in Schwarz to what was in the defendant's mind, which was reproduced by the district court in the challenged instruction, could have made it clearer that the defendant's subjective belief has to amount to knowledge. Compare Schwarz, 283 F.3d at 109 (stating that the conduct evincing the defendant's specific intent must be conduct that is directed at the court or grand jury and that, in the defendant's mind, has the natural and probable effect of interfering with that entity) (internal quotation marks omitted), with id. (`[I]f the defendant lacks knowledge that his actions are likely to affect the judicial proceeding, he lacks the requisite intent to obstruct.' (emphasis added) (quoting Aguilar, 515 U.S. at 599, 115 S.Ct. 2357)). If the case had involved a claimed error in the jury charge, as opposed to a sufficiency challenge to Schwarz's § 1503 conviction, we might have addressed more squarely the issue before us here. In any event, though the district court's use of our language from Schwarz was understandable, we believe the better course in future cases would be for courts to make it explicit that to violate § 1503's omnibus clause, a defendant must know that her conduct has the natural and probable effect of obstructing the judicial or grand jury proceeding in question (or, what amounts to the same thing, that the defendant must know that her conduct is likely to obstruct the proceeding). However, a jury instruction need only adequatelynot perfectlyinstruct the jury on the applicable legal standard. See, e.g., United States v. Naiman, 211 F.3d 40, 51 (2d Cir.2000) (`A jury instruction is erroneous if it misleads the jury as to the correct legal standard or does not adequately inform the jury on the law.') (quoting United States v. Walsh, 194 F.3d 37, 52 (2d Cir.1999)). The fact that a jury could conceivably misinterpret an instruction as to the requisite state of mind does not render the instruction erroneous. See, e.g., Victor v. Nebraska, 511 U.S. 1, 6, 114 S.Ct. 1239, 127 L.Ed.2d 583 (1994) ([T]he proper inquiry is not whether the instruction `could have' been applied in an unconstitutional manner, but whether there is a reasonable likelihood that the jury did so apply it.) (citing Estelle v. McGuire, 502 U.S. 62, 72 & n. 4, 112 S.Ct. 475, 116 L.Ed.2d 385 (1991)); see also Jones v. United States, 527 U.S. 373, 390 & n. 9, 119 S.Ct. 2090, 144 L.Ed.2d 370 (1999) (similar). Thus, while we encourage district courts in the future to make clear that the required mental state is knowledge that the defendant's conduct had the natural and probable effect of obstructing justice, we do not find that the instruction as given was erroneous. [19] Accordingly, Spadoni is not entitled to a new trial on the obstruction of justice charge.