Opinion ID: 6929859
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 8

Heading: prejudice from comments regarding defendants’ ethnicity

Text: During the fifth day of trial, the government’s main witness, Marderosian, testified about a comment made by defendant Landman concerning the religious affinity between Landman and co-defendant Reisch. Marderosian was describing on direct examination the arrangement for Reisch to wire down payment money into buyers’ accounts. The arrangement was designed, in part, to allay Reisch’s concern that too much money would be outstanding between the time he provided funds to the buyers and the time the funds were returned to him by Dean Street. In reference to a discussion between Marderosian and Landman, 64 the government asked: “What, if anything did Mr. Landman say to you about concerns expressed by Mr. Reisch?” Marderosian responded: Mr. Landman stated to me on one occasion, I am not sure if it was that occasion, that Mr. Reisch appeared comfortable doing it this way and part of the reason for that, Mr. Landman explained, was that Mr. Landman was involved and he was Jewish and Mr. Reisch was Jewish and that the level of comfort shouldn’t be underestimated by me. Defendants did not immediately object to this statement after it was made; however, Reisch’s attorney moved to dismiss later that same day. The judge denied the motion and also denied later defense motions for a mistrial. Defendants argue that the testimony invited the jury to make the impermissible inference that members of the same religion would be more likely to trust each other and join in a conspiracy and also that the testimony may have provoked anti-Semitic feelings among jurors. When defendants first raised their objections, the trial judge asked counsel what they wanted him to do and the judge offered to try and ferret out any possible anti-Semitism on the jury. Counsel’s only request was for dismissal. Counsel did not request further questioning of the jury on this matter and expressed displeasure with the possibility of providing curative instructions because “instructions would only magnify the problem.” Under these circumstances, we do not think that the trial court’s actions constitute reversible error despite the possible inappropriateness of the testimony. The level of prejudice, if any, was not sufficiently significant to overturn the judge’s decision to accept the defendants’ tactical choice to forgo more appropriate methods of addressing the potential prejudice in favor of the unrealistic and unnecessary solution of a dismissal or a new trial. Cf. United States v. De La Cruz, 902 F.2d 121, 124 (1st Cir.1990) (noting the reluctance of this court to require trial judges to override plausible strategic choices on the part of counsel in the context of remedying potential prejudice); United States v. Goldman, 563 F.2d 501, 505 (1st Cir.1977), cert. denied, 434 U.S. 1067, 98 S.Ct. 1245, 55 L.Ed.2d 768 (1978) (refusing to reverse verdict in trial with prejudicial references to religion because the trial judge gave curative instructions). The prejudicial effect of Marderosian’s statement appears quite limited. The reference to defendants’ Judaism was the only such mention of religion at trial. It amounted to one brief sentence in nineteen days of testimony and argument. There was no subsequent reference to the challenged testimony nor did the government use the issue of religious affinity in its closing argument. The inference of Jewish affinity was not, as defendant Landman claims, central to the government’s ease. The basis of Landman’s agreement to participate in the conspiracy was not his promise to protect the interests of Reisch but his agreement with Mardero-sian and Brandon to facilitate the unit sales without down payments. As discussed above, see Section IV.B.6, the record contains sufficient facts regarding Landman’s actions and statements made by, and to, him to support his knowledge and participation in the conspiracy. None of these facts have anything to do with Landman’s supposed religious affinity with Reisch. 65 Likewise, the evidence against Reisch centers around his agreement with Brandon to provide money to the scheme and not around his relationship with Landman. In fact, Landman was acquitted by the jury on two bank fraud counts that involved the funding of down payments by Reisch in which Landman conducted the closings. This indicates that the jury was not prejudiced and did not rely on the disputed testimony in its verdict. Nothing like the serious prejudicial circumstances found in United States v. Rodriguez Cortés, 949 F.2d 532 (1st Cir.1991) (finding reversible error from ethnically prejudicial evidence), exists in this case. In Rodriguez Cortés, the district court had found a defendant’s Colombian identification card admissible based on the impermissible assumption that Colombians were more willing to trust fellow Colombians than anyone else, and therefore, defendant was likely to be involved with his Colombian co-defendants. Id. at 540. This connection was emphasized in the government’s closing argument. Id. at 541. Here, there was no objection to the relevancy of Marderosian’s statement and thus no ruling based on an impermissible inference. The judge recognized the potential for prejudice and. offered to take steps to rectify the problem. More importantly, the government did not invoke any inferences based on religious affinity in its final argument before the jury. Similarly, United States v. Cruz, 981 F.2d 659 (2d Cir.1992), and United States v. Doe, 903 F.2d 16 (D.C.Cir.1990), are distinguishable from the present case because those cases involved the government’s explicit use of the impermissible reasoning, upon extensive direct examination and on summation, for crucial parts of its theory of the case. Defendants suggest there was an element of prosecutorial misconduct in eliciting the disputed testimony from Marderosian. Marderosian had made a similar statement about defendants’ Judaism when he testified before the grand jury and the pattern of questioning prior to Marderosian’s statement at trial could be construed as an attempt to elicit the same testimony from him a second time. At the bench conference with the judge, the prosecutor denied knowing beforehand that Marderosian would make the comment about defendants’ religion and claimed to have instructed Marderosian to limit his testimony to the fact that Landman said Reisch felt comfortable with the arrangement. While the circumstances are somewhat troubling, we do not find sufficient evidence of prosecutorial misconduct to reverse the verdicts in this case, especially in light of the absence of any reference to the religious comment in the government’s summation. Compare Goldman, 563 F.2d at 504-05 (prosecutor, on summation, referred to fact defendant was wearing “what they call in the Jewish religion a yamaka [sic]” and that the symbol he was wearing “has been defamed, defiled and scandalized”).