Opinion ID: 3003170
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Due Process Based on Successive Prosecutions

Text: Presbitero also argues that he was deprived of his right to the due process of law when the government prosecuted him in this case after unsuccessfully charging and trying 16 Nos. 07-1129, 07-1610, & 07-1712 him with ERISA and mail fraud violations in an earlier case because, he says, the government took inconsistent positions in the two cases. The indictment in the earlier case charged that Presbitero and Presbitero Drywall Company underreported the total hours worked by drywall installers and the total fringe benefit contributions due for PDC from January 1995 through August 1997, thereby defrauding a carpenters’ trust fund and causing false reports to be filed with the Department of Labor. A jury convicted the company on four ERISA counts. Presbitero, individually, was acquitted. We review Presbitero’s due process claim de novo. See United States v. Eshkol, 108 F.3d 1025, 1027 (9th Cir. 1997). As support for his argument, Presbitero directs us to decisions from other circuits that found due process violations where the government took fundamentally opposite positions in different trials involving the same crime. See Smith v. Groose, 205 F.3d 1045 (8th Cir. 2000) (finding due process violation where state used “inconsistent, irreconcilable”theories to secure convictions against two defendants in different trials for the same offenses and stating, “[t]o violate due process, an inconsistency must exist at the core of the prosecutor’s cases against defendants for the same crime”); Thompson v. Calderon, 120 F.3d 1045, 1058 (9th Cir. 1997) (en banc), rev’d on other grounds, 523 U.S. 538 (1998) (stating “it is well established that when no new significant evidence comes to light a prosecutor cannot, in order to convict two defendants at separate trials, offer inconsistent theories and facts regarding the same crime”); see also Abbate v. United States, 359 U.S. 187, 197-200 (1959) (Brennan, J., specially concurNos. 07-1129, 07-1610, & 07-1712 17 ring). Not everyone agrees that the due process clause prevents the government from arguing inconsistent theories. See United States v. Frye, 489 F.3d 201, 214 (5th Cir. 2007) (stating “a prosecutor can make inconsistent arguments at the separate trials of codefendants without violating the due process clause” but finding inconsistencies not material to the conviction) (citation omitted); see also Bradshaw v. Stumpf, 545 U.S. 175, 190 (2005) (Thomas, J., concurring) (stating that the Supreme Court “has never hinted, much less held, that the Due Process Clause prevents a State from prosecuting defendants based on inconsistent theories”). This case does not present us with the opportunity to decide whether we would agree with Smith and Thompson. Notably, unlike in those two cases, the two trials did not involve the same underlying crime. The indictment in the first case alleged that false statements or omissions were made in ERISA-related documents as part of a scheme to defraud a carpenters’ union. This case, on the other hand, alleged tax fraud based on deductions taken in the company’s corporate tax returns. In addition, the government did not take fundamentally opposite positions in its two prosecutions. The government’s position in the first case was that PDC employees installed the drywall for PDC and that PDC understated the number of hours worked by those employees in its monthly reports to the union fringe benefit funds. See, e.g., United States v. Presbitero Drywall Co., Inc., No. 02 CR 165, 2003 WL 1562280, at -3 (N.D. Ill. Mar. 24, 2003) (memorandum opinion resolving post-trial motions). The defen18 Nos. 07-1129, 07-1610, & 07-1712 dants maintained in the first case that subcontractors had performed the work and that the company did not have to report hours worked by subcontractors to the union funds. The government then demonstrated that the subcontractors did not exist. In this case, the government’s position was that the six subcontractors did not exist. As a result, it maintained, Presbitero was guilty of filing false corporate tax returns because he took deductions on the basis of non-existent subcontractors. The government contended in both trials that the subcontractors did not exist. There is no fundamental conflict in these positions. Finally, although Presbitero’s brief asserts that the amount of work actually performed was the central issue in each prosecution, the amount of drywall installed was not the issue here; rather, the question was whether six subcontractors that the government maintained were fictitious had installed the drywall.