Opinion ID: 778482
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Materiality Instruction

Text: 55 Defendants' sixth claim is that the lower court erred in instructing the jury on the materiality element of the various mail and wire fraud counts. According to Defendants, the district court's instruction on materiality, taken verbatim from Instruction 8.26.1 of the NINTH CIRCUIT MANUAL OF MODEL JURY INSTRUCTIONS (1997 edition), 18 misstated the standard for determining whether an alleged misrepresentation is material. Because Defendants did not object to the instruction at trial, we review for plain error. 19 See FED. R. CRIM. P. 52(b); Jones v. United States, 527 U.S. 373, 388, 119 S.Ct. 2090, 144 L.Ed.2d 370 (1998). A jury instruction is plainly erroneous if it is (1) erroneous, (2) the error is plain, and (3) the error affects substantial rights. See Jones, 527 U.S. at 389, 119 S.Ct. 2090. We will not exercise our discretion to correct a plainly erroneous instruction unless the error seriously affects the fairness, integrity, or public reputation of judicial proceedings. Id. (quoting Olano, 507 U.S. at 732, 113 S.Ct. 1770) (internal quotation marks omitted). 56 Though we set it forth to clarify our standard of review, we need not go through each step of the plain error analysis here, given our decision in United States v. Tam, 240 F.3d 797 (9th Cir.2001). In Tam, as in this case, it was argued that Instruction 8.26.1 was plainly erroneous because it inadequately defined the element of materiality. See id. at 802-03. We rejected this contention, holding that Instruction 8.26.1 is sufficiently similar to the Supreme Court's definition of materiality in United States v. Gaudin, 20 515 U.S. 506, 115 S.Ct. 2310, 132 L.Ed.2d 444 (1995), to survive plain error review. 21 See id. at 803. In light of this holding, Defendants' attack on the district court's materiality instruction is without merit.