Opinion ID: 2804139
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Response to Jury’s Request17

Text: Kolodesh argues that the District Court erred in failing to provide the jury with transcripts of testimony that the jury requested and, further, in failing to suspend jury deliberations until those transcripts could be provided. After the jury began deliberating, it sent a note asking for a transcript of Pugman’s testimony, “both direct and cross,” and noting that, “[i]f possible,” the transcript “may be edited to cover only testimony regarding continuous care.” (App. at 4611.) The jury requested the same for Ganetsky’s testimony and a full transcript for the testimony of Cecilia Wiley, Home Care Hospice’s office manager. After obtaining the agreement of counsel, the District Court instructed the jury that it would not be possible to provide only the portions of the transcript relating to continuous care. The Court also noted the length of the full testimony for Pugman and Ganetsky and told the jury it had two options: it could either rely on its recollection of the testimony or “request the entire transcript of Ganetsky and Pugman or either one or both.” (App. at 4622.) The Court then sent the jury back to decide what it wanted to do. The record is not entirely clear, but the jury may have sent a note back requesting the full transcript of Pugman’s and Wiley’s testimonies, though not Ganetsky’s. (See App. at 17 Because Kolodesh failed to raise a contemporaneous objection, we review for plain error. United States v. Salahuddin, 765 F.3d 329, 337 (3d Cir. 2014), petition for cert. filed, 83 U.S.L.W. 3558 (U.S. Dec. 2, 2014) (No. 14654). 23 4623-26 (defense counsel discussing all three witnesses and indicating that the jury had requested Wiley’s testimony twice); id. at 4630 (District Court stating when jury returned, “I have received your request for the transcripts of Alex Pugman and Cecilia Wiley”).) In any event, after discussing the matter further with counsel, the District Court instructed the jury that a transcript of Wiley’s testimony was not available but that the jury could rely on its recollection or come back into court and have the audio recording of the testimony played in its entirety. “As to Alex Pugman’s transcript,” the Court explained, “that is available and it will be delivered to you. It may take a little bit of time because it has to be edited to take the sidebars out of the transcript that has been developed.” (App. at 4631.) Before sending the jury back to the jury room, the District Court summarized, “So if possible, continue your deliberation on these and other issues as you wish while the Pugman transcript is being edited, and as far as Wiley is concerned, those are the choices that you have.” (Id.) Just over two hours later, the jury returned a verdict. As the foregoing record indicates, the District Court did not fail to make the transcript or recordings available to the jury; it expressly told the jury that it had a choice as to how to proceed regarding the Wiley testimony, that the Pugman transcript would be given as soon as it was available, and that it was free to continue deliberation as it wished.18 18 We reject Kolodesh’s contention that, by failing to mention Ganetsky’s testimony when the jury returned, the District Court tacitly rejected the jury’s request for her testimony. As noted above, the jury appears to have withdrawn that request. But even if that reading of the record 24 That the jury ultimately chose to rely on its recollection of the witnesses’ testimonies does not indicate that the Court should have halted proceedings. The handling of such matters is within the “broad discretion” of the trial court, United States v. Bertoli, 40 F.3d 1384, 1400 (3d Cir. 1994) (internal quotation marks omitted), and how the Court proceeded in this instance was not in any way an abuse of that discretion, let alone a problem rising to the level of plain error.