Opinion ID: 1434532
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: sufficiency of the evidence

Text: England also argues that the evidence was insufficient to support his conviction for witness tampering under 18 U.S.C. § 1512(a)(2)(A). A challenge based on the insufficiency of the evidence is a tall order, United States v. Johnson, 903 F.2d 1084, 1086 (7th Cir.1990), and the standard governing such challenges is familiar: This Court must affirm a conviction if any rational trier of fact could have found the essential elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt. Id. (citing United States v. Troop, 890 F.2d 1393, 1397 (7th Cir.1989)) (emphasis omitted). In other words, an appeal does not deputize this Court as the ultimate trier of fact. Section 1512(a)(2)(A) punishes whoever uses physical force or the threat of physical force against any person . . . with intent to . . . influence, delay, or prevent the testimony of any person in an official proceeding. 18 U.S.C. § 1512(a)(2)(A). To sustain a conviction under § 1512(a)(2)(A), the government must show that (1) England used the threat of physical force; (2) with the intent of curtailing his brother-in-law's involvement in his prosecution. On appeal, the issue before this Court is a narrow one. England rightly does not deny expressing a desire to kill his brother-in-law for cooperating; the recorded conversations with his father over the prison phone prove as much. Instead, England argues that his statements to his father cannot support the weight of his conviction because his father never relayed the threats to his brother-in-law. A threatening statement that the intended recipient does not receive, England argues, is not the use of . . . [a] threat for purposes of § 1512(a)(2)(A). We disagree. The statute itself does not define what it means to use[ ] . . . the threat of physical force. However, the plain meaning of the phrase does not require that the would-be victim learn of the threat. The verb use in § 1512(a)(2) is roughly akin to employ and means to to put into action or service. WEBSTER'S THIRD INTERNATIONAL DICTIONARY 2523 (1981); see also BLACK'S LAW DICTIONARY 1541 (6th ed.1990) (defining use as to convert to one's services). And a threat is an expression of intention to inflict evil, injury, or damage on another. WEBSTER'S THIRD, supra, at 2382; BLACK'S, supra, at 1480 (defining threat as a communicated intent to inflict physical or other harm on any person or on property). When read together, the statute prohibits expressing an intent to inflict injury on another through physical force. [2] An expression only requires that someone not necessarily the intended victimperceive it. Adding a requirement that the would-be victim himself actually perceive the threat would graft on an additional receipt element that the statute's text does not require. See United States v. Geisler, 143 F.3d 1070, 1071-72 (7th Cir.1998) (rejecting a receipt requirement under 18 U.S.C. § 876, which prohibits depositing threatening communications in the mail); see also Johnson, 903 F.2d at 1088 n. 5 (stating that under § 1512 the focus is on the endeavor to bring about the proscribed result, rather than on the success of the endeavor). We have not read an analogous requirement into other statutes prohibiting threats. See United States v. Fuller, 387 F.3d 643, 646-47 (7th Cir.2004) (18 U.S.C. § 871); Geisler, 143 F.3d at 1071-71 (18 U.S.C. § 876). Accordingly, we decline to do so under § 1512(a)(2)(A). To avoid this result, England argues that, because the threat never actually made it to his brother-in-law, his statements did not have a reasonable tendency to intimidate, citing the standard articulated by this Court in United States v. De Stefano, 476 F.2d 324 (7th Cir.1973). However, this argument misreads De Stefano. The relevant issue in that case was whether a none too subtle question that the defendant posed to a witness in an elevatorHave you done any fishing lately?constituted a threat under 18 U.S.C. § 1503. Id. at 327, 330. The Court articulated an objective standard for evaluating whether a statement constitutes a threat, concluding that the relevant inquiry is whether the statement has a reasonable tendency to intimidate. Id. at 330. This standard governs the contents of the threat; that is, whether the defendant's statement is actually an expression of intention to inflict evil, injury, or damage. This objective reasonableness standard ensures that only true threats go punished. See Watts v. United States, 394 U.S. 705, 707, 89 S.Ct. 1399, 22 L.Ed.2d 664 (1969); United States v. Stewart, 411 F.3d 825, 828 (7th Cir.2005) (stating that a true threat consists of a statement made in a context or under such circumstances wherein a reasonable person would foresee that the statement would be interpreted by those to whom the maker communicates a statement as a threat (quoting United States v. Khorrami, 895 F.2d 1186, 1191 (7th Cir.1990))). It does not provide a yardstick for measuring the likelihood that the statement would either reach or subjectively affect the intended recipient. Nonetheless, the fact that the intended target never received the threat is still relevant under § 1512(a)(2)(A). The proximity of the person who hears the threat to the ultimate target of the threat is evidence of the speaker's intent to . . . influence, delay, or prevent the testimony of any person in an official proceeding. Cf. United States v. Spring, 305 F.3d 276, 281 (4th Cir.2002) (stating that whether a threat was communicated to the victim may affect whether the threat could reasonably be perceived as an expression of genuine intent to inflict injury). As the link between an expression of an intent to inflict injury and the participant in an official proceeding grows more attenuated, so too does the inference that the speaker intended to influence, delay, or prevent testimony in an official proceeding. In this case, no such attenuation exists. England could not reach his brother-in-law because he had blocked calls from the prison phone. His next best option was to convey the threats to his father with instructions to pass them along. Although it was not inevitable that his father would relay the threat, it was not irrational to think that England intended to influence his brother-in-law. Because rationality is the relevant inquiry, sufficient evidence supported England's conviction under § 1512(a)(2)(A).