Opinion ID: 216305
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: the sufficiency of the preliminary jury instructions

Text: The Supreme Court instructs that a court must honor a defendant's proper request for a Carter instruction in order to minimize the danger that the jury will give evidentiary weight to a defendant's failure to testify. Carter, 450 U.S. at 305, 101 S.Ct. 1112. However, [a] defendant is not entitled to any particular form of instruction, and the district court may in its discretion issue jury instructions in the words of its choosing. United States v. Lopez-Alvarez, 970 F.2d 583, 597(9th Cir. 1992). We have considered the form of the Carter instruction on two prior occasions. In United States v. Castaneda, the following instruction was deemed sufficient under Carter : the defendant is presumed to be innocent and does not have to testify or present any evidence to prove innocence. 94 F.3d 592, 596 (9th Cir.1996) (internal quotations omitted). We reasoned that the instruction sufficiently covered the substance of [the defendant's] proposed instruction: the defendant's failure to testify does not lessen the government's burden to prove its case. Id. The opinion goes on to state that the error was harmless because the jury was told during voir dire that an accused cannot be compelled to testify, and if he exercises that right, you cannot allow that to affect your determination of the issues. Id. (internal quotations omitted). More than ten years after Castaneda, in Soto we observed that  Castaneda is not a model of clarity as to which ground serves as the basis of the opinion. 519 F.3d at 931; see also People v. Evans, 62 Cal.App.4th 186, 72 Cal.Rptr.2d 543, 546 (1998) ([T]he [ Castaneda ] opinion is not entirely clear as to the grounds on which the court rested its decision.). Although the defendant in Soto asked for a Carter instructionalbeit orally at the close of trial and long after the submission deadlinewe held that any error in failing to give the instruction was harmless error and thus Soto did not require us to parse Castaneda. 519 F.3d at 931-32. We are mindful of Judge Gould's concurrence in Soto that Castaneda may have been wrongly decided and should be revisited through our en banc process. Id. at 936 (Gould, J., concurring). Judge Gould took the position that the bare bones instruction in Castaneda was insufficient. He wrote that the Supreme Court dismissed an almost identical `presumption of innocence' jury instruction. Id. (citing Carter, 450 U.S. at 304, 101 S.Ct. 1112). Nor did Judge Gould embrace the suggestion that an adverse inference instruction during voir dire was sufficient. Soto, 519 F.3d at 936 n. 1. We agree that Castaneda is troublesome in many respects, but this case does not present the appropriate opportunity to revisit Castaneda. In light of the more expansive instruction provided in Padilla's caseone that conforms to the Supreme Court's dictate in Carter we need not confront the potential difficulties posed by Castaneda. The instructions in Padilla's trial went beyond the admonitions regarding the presumption of innocence and the right not to testify; instead they included an additional instruction that in arriving at a verdict the jury could not consider[ ] that the defendant may not have testified. At least four other circuits have held similar instructions, referring to the prohibition on considering the choice not to testify, sufficient under Carter. See United States v. Barraza Cazares, 465 F.3d 327, 332 (8th Cir.2006) (instructions not to consider defendant's failure to testify sufficient under Carter ); Welch v. City of Pratt, 214 F.3d 1219, 1220-22 (10th Cir.2000) (instruction that jurors should not consider the fact that the defendant did not testify in arriving at [a] verdict adequate under Carter ); United States v. Ladd, 877 F.2d 1083, 1089 (1st Cir.1989) (instruction that the fact that the defendant does not [testify] cannot even be considered by you in arriving at your verdict sufficient under Carter ); United States v. Russo, 796 F.2d 1443, 1454-55 (11th Cir.1986) (instruction that if a Defendant elects not to testify, you should not consider that in any way during your deliberations adequate under Carter ). Like other circuits, we do not read Carter to require the precise instruction requested by the defendant. See United States v. Imran, 964 F.2d 1313, 1317 (2d Cir.1992); Ladd, 877 F.2d at 1089. Rather, Carter requires an instruction adequate to inform jurors of their obligation to draw no adverse inference from the defendant's choice not to testify. See Carter, 450 U.S. at 305, 101 S.Ct. 1112; see also James v. Kentucky, 466 U.S. 341, 350, 104 S.Ct. 1830, 80 L.Ed.2d 346 (1984) (The Constitution. . . does not afford the defendant the right to dictate, inconsistent with state practice, how the jury is to be told [that it may not draw an adverse inference from a defendant's choice not to testify].). We conclude that the instructions given here, including the admonition that the law prohibits you in arriving at your verdict from considering that the defendant may not have testified, are sufficient to put the jury on notice of its obligation to draw no adverse inference, thereby minimiz[ing] the danger that the jury will penalize the defendant for exercising his Fifth Amendment right not to testify. See Carter, 450 U.S. at 305, 101 S.Ct. 1112.