Opinion ID: 171200
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Severance (Jaime Zapata, Humberto Galvan, Lilian Galvan)

Text: Multiple defendants may be tried together if they are alleged to have participated in the same act or transaction, or in the same series of acts or transactions, constituting an offense or offenses. Fed.R.Crim.P. 8(b). If, however, a joint trial appears to prejudice a defendant,... the court may order separate trials of counts [or] sever the defendants' trials. Fed.R.Crim.P. 14(a) (emphasis added). Joint trials of defendants who are charged together are preferred because they promote efficiency and serve the interests of justice by avoiding the scandal and inequity of inconsistent verdicts. United States v. Hall, 473 F.3d 1295, 1301 (10th Cir.2007) (quotation omitted). In particular, [t]he preference in a conspiracy trial is that persons charged together should be tried together. United States v. Small, 423 F.3d 1164, 1181 (10th Cir.2005). Severance is discretionary and should be granted only when there is a serious risk that a joint trial would compromise a specific trial right of one of the defendants, or prevent the jury from making a reliable judgment about guilt or innocence. Hall, 473 F.3d at 1302 (quotation omitted). The standard for reviewing a district court's denial of a motion to sever is abuse of discretion. United States v. Windrix, 405 F.3d 1146, 1155 (10th Cir. 2005). Jaime argues that the district court abused its discretion in not severing his trial because the varying levels of involvement among the defendants, as well as the amount of testimony that did not implicate Jaime himself, rendered the jury incapable of evaluating the evidence independently as to him. As a variation on this argument, Jaime contends that he was convicted based on spill over evidence  that is, evidence that was relevant only to his co-defendants. We have repeatedly held, however, that the requisite showing of prejudice is not made by a complaint that one defendant is less culpable than another, or by an allegation that a defendant would have a better chance of acquittal in a separate trial, or by a complaint of the `spill-over' effect of damaging evidence presented against a codefendant. United States v. Iiland, 254 F.3d 1264, 1270 (10th Cir.2001) (internal citations omitted). Rather, a defendant must show that he was deprived of his right to a fair trial. United States v. Pack, 773 F.2d 261, 267 (10th Cir.1985). Jaime was not deprived of a fair trial. The facts of this case were not so intricate or complex as to render the jury unable to segregate the evidence associated with each defendant's individual actions. Moreover, the district court gave the jury a cautionary instruction that limited any possible risk of prejudice. Instruction 10, which was taken verbatim from the Tenth Circuit Pattern Criminal Jury Instructions, stated: A separate crime is charged against one or more of the defendants in each count of the indictment. You must separately consider the evidence against each defendant on each count and return a separate verdict for each defendant. Your verdict as to any one defendant or count, whether it is guilty or not guilty, should not influence your verdict as to any other defendants or counts. Finally, there was clear and direct testimony at trial that specifically implicated Jaime in the conspiracy. Based on that evidence, we cannot say that Jaime was denied a fair trial due to the risk of prejudicial spillover. The district court did not abuse its discretion in denying his motion for severance. The Galvans essentially take the same position as Jaime, but they further argue that the limiting instruction is ambiguous and could have been interpreted by jurors to mean that evidence of another defendant's illegal conduct could be used against the Galvans to establish the elements of the crime charged against each of them. We disagree. The instruction is not ambiguous; it clearly instructs the jury to consider the evidence separately for each defendant and that one defendant's guilt must not be imported to any other defendant. In addition, as we explained previously, there was overwhelming evidence at trial establishing the Galvans' involvement in the conspiracy.