Opinion ID: 495278
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Misjoinder, Severance, and Variance

Text: 68 Defendants Caspersen and Kragness assert that their convictions must be reversed under Fed.R.Crim.P. 8(b) because joinder of the defendants was improper on the face of the indictment. Rule 8(b) provides that two defendants may be charged in the same act or transaction or in the same series of acts or transactions. It is not necessary that every defendant have participated in or be charged with each offense in the indictment, but there must be some common activity involving all of the defendants which embraces all the charged offenses. United States v. Bledsoe, 674 F.2d 647, 656 (8th Cir.1982). 21 69 We think joinder was proper on the face of this indictment. The defendants were all named together in the RICO and RICO-conspiracy counts (Counts I and II), and the various drug conspiracies charged in the indictment (Counts III-VI) were part and parcel of the RICO violations. The defendants' chief argument is that the remaining seven counts were improperly joined. However, it is obvious that the three counts charging interstate travel to promote drug trafficking by Deters (Counts VII and VIII) or by Kragness (Count XI), the count charging Deters and Holbrook with causing Lager to possess cocaine (Count IX), and the count charging Kragness with using a telephone to promote drug trafficking (Count X), all involved offenses embraced within the defendants' common RICO activity. The only counts that even superficially appear unrelated to the common activity are Counts XII and XIII, which, respectively, charge Kragness with causing the unreported importation of Canadian currency and with conspiring to evade income taxes. But the indictment alleges that the funds involved were proceeds of or otherwise connected with the defendants' racketeering activity. See Count I, Overt Act 24; Count XII; Count XIII & Overt Act 6. Even were these crimes not sufficiently connected to the defendants' common activity to justify joinder, the error would be harmless, since evidence of Kragness's illicit profits would have been relevant to the RICO and drug conspiracies, and would therefore have been admissible here anyway. See United States v. Lueth, 807 F.2d 719, 730 (8th Cir.1986). 70 The defendants next assert that, once trial began, it became clear that joinder was prejudicial, and that severance should have been granted under Fed.R.Crim.P. 14. Rule 14 provides the trial court with discretion to grant a severance when it believes the defendants or the government may be prejudiced by joinder. Our review of the trial court's decision is for an abuse of discretion. United States v. Lane, 474 U.S. 438, 106 S.Ct. 725, 732 n. 12, 88 L.Ed.2d 814 (1986); Lueth, 807 F.2d at 730-31. 71 Here, the defendants have not shown the clear prejudice necessary to establish that the District Court abused its discretion. See United States v. Mansaw, 714 F.2d 785, 790 & n. 5 (8th Cir.), cert. denied, 464 U.S. 986, 104 S.Ct. 434, 78 L.Ed.2d 366 (1983). The evidence on the common counts was not so much more damaging against some defendants than others as to raise fears that the jury could not reasonably be expected to compartmentalize the evidence as it relates to separate defendants. United States v. Knife, 592 F.2d 472, 480 (8th Cir.1979) (citations omitted). Nor did the counts charging only one or two defendants, such as the interstate-travel counts, involve crimes of a more serious or inflammatory nature that might have produced a spill-over effect. Indeed, we see strong proof that the jury was able to compartmentalize the evidence in the fact that, after much of the cocaine and quaalude evidence was admitted with the instruction that it was not to be considered as to Kragness, the jury acquitted Kragness on the only exclusively cocaine-and-quaalude count (Count VI) in which he was charged. 72 The defendants also argue that the evidence here did not establish an overall agreement to violate RICO, but instead showed only three regional conspiracies (corresponding to the three schemes we identify in our discussion of the RICO pattern requirement, Part II. B., supra ), with overlapping members. This, they continue, means that there was a prejudicial variance between the indictment and the proof at trial, see Kotteakos v. United States, 328 U.S. 750, 755-56, 66 S.Ct. 1239, 1243, 90 L.Ed. 1557 (1946), and also affects the issue of joinder, for if there was no overall RICO agreement, there was no common activity embracing the various other crimes charged. See id. at 774-75, 66 S.Ct. at 1252-53; Lane, 106 S.Ct. at 730-31. This argument is largely a reiteration of the contentions addressed in Part II. C., supra, that no adequate nexus was shown between various defendants and the enterprise or pattern of racketeering. As we view the evidence, while a jury might have concluded that the different schemes were not connected, the evidence was more than adequate to support a finding that Kragness, Caspersen, Deters, Prescott, and Holbrook were parties to an overall agreement to engage in the various schemes.