Opinion ID: 783827
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Bifurcation Claim

Text: 13 Defendant argues that bifurcation at trial of the elements of his felon-in-possession charge under 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1) was required in this case to eliminate the risk of unfair prejudice. He argues that this case is distinguishable from Gilliam because  Gilliam held only that the Government cannot be forced to accept a prior-felony stipulation that kept this element from the jury altogether, whereas the instant case addresses a procedure separating [the] trial into two phases in which the prior felony element would be submitted to the jury ... at the second stage of the trial. Def.'s Br. at 26. 14 Assuming that Gilliam does not go so far as to prohibit a District Court's bifurcation of the separate elements of a § 922(g)(1) charge, we think that Gilliam at least makes it clear that a district court's exercise of its discretion in refusing to bifurcate the elements of a § 922(g)(1) charge is not reversible error. In Gilliam, we explained that [a] prior conviction is not prejudicial where the prior conviction is an element of the crime, because it prove[s] the fact or issue that justified its admission [into evidence]. Gilliam, 994 F.2d at 100 (internal quotation marks omitted). In fact, as here, [w]here the prior conviction is essential to proving the crime, it is by definition not prejudicial. Id. (emphasis added). Because a district court's admission into evidence of defendant's prior conviction in a § 922(g)(1) case — when accompanied by a proper curative instruction and limited to the fact of the conviction itself — is by definition not prejudicial, a district court cannot err by failing to take additional measures, such as bifurcation, intended to mitigate any asserted prejudice. We thus find no error. 15 The cases cited by defendant in support of his position that bifurcation was required are unavailing. For instance, in United States v. Orena, 811 F.Supp. 819 (E.D.N.Y.1992), Judge Weinstein, over the objection of the Government, withheld from the jury any evidence of the defendant's prior conviction where the defendant was willing to stipulate to the fact of the conviction. We expressly disavowed this approach in Gilliam, and stated that Fed.R.Evid. 404(b) does not authorize a district court, either by its own terms or by analogy, to take the issue of the defendant's prior conviction from the jury. Gilliam, 994 F.2d at 102. 16 Nor does our opinion in United States v. Jones, 16 F.3d 487 (2d Cir.1994), support defendant's claim. In that case, we held that a felon-in-possession charge in its entirety had to be bifurcated from other charges relating to a bank robbery in order to accord the defendant a fair trial. Id. at 492-93. However, we did not require or condone bifurcation of a single felon-in-possession charge under 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1). 17 Our holding here that a district court's refusal to bifurcate cannot constitute error is consistent with the conclusions of the Courts of Appeals for the Third, Tenth, Eleventh, and District of Columbia Circuits, each of which have held that failure to bifurcate the elements of a § 922(g)(1) charge is not reversible error. See United States v. Mangum, 100 F.3d 164, 170-71 (D.C.Cir.1996); United States v. Dean, 76 F.3d 329, 332 (10th Cir.1996); United States v. Jacobs, 44 F.3d 1219, 1221-23 (3d Cir.1995); United States v. Birdsong, 982 F.2d 481, 482 (11th Cir.1993). It is also consistent with the law of the First and Ninth Circuits, which have granted writs of mandamus to prevent trial courts from ever bifurcating the elements of a § 922(g)(1) charge. See United States v. Barker, 1 F.3d 957, 959 (9th Cir.1993), reh'g denied and amended in part by 20 F.3d 365 (9th Cir.1994) (reversing, on mandamus, a district court's attempt to bifurcate a felon-in-possession trial, and holding that bifurcation is never permissible); United States v. Collamore, 868 F.2d 24, 28 (1st Cir.1989) (same), overruled, in part, on other grounds by United States v. Tavares, 21 F.3d 1 (1st Cir.1994) (en banc). No federal appellate decision has been brought to our attention holding that the failure of a district court to bifurcate the elements of a felon-in-possession charge was error, and we are not aware of any such decision. 18 In view of our holding that a district court does not err when it refuses to bifurcate the elements of a § 922(g)(1) charge, it is unnecessary to determine whether the reasoning in Gilliam would foreclose bifurcation altogether. Cf. Barker, 1 F.3d at 959; Collamore, 868 F.2d at 28. However, in light of the concerns we expressed in Gilliam, we note that it would be an extraordinarily unusual case in which bifurcation of the elements of a charge under § 922(g)(1) could possibly be appropriate. See Gilliam, 994 F.2d at 101 (noting the concern that, [w]ithout full knowledge of the nature of the crime, the jury cannot speak for the people or exert their authority). 19 As a final matter, in Gilliam we noted the importance of certain measures to protect the defendant in a § 922(g)(1) trial because the fact of a prior conviction may have an additional and adverse effect... if the jury is unduly influenced by the prior conviction. Id. at 100. In this regard, we focused on the importance of a proper curative instruction explaining to the jury that it may only use proof of the prior conviction to satisfy the prior-conviction element of the crime. Id. We also noted the need for evidence of a prior conviction to be narrowly tailored to the fact of the conviction itself. Id. at 103. We explained that [t]he underlying facts of the conviction ... are completely irrelevant to § 922(g)(1) because [t]he jury has no need to know the nature of the prior conviction. Id. [A]ll that [the jury] needs to know, we emphasized, is that there was a prior conviction sufficient to sustain that element of the [§ 922(g)(1)] crime. Id. (citing United States v. Borello, 766 F.2d 46 (2d Cir.1985)). 20 In the instant case, the District Court conscientiously and carefully took precautions to protect defendant from undue prejudice. The Court delivered a curative instruction to the jury both at the time the evidence was introduced and in its jury charge. See note 4, ante. In addition, the evidence of the prior conviction was introduced by a one-sentence stipulation stating only that defendant was convicted in New York State Supreme Court, upon his plea of guilty, of a crime punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year. To further reduce prejudice, the Court redacted parts of the indictment and instructed the Government to refrain from characterizing Mr. Belk as a `convicted felon' in its arguments at trial. See note 4, ante. Under these circumstances, the method by which the District Court introduced evidence of defendant's prior conviction was not erroneous and was, indeed, commendable. 21 For the foregoing reasons, the District Court did not err when it refused to bifurcate defendant's trial to provide for separate consideration of the elements of the felon-in-possession charge under 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1).