Opinion ID: 3185948
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Applying the Distinction

Text: In Gould, the defendants were charged with importing a Schedule II controlled substance (cocaine). 536 F.2d at 217. The statute defined a Schedule II controlled substance as, among other things, those substances containing coca leaves. Id. at 218. The evidence at trial included expert testimony that the substance imported contained 5 cocaine hydrochloride but there was no direct evidence of cocaine hydrochloride being a derivative of coca leaves. Id. The trial court, however, took judicial notice of cocaine hydrochloride’s status as a Schedule II controlled substance and instructed the jury: “If you find the substance was cocaine hydrochloride, you are instructed that cocaine hydrochloride is a schedule II controlled substance under the laws of the United States.” Id. (quotation marks omitted). The Eighth Circuit concluded the trial court had not erred in taking judicial notice: “The fact that cocaine hydrochloride is derived from coca leaves is, if not common knowledge, at least a matter which is capable of certain, easily accessible and indisputably accurate verification.” Id. at 219. It also decided no error occurred in the trial court’s judicial notice instruction, which required the jury to accept the noticed fact as conclusive, contrary to Rule 201. Id. at 219-21. It determined Rule 201 not to apply because the judicially-noticed fact was a legislative fact, not an adjudicative one: It does not relate to who did what, where, when, how, and with what motive or intent, nor is it a fact which would traditionally go to the jury. The fact that cocaine hydrochloride is a derivative of coca leaves is a universal fact that is unrelated to the activities of the parties to this litigation. Id. at 220-21 (citation and quotation marks omitted). Importantly, the court concluded the jury’s role in determining adjudicative facts was not preempted because it was required to determine what substance was seized. Id. at 220-21; see also United States v. Coffman, 638 F.2d 192, 194 (10th Cir. 1980) (following the reasoning in Gould and finding no error in the trial court’s instruction to the jury that LSD was a Schedule I controlled substance). 6 More to the point here is United States v. Davis, 726 F.3d 357 (2d Cir. 2013). Davis assaulted another inmate while imprisoned at the Metropolitan Detention Center (MDC), a federal prison located in New York. He was charged with federal assault under 18 U.S.C. § 113(a)(6). Id. One of the elements of the crime—the so-called “jurisdictional” element—required the assault to occur “within the special maritime and territorial jurisdiction of the United States.” Id. At trial, the testimony of MDC employees identified MDC as a federal prison located on federal land. Id. at 360-61. Davis claimed the evidence was insufficient to establish an assault occurring within the special maritime and territorial jurisdiction of the United States. Id. at 362. The Second Circuit agreed. Id. at 364-65. Nevertheless, it took judicial notice of MDC’s status as an institution within the special maritime and territorial jurisdiction of the United States. Id. at 367. In doing so it parted company with the trial judge, who had expressly refused “to take judicial notice of anything.” Id. at 366 (quotation marks omitted). Taking judicial notice of a fact for the first time on appeal in a criminal case is noteworthy. The Second Circuit’s reason for doing so was well grounded; Rule 201(f)’s proscription against taking conclusive judicial notice in a criminal case does not apply to legislative facts. Id. at 367. Similar to the Eighth Circuit’s approach in Gould, it reasoned: “[W]hether a particular plot of land falls within the special maritime and territorial jurisdiction of the United States is a ‘legislative fact’ that may be judicially noticed without being subject to the strictures of Rule 201.” Id. It cited to other cases in which appellate courts noticed federal jurisdiction over particular lands even where the prosecution had failed to present direct evidence on the issue; “appellate courts take judicial notice of legislative facts 7 under appropriate circumstances, especially where they relate to straightforward questions, such as geography and jurisdiction.” Id. (quotation marks omitted). Finally, and significantly, it expressed agreement with other circuits which have concluded that a defendant’s Sixth Amendment right to a jury trial is not violated by taking judicial notice of legislative facts as they relate to the “jurisdictional” status of a particular piece of land. Id. at 369. It explained: [T]o determine whether a crime took place within the special maritime and territorial jurisdiction of the United States requires two separate inquiries: one to determine the ‘locus of the crime’ and one to determine the existence vel non of federal jurisdiction. While the former is plainly a factual question for the jury to decide, the latter—turning on a fixed legal status that does not change from case to case and involving consideration of source materials (such as deeds, statutes, and treaties) that judges are better suited to evaluate than juries—has always been treated in this Circuit as a legal question that a court may decide on its own. Id. (citation omitted); see also United States v. Behmanshah, 49 F. App’x 372, 376 n.2 (3d Cir. 2002) (concluding evidence was sufficient to satisfy interstate commerce element of money laundering offense based on, inter alia, the use of an FDIC-insured institution; appellate court the first to notice the FDIC-insured status of subject bank) (unpublished).7 7 While there is contrary authority, it uniformly fails to properly distinguish between legislative and adjudicative facts as courts have come to understand the distinction. In Jones, supra, the defendant was convicted of illegally intercepting telephone conversations. 580 F.2d at 221. One of the elements of the charge is that the telephone company which furnished and installed the tapped telephone be a “common carrier.” Id. at 221-22. The only evidence on this element at trial was that the tapped telephone was furnished and installed by South Central Bell Telephone Company. Id. The government, seeking to save the conviction, requested the Sixth Circuit to take judicial notice of the fact that South Central Bell is a “common carrier.” Id. at 222. While it acknowledged that Rule 201 allowed judicial notice to be taken at any time, even on appeal, the court decided judicial notice was inappropriate. Id. at 223-24. It relied on Rule 201’s requirement for a criminal jury to be instructed that it may, but is not required (Continued . . .) 8 These cases are highly persuasive, particularly Davis. I see no daylight between a federal prison’s status as being “within the special maritime and territorial jurisdiction of the United States” and a bank’s status as being federally insured. Particularly when all national banks are required to have FDIC insurance8 and Wyoming law also requires the same for all banks in the state.9 Rule 201 does not apply. IV. Noticing the Obvious Does Not Infringe Upon Iverson’s Rights to, accept as conclusive a judicially-noticed fact. Id. at 223. According to the Sixth Circuit, this rule “plainly contemplates that the jury in a criminal case shall pass upon facts which are judicially noticed. This it could not do if this notice were taken for the first time after it had been discharged and the case was on appeal.” Id. at 224. Jones failed to distinguish between adjudicative facts, covered by Rule 201, and legislative facts, not within the scope of Rule 201. The common carrier element involved in Jones is a legislative fact for the same reasons the status of the drugs in Gould, the status of the property in Davis, and (as I discuss) BHFSB’s FDIC-insured status are all legislative facts. Similarly, in United States v. Bliss, we refused to take judicial notice of the fact First National Bank of Green River was a member of the Federal Reserve System as required by the crime of conviction (falsifying bank records) because no request had been made by the government. 642 F.2d 390, 391-392 & n.2 (10th Cir. 1981). In any event, relying on Jones, we questioned the propriety of doing so. Id. at 392 n.2. But, even assuming it was proper, “we decline[d] to exercise our discretion and judicially notice these facts.” Id. Given that holding, our reliance on Jones in our Bliss opinion was dicta. Finally, Garner, supra, is not to the contrary. Whether defendants’ actions would “foreseeably disturb or alarm the public,” 368 U.S. at 165, is an adjudicative fact, not a legislative one. Taking judicial notice of such adjudicative fact for the first time on appeal would have been improper under Rule 201. 8 See http://www.helpwithmybank.gov/get-answers/other-topics/fdicinsurance/faq-other-topics-fdic-insurance-04.html (last visited Feb. 25, 2016). 9 Wyo. Stat. Ann. § 13-2-103 (“All banks shall obtain insurance of their deposits by the United States and shall subscribe for insurance of deposit accounts by the federal deposit insurance corporation (FDIC).”). 9 Noticing the FDIC-insured status of the financial institutions involved here does not interfere with Iverson’s right to a jury trial.10 Like deciding (1) whether a crime took place within the special maritime and territorial jurisdiction of the United States (Davis) or (2) whether a defendant imported a Schedule II controlled substance (Gould), determining whether Iverson defrauded a FDIC-insured bank requires two separate inquiries: one to determine that Iverson did in fact defraud a certain bank and one to establish the existence of federal court jurisdiction. The former is clearly a question for the jury and the jury was so instructed in this case. (R. Vol. 1 at 113 (requiring jury to find beyond a reasonable doubt that “the defendant, Marvin Iverson, knowingly executed a scheme or artifice to defraud Big Horn Federal Savings Bank and JPMorgan Chase Bank”)). The latter inquiry, on the other hand, is simply a legal question as to whether the bank is one with respect to which Congress can properly exercise its legislative powers. Most of Iverson’s arguments are little more than background noise intended to distract us from the core issue, his nearly palpable guilt. After all, a properly instructed jury convicted him. It did so after being instructed that no conviction could lie if it entertained a reasonable doubt as to whether “[BHFSB] and [JPM] are financial institutions within the meaning of the law; in this case that means the government must prove that [BHFSB] and [JPM] were insured by the [FDIC].” (R. Vol. 1 at 113.) At bottom, the question is whether a jury could so find on the evidence presented after 10 See, supra, discussion at 6-8. 10 crediting all permitted inferences and the individual jurors’ common sense and life experiences.11 With respect to the jury’s determination several matters inform the debate: (1) it is commonly accepted that most banks in the United States are FDIC insured, (2) all national banks must be so insured, see supra n.8, (3) in Wyoming all banks must be FDIC insured, see supra n.9, (4) as Judge Hartz points out, evidence in the record reveals JPM’s written claim to be FDIC insured (Majority Op. at 19-20), (5) the name, Big Horn Federal Savings Bank, is itself revealing, (6) Agent Smith’s testimony regarding his investigation may be thin but it is worthy of some consideration,12 and perhaps most important, (7) the FDIC-insured status of the banks was virtually uncontested. One might ask how compelling must evidence be on an uncontested point. Not very in a case such 11 See United States v. Truong, 425 F.3d 1282, 1288 (10th Cir. 2005) (“We review claims of insufficient evidence de novo, but view the evidence, as well as the reasonable inferences that could be drawn from it, in the light most favorable to the government. An inference is reasonable if the conclusion flows from logical and probabilistic reasoning.”) (citation and quotation marks omitted); Webb v. United States, 347 F.2d 363, 364 (10th Cir. 1965) (“[T]he jury’s function [in a criminal case] is broad enough to allow it to make common sense inferences from proven facts . . . .”); see also United States v. Durham, 211 F.3d 437, 441 (7th Cir. 2000) (“[I]t is well established that juries are allowed to draw upon their own experience in life as well as their common sense in reaching their verdict. While common sense is no substitute for evidence, common sense should be used to evaluate what reasonably may be inferred from circumstantial evidence.”) (quotation marks omitted). 12 The government apparently forgot to present proof of the banks’ FDIC-insured status, creating a last-minute scramble to recover. Iverson recognized its oversight as a possible “gotcha” moment, not one requiring substantive evidence or argument, but only a technical objection. The government’s feeble attempts to recover from its self-inflicted “gotcha” are puzzling. With the technological tools available in a modern federal courtroom one would expect the government to have presented the jury with a real time look at the FDIC website. All it takes is a computer connected to the internet and a monitor enabling jurors to view the available information. Doing so would have saved the government and us considerable angst. 11 as this where FDIC insurance is essentially collateral to the core issue—Iverson’s criminal acts—and where the evidence of those acts (the “who, what, when, where, how and why (intent)”) is overwhelming. Taking judicial notice of legislative facts is efficient; it is also appropriate when, as here, no substantial rights of the defendant are put at risk by doing so. 12 No. 14-8071, United States v. Iverson