Opinion ID: 409612
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Substantive Conviction

Text: 54 Kalish argues that the filing of his Abney appeal deprived the trial court of jurisdiction to try the MR. JAKE case. It is not clear from Kalish's brief whether he believes that the district court was deprived of jurisdiction over the substantive count as well as the conspiracy counts. Nevertheless, we address the issue because the question of jurisdiction is one the court should raise on its own motion. 55 In United States v. Dunbar, 611 F.2d 985 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, 447 U.S. 926, 100 S.Ct. 3022, 65 L.Ed.2d 1120 (1980), a unanimous en banc court held that an appeal from a pretrial double jeopardy motion which the district court has found ... to be frivolous does not divest the trial court of jurisdiction. Id. at 986. Our conclusion that Kalish's pretrial motion was meritorious, however, makes it plain that the district court's finding of frivolity was erroneous. 56 While the double jeopardy claim in Dunbar was frivolous, our opinion made it clear that it is the district court's finding of frivolousness that creates dual jurisdiction. 611 F.2d at 989. If the claim is found to be frivolous (by the district court), the filing of a notice of appeal shall not divest the district court of jurisdiction over the case. Id. at 988 (emphasis added). We later explained: 57 If an appeal from a motion decided to be frivolous by the district court is found meritorious by the appellate court, the conviction in the district court would be reversed. If found not to have merit, jurisdiction for the trial which occurred during the appeal would be affirmed. 58 Id. at 989 (emphasis added). Thus, our function on appeal is to determine whether the double jeopardy claim has merit, not to review the district court's finding of frivolousness. Even if the district court has erred in its finding, jurisdiction will be affirmed if the claim is found not to have merit. 59 If an Abney appeal from a nonfrivolous pretrial double jeopardy motion, which the district court has found to be frivolous, does not divest the district court of jurisdiction over the counts allegedly barred by the double jeopardy clause, then it certainly does not divest the court of jurisdiction over the counts that defendant concedes are not barred by the double jeopardy clause. Kalish concedes that the double jeopardy clause does not prevent him from being put to trial on the substantive possession charge. 60 We recognize that Dunbar makes the district court's finding of frivolousness unreviewable, unless this court intervenes by staying proceedings below pending appeal, F.R.A.P. 8, or by issuing a writ of mandamus or prohibition, 28 U.S.C.A. § 1651. 611 F.2d at 989. But to hold that the district court lacked jurisdiction because of an erroneous finding of frivolousness would create the anomalous prospect of protecting double jeopardy rights by ordering yet a third trial. 61 This case demonstrates that the district courts must adhere to the literal meaning of the term frivolous, and that this court must carefully scrutinize petitions for expedited relief from findings of frivolousness. In Abney, the Supreme Court recognized a statutory right to a pretrial appeal largely because the rights conferred ... by the Double Jeopardy Clause would be significantly undermined if appellate review of double jeopardy claims were postponed until after conviction and sentence.... (The Clause) is a guarantee against being twice put to trial for the same offense. Abney, 431 U.S. at 660-61, 97 S.Ct. at 2040-41. The whole purpose of Abney is defeated when district courts proceed to trial because they do not believe the defendant's double jeopardy plea is sufficiently meritorious to warrant a stay. Dunbar was intended to prevent dilatory claims, not colorable ones. 62 We are mystified by the district court's finding of frivolousness in this case. In Dunbar, the appellant's double jeopardy argument was a purely legal one which was foreclosed by numerous decisions of the Supreme Court and of this court. See United States v. Dunbar, 591 F.2d 1190, 1192-93 (1979), adopted in relevant part en banc, 611 F.2d at 987. This case, by contrast, involves the difficult question whether one person's continuing activities in identical narcotics transactions are carried out as a member of one or more conspiracies. 63 The court's erroneous finding, however, did not relate to the substantive count against Kalish. 9 We hold that the district court was not divested of jurisdiction over this count, and we proceed to the merits.
64 Prior to trial, Kalish moved to exclude all evidence introduced at the EL COBRE trial on grounds of collateral estoppel. The district court denied this motion as too broad. 65 In criminal cases, the government is barred from relitigating a fact issue only if the jury could not rationally have based its verdict on an issue other than the one the defendant seeks to foreclose.... When a 'fact is not necessarily determined in a former trial, the possibility that it may have been does not prevent re-examination of that issue.'  United States v. Lee, 622 F.2d 787, 790 (5th Cir. 1980) (citation omitted), cert. denied, 451 U.S. 913, 101 S.Ct. 1987, 68 L.Ed.2d 303 (1981). 66 On this appeal, Kalish argues that the EL COBRE jury necessarily resolved the issue of Troutwein's credibility against the government. Kalish never narrowed his request to exclusion of Troutwein's testimony on this ground. And even if he had, we conclude that this proposed exclusion of evidence is still too broad. The EL COBRE jury did not necessarily find that Troutwein's every statement concerning his dealings with Kalish was untrue. 10 The party claiming estoppel must make some attempt to define precisely the factual issue necessarily decided in the prior trial. See United States v. Giarratano, 622 F.2d 153, 156 n.4 (5th Cir. 1980). 67 The district court did not err in its ruling on collateral estoppel.
68 When Kalish was arrested by state police on January 23, 1980, for possession of cocaine, he gave the arresting officer an alias and a false driver's license. He repeated the alias when asked his name by the state booking officer. The district court allowed the prosecution to prove the fact of arrest and the use of the alias, but not the offense leading to the arrest. The court reasoned that the evidence showed Kalish's consciousness of guilt. 69 This court has long and consistently held that a defendant's attempt to conceal his identity from an arresting officer by the use of an alias is relevant as proof of consciousness of guilt. E.g., Jordan v. United States, 324 F.2d 178 (5th Cir. 1963); United States v. James, 576 F.2d 1121, 1125 (5th Cir. 1978), adopted in relevant part en banc, 590 F.2d 575, 577 (5th Cir.), 442 U.S. 917, 99 S.Ct. 2836, 61 L.Ed.2d 283 (1979); United States v. Khamis, 674 F.2d 390, 395 (5th Cir. 1982); cf. United States v. Mesa, 660 F.2d 1070, 1077-78 (5th Cir. 1981) (renting hotel room under assumed name). Similarly, we have consistently held evidence of flight to be relevant evidence. E.g., United States v. Meneses-Davila, 580 F.2d 888, 896 & n.16 (5th Cir. 1978) (collecting cases); United States v. Stewart, 579 F.2d 356, 359 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, 439 U.S. 936, 99 S.Ct. 332, 58 L.Ed.2d 332 (1978). Since use of an alias is relevant evidence, our standard of review is whether the trial judge has abused his discretion in determining that the probative value of the evidence outweighs the danger of unfair prejudice. Fed.R.Evid. 403; see United States v. Stewart, 579 F.2d at 359; United States v. Blevinal, 607 F.2d 1124, 1128 (5th Cir. 1979) (standard of review of trial judge's Rule 403 determinations), cert. denied, 445 U.S. 928, 100 S.Ct. 1315, 63 L.Ed.2d 761 (1980). 70 We find no abuse of discretion here. Kalish was arrested within weeks of his alleged involvement in, and within days of his indictment for, operations involving 140,000 pounds of marijuana. Cf. Jordan v. United States, 324 F.2d at 178 (defendant not arrested until 8 months after the offense); United States v. Alonzo, 571 F.2d 1384, 1386 (5th Cir.) (defendant living under assumed name not arrested until 18 months after his co-conspirators had been tried), cert. denied, 439 U.S. 847, 99 S.Ct. 147, 58 L.Ed.2d 149 (1978). That the immediate cause of Kalish's arrest was an unrelated offense does not destroy the permissible inference that Kalish was attempting to avoid being brought to trial for the MR. JAKE operation. See United States v. $364,960.00 in United States Currency, 661 F.2d 319, 324 (5th Cir. 1981) (forfeiture action) (possibility that suspects were fleeing because they were illegal aliens, not because of their possession of narcotics, does not make evidence of flight inadmissible); cf. United States v. Mesa, 660 F.2d at 1078 (possibility that use of alias may have had innocent motive neither affects admissibility nor makes flight instruction erroneous). 71 Kalish argues that the evidence was inadmissible under United States v. Myers, 550 F.2d 1036, 1048-51 (5th Cir. 1977), after remand, 572 F.2d 506 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, 439 U.S. 847, 99 S.Ct. 147, 58 L.Ed.2d 149 (1978). Myers, however, did not involve the question of admissibility of alias evidence; rather, it involved the question of the propriety of a flight instruction when the evidence of flight was insufficient. The court held that a flight instruction is improper unless the evidence is sufficient to furnish reasonable support for four necessary inferences. Id. at 1050. 11 The court acknowledged, however, the firm rule of this circuit that flight evidence is generally admissible, see id. at 1049 (collecting cases), and it implicitly recognized that the standard for determining admissibility was not its new rule on flight instructions, but Rule 403, see id. at 1050 n.20. 72 In this case, Kalish made no objection to any of the trial court's instructions. 12 Instead, he reads the Myers four-inference test as a test of admissibility for evidence of flight, as well as for evidence of concealment of identity. He argues that the third Myers inference-that the defendant's behavior indicates consciousness of guilt of the particular crime charged-cannot be drawn with confidence here because it is more likely that Kalish's use of an alias showed consciousness of guilt only of the unrelated offense for which he was arrested. 73 We recognize that Kalish's reading of Myers has some basis. If Myers holds only that a jury cannot be instructed on the use of evidence of flight until there is sufficient evidence to support the four inferences, but that the evidence may nevertheless be admitted, then the Myers opinion may create a worse danger of unfair prejudice from evidence of flight than it attempted to eliminate. If evidence is admitted, then the jury should be instructed on its proper use. 74 Nevertheless, this court has not analyzed questions of admissibility under the Myers four-inference test. To the contrary, we have most often cited Myers for the rule that evidence of flight is generally admissible to prove consciousness of guilt. 13 We have read Myers to hold only that the flight instruction was erroneous because the allegations of flight were without support in the (Myers) record. United States v. $364,960.00 in United States Currency, 661 F.2d at 324 n.13. 75 Even if Myers implies the test for admissibility of the evidence, however, we believe that the third inference-that Kalish's behavior indicated consciousness of guilt of this crime and not merely of the unrelated crime for which he was arrested-may be drawn here. An attorney called by Kalish testified that, prior to the indictments, he advised Kalish that Kalish might be indicted. The attorney said that he had no trouble communicating with Kalish in the period following the seizure of the MR. JAKE, but that Kalish became unavailable after the indictments were filed. We think that Kalish's sudden unexplained unavailability tends to prove a pattern of concealment or flight that began before his state arrest and continued with his use of the alias. 14 Kalish was carrying around the false identification card before he ever knew that the state police would arrest him for a separate offense. The close proximity in time between the crimes, the indictments, and the use of the alias further supports the inference of guilty knowledge concerning the loads of marijuana. 76 Finally, we note that the evidence played a small role in Kalish's trial. The crucial question was Troutwein's credibility; if believed, Troutwein's testimony was much more than sufficient to convict. The evidence of concealment had little bearing on this central issue.