Opinion ID: 29550
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Evidence of the Prosecution’s Threats

Text: In addition to arguing that the prosecution’s threats violated his Fifth and Sixth Amendment rights, Bieganowski also maintains that the district court erred when it prohibited him from introducing evidence of those threats to the jury, relying on United States v. Lowery, 135 F.3d 957 (5th Cir. 1998). We disagree. Lowery is wholly inapposite. There the defendant, Lowery, was charged with obstruction of justice by attempting to influence Taylor to testify falsely in a then pending criminal tax case against Lowery’s girlfriend, Sanders. Lowery’s defense was that he understood that in the Sanders case the IRS had begun “to pressure witnesses to testify in a manner consistent with the IRS position,” that Taylor had previously made statements “consistent with . . . [Sanders’] innocence, and he feared the IRS was intimidating Taylor to state otherwise.” Id. at 958. We held that the exclusion of evidence of the IRS witness intimidation in the Sanders case “was error, because any evidence that the IRS was intimidating witnesses in the Sanders case would be relevant to Lowery’s case, given that his theory of defense was that he was trying to encourage witnesses to tell the truth in the face of IRS pressure to do otherwise.” Id. at 959. In Lowery the government witness intimidation sought to be shown occurred before and was a cause of the defendant’s charged conduct and was relevant to show his state of mind in 57 engaging in that conduct. Here, by contrast, the alleged witness intimidation occurred more than a year after the conduct charged in the indictment and had no relevance to it or to the state of mind of Diaz or Bieganowski in engaging in such conduct. In Lowery we applied an “abuse of discretion” review to the trial court’s exclusion of the evidence. Id. at 959. Applying that same standard here, it is clear that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in excluding the evidence. J. Instructions in response to jury note In his final point of error, Bieganowski argues that the district court reversibly erred when it issued a supplemental jury instruction without first notifying counsel for the defense. On May 5, 2000, after the case had gone to the jury, the jury delivered a note to the court, the relevant portion of which read: “Also on counts 2, 3, 4, & 5 we’ve not been able to locate HCFA’s for counts 3 & 4. Do we or can we rely on [w]itness [t]estimony?” Upon receiving this note, and without first advising counsel for the defense of it, the district court responded to it by instructing the jury: “In response to jury note 1, you are advised that, in my preliminary instruction to you at the beginning of the trial, I instructed you on the following as to evidence: ‘The evidence from which you will find the facts will consist of the testimony of witnesses, documents, and other things received into the record as exhibits . . . .’ Thus, in answer to your question, I once again remind you that witness testimony is evidence.” 58 Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 43 guarantees a defendant the right to be present at every stage of the trial. That right requires that “[w]hen a communication is received from the jury, counsel should be informed of its substance and afforded an opportunity to be heard before a supplemental charge is given.” United States v. McDuffie, 542 F.2d 236, 241 (5th Cir. 1976). The Government in this case concedes that this right was violated. The only remaining question, therefore, is whether the violation was harmless or constitutes reversible error. See United States v. Sylvester, 143 F.3d 923, 928 (5th Cir. 1998). Here, the district court did not issue a true supplemental instruction. Rather, it simply resubmitted to the jury a portion of the original jury charge, an instruction to which Bieganowski had not previously objected. Bieganowski presents the same argument that was rejected in Sylvester, namely that prejudice resulted when the district court reread only a portion of the original instructions to the jury. Sylvester, 143 F.3d at 929. Beginning with the proposition that the failure to notify defense counsel of a jury communication is harmless when an “answer to the jury’s inquiry [is] distinctly responsive, . . . clearly state[s] the law, and no prejudice is shown,” Sylvester, 143 F.3d at 928, this Court concluded that rereading a portion of the original instructions in response to a jury question was harmless error. Id. at 929; see also United States v. Breedlove, 576 F. 2d 57, 60 59 (5th Cir. 1978) (finding the court’s error in answering a jury note without first notifying the defense to be harmless). Bieganowski, however, attempts to distinguish Sylvester by arguing that the district court in that case did not simply issue a supplemental instruction, but also tempered that instruction by reminding the jury to keep the court’s original instructions in mind, and to apply all the instructions during its deliberations. Sylvester, 143 F.3d at 929. Although the district court’s supplemental instruction here did not clearly admonish the jury to rely on the original instructions, the supplemental instruction nevertheless referenced the original instructions. It was therefore evident from the language of the supplemental instruction that the original instructions remained in full force. Diaz and Bieganowski also fault the court’s response to the jury note on the basis that it suggests to the jury that they need not be concerned with being unable to find the HCFA forms on which counts three and four were based or at least improperly minimized the importance of the HCFA forms in respect to counts three and four. However, it is clear that there was no prejudice, for none of the appellants were convicted of either of those counts.33 K. Sentencing In his final point of error, Lopez challenges the evidentiary 33 Bieganowski and Lopez were acquitted of counts three and four; neither Diaz nor Goldberg was charged in either of those counts. 60 basis for the district court’s application of the Sentencing Guidelines. Specifically, Lopez disputes the district court’s finding that he was accountable for $961,287.50 in losses under section 1B1.3(a)(1)(B) of the Sentencing Guidelines.34 We review a district court’s interpretation and application of the Sentencing Guidelines de novo, and its factual findings for clear error. United States v. Ismoila, 100 F.3d 380, 394 (5th Cir. 1996). Having reviewed the basis for the district court’s finding, we conclude that Lopez’s claim has no merit. Findings of fact for sentencing purposes need only be established by a preponderance of the evidence. United States v. Hull, 160 F.3d 265, 269 (5th Cir. 1998). In this case, the Presentence Report attributed $43,084,042.27 in losses, a figure representing the entire amount billed to insurance companies during the course of the conspiracy, to Lopez. The district court, however, elected to hold Lopez responsible only for those bills 34 Section 1B1.3(a)(1) provides that a defendant is responsible at sentencing for “(A) all acts and omissions committed, aided, abetted, counseled, commanded, induced, procured, or willfully caused by the defendant; and (B) in the case of a jointly undertaken criminal activity . . . all reasonably foreseeable acts and omissions of others in furtherance of the jointly undertaken criminal activity, that occurred during the commission of the offense of conviction, in preparation for that offense, or in the course of attempting to avoid detection or responsibility for that offense.” U.S. SENTENCING GUIDELINES MANUAL § 1B1.3(a)(1)(A), (B). 61 that reflected charges for Hubbard Tank treatment, and accordingly departed from the Presentence Report to reduce the dollar value of Lopez’s conduct from $43,084,042.27 to $961,287.50. The guilty verdicts returned against Lopez, together with the Presentence Report constitute a sufficient evidentiary basis for this finding. See, e.g., United States v. Lghodaro, 967 F.2d 1028, 1030 (5th Cir. 1992) (“The PSR is considered reliable and may be considered as evidence by the trial judge in making factual sentencing determinations.”). We decline to hold, therefore, that the district court was clearly erroneous in holding Lopez responsible for the entire $961,287.50.