Opinion ID: 181300
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Failure to Provide Sears Instruction and Limiting Instructions

Text: Tanner next argues that the jury should have been instructed that (1) because Moore and Solis, two of Tanner's alleged co-conspirators, acted as government agents for a time, Tanner could not have conspired with either man during that time; and (2) Moore's testimony regarding legal gambling and marijuana use, as well as the evidence of Tanner's gang affiliation, could be considered only for the purposes allowed under Rule 404(b). Tanner failed to request any such instructions at trial, so we would reverse only if the failure to give the instructions resulted in a miscarriage of justice. United States v. Clark, 989 F.2d 1490, 1500 (7th Cir.1993); see United States v. Bermudez, 526 F.2d 89, 97 (2d Cir.1975) (Failure to give limiting instructions is generally held not to be plain error.). Tanner's first assignment of error concerns the district court's failure to give what is generally known as a Sears instruction, after the Fifth Circuit's decision in Sears v. United States, 343 F.2d 139 (5th Cir.1965). Such an instruction informs the jury that a defendant's agreement with a government agent cannot support a charge of criminal conspiracy. See, e.g., United States v. Duff, 76 F.3d 122, 127 (7th Cir.1996). The instruction is appropriate whenever a jury might find a conspiracy between a defendant and a government agent, however short the period of time in which the agent worked for the government. See United States v. Eberhart, 467 F.3d 659, 666 (7th Cir.2006). Solis and Moore, both of whom had served as government informants for a time, were two of the government's key trial witnesses. The indictment specifically named both men as Tanner's co-conspirators, though, potentially allowing the jury to believe that it could convict Tanner of conspiracy if either man had conspired with Tanner at any time. Theoretically, then, it was possible for the jury to convict Tanner erroneously for conspiring with either Moore or Solis while they were government informants. For this reason, if Tanner had requested a Sears instruction, it would likely have been error for the district court to refuse that instruction. See Duff, 76 F.3d at 127 (holding that a Sears instruction is appropriate when the terms of an indictment allow a jury to convict solely on a finding of a conspiracy with a government agent). Tanner did not request a Sears instruction, however, and we see no reason to believe that a Sears instruction was plainly necessary here. Tanner would have benefitted from such an instruction only if the jury was likely to conclude both (1) that Tanner conspired only with Moore and/or Solis; and (2) that Tanner did so only during the time when each man was a government informant. Moore and Solis were government agents for only very short times, however. Moore acted as an informant for just a few months before Tanner was arrested. Solis was an informant for all of one day. On the other hand, the jury heard a great deal of evidence indicating that Tanner, over the course of several years, conspired with his brothers and the Renegades who acted as his drug couriers. It is highly unlikely that the jury concluded from this evidence that Tanner conspired only with Solis and Moore for a short time. While it is theoretically possible that the jury found that Tanner conspired with only Moore and/or Solis, and only while those men acted as government informants, such a remote possibility of harm is not enough to have rendered a Sears instruction plainly necessary. Regarding the absence of Rule 404(b) limiting instructions, as we explained above, neither the gang evidence nor the evidence of witness Moore's drug use was evidence of prior bad acts governed by Rule 404(b). The district court would have erred if it had instructed the jury otherwise. As for the testimony concerning legal gambling, the absence of a limiting instruction was undoubtedly harmlessa failure to instruct the jury not to draw a negative inference that it was extremely unlikely to draw anyway simply cannot be deemed harmful on plain-error review.