Opinion ID: 665876
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Mail Fraud Instruction

Text: 33 Relying on McNally v. United States, 27 defendants argue that the district court's mail fraud instruction was flawed because it did not require that the jury find that the government had proven a loss of money or property. In McNally, the Supreme Court held that the mail fraud statute is limited in scope to the protection of monetary and property rights and does not protect a citizen's intangible right to good government. Defendants argue that the government proved only that they deprived Aerodyne of its right to honesty and loyalty, an intangible right that cannot be the basis of a mail fraud conviction under McNally. Thus, defendants contend that their convictions cannot stand. 34 To assess defendants' McNally claim, we must look to the indictment and the jury instructions to determine whether the jury could have convicted defendants of defrauding Aerodyne of an intangible, non-property right, such as the right to honesty and loyalty. As this court has said: 35 In the plethora of post-McNally cases addressing challenges to pre-McNally mail fraud convictions, the courts uniformly have looked to the wording of the indictment and the jury instructions to determine if the convictions can stand. If the indictment and jury instructions were phrased in such a way that the jury could have convicted the defendant of scheming to defraud the victim of a McNally -type intangible right, the courts have reversed the convictions. Conversely, if the jury necessarily must have concluded that the defendant schemed to defraud the victim of a non-McNally type of right (i.e. a monetary or property right, whether tangible or intangible), then the convictions stand, even if the indictment charged and the jury was instructed on McNally -type intangible rights in addition to non-McNally rights. 28 36 Defendants' case is not even close; the indictment charges and the jury was instructed only on non-McNally monetary and property rights. The indictment charges that defendants knowingly devised and intended to devise a scheme and artifice to defraud Aerodyne Investment Castings, Inc. and the shareholders of Aerodyne of money and property .... 29 Similarly, the district court charged the jury that defendants were guilty of mail fraud only if they knowingly and willfully devised a scheme to defraud or for obtaining money or property by means of false pretenses, representations or promises.... [T]he word scheme includes any plan or course of action intended to deceive others, and to obtain by false or fraudulent pretenses, representations or promises money or property from the persons so deceived. 30 The jury was not instructed on the intangible rights theory; that is, no instruction was given that defendants' convictions could be based upon the deprivation of Aerodyne's right to honesty and loyalty. The government proved that defendants obtained more than $500,000 from Aerodyne through their scheme. Given the language of the indictment and the jury instructions, the jury necessarily must have concluded that defendants schemed to defraud Aerodyne of money. Accordingly, defendants' challenge to their convictions under McNally is without merit. 37