Opinion ID: 2805758
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: nelson’s remaining convictions claims

Text: On appeal, defendant Nelson raises additional arguments in support of his overall claim that he received an unfair trial, which we dispose of summarily. Nelson first asserts that the district court’s comment about Dr. Chin’s “gullib[ility]” and suggestion that he was improperly awarded VA disability benefits demonstrated the court’s bias and failure to give him a fair trial. We are unconvinced. The allegedly biased comments by the district court to Dr. Chin and regarding the propriety of Nelson’s disability benefits were made outside the jury’s presence. We will not reverse a conviction “based upon comments of the trial judge unless the comments are so prejudicial as to amount to denial of a fair trial,” United States v. Ramos, 933 F.2d 968, 973 (11th Cir. 1991), and the defendant shows that the comments had “a clear effect on the jury,” United States v. Morales, 868 F.2d 1562, 1576 (11th Cir. 1989) (quotation omitted and alteration adopted). Nelson has not identified any way that these comments reached the jury or influenced the jury’s decision-making process. 35 Case: 14-11995 Date Filed: 06/04/2015 Page: 36 of 41 Nor do we find persuasive Nelson’s argument that the district court’s isolated comments show that it generally failed to provide him a fair trial. Relatedly, Nelson argues that the district court abused its discretion in denying his motion for a new trial because of various instances of unfairness at trial, including the denial of expert assistance, the language quiz, and the district court’s comments about Dr. Chin and his VA benefits. We conclude that Nelson has not demonstrated that these alleged instances, taken as a whole, amounted to proceedings so fundamentally unfair as to warrant a new trial. See United States v. Sweat, 555 F.3d 1364, 1367 (11th Cir. 2009); United States v. Ramirez, 426 F.3d 1344, 1353 (11th Cir. 2005). Accordingly, the district court did not abuse its discretion in denying Nelson’s motion for a new trial.