Opinion ID: 613010
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Did the Variance Alter the Crime Charged?

Text: In general, a defendant can hardly be heard to complain when the government's proof at trial establishes a scheme similar to but somewhat narrower in breadth and malignity than that charged in the indictment. United States v. Mueffelman, 470 F.3d 33, 38 (1st Cir.2006). The defendants argue, however, that the object of a conspiracy is an essential element of the crime charged, see United States v. Roshko, 969 F.2d 1, 5 (2d Cir.1992), and that permitting a variance as to that object is improper. They suggest that the government's failure to establish the precise object of the conspiracy charged is substantively different from the cases in which we have permitted a variancetypically where the government has failed to establish a particular manner or means, or that the crimes occurred in the particular time frame alleged. As the defendants put it, An agreement to maintain a tax-exempt status may encompass a narrower range of activity than a conspiracy to obtain and maintain tax-exempt status, but it is also a different agreement. The defendants' claim implicates a number of often-overlapping limitations on the government's power to prosecute its citizens. [19] As far as is relevant to the government's appeal, these limitations are encapsulated by the distinction in our law between mere variance and the constructive amendment of an indictment. [20] See United States v. Brandao, 539 F.3d 44, 57 (1st Cir.2008) (The prohibition on constructive amendment exists to preserve the defendant's Fifth Amendment right to indictment by grand jury, to prevent reprosecution for the same offense in violation of the Sixth Amendment, and to protect the defendant's Sixth Amendment right to be informed of the charges against him.). In contrast to a variance, a constructive amendment occurs where the crime charged has been altered, either literally or in effect, after the grand jury last passed upon it. E.g., United States v. Bunchan, 626 F.3d 29, 32 (1st Cir.2010) (quoting United States v. Celestin, 612 F.3d 14, 24 (1st Cir.2010)). The concepts of constructive amendment and variance are closer to a continuum than exclusive categories. Mueffelman, 470 F.3d at 38. Save at either end of the spectrum, it is not always clear what distinguishes a permissible variance from an impermissible constructive amendment. Haines v. Risley, 412 F.3d 285, 291 (1st Cir.2005); see also United States v. Adamson, 291 F.3d 606, 615 (9th Cir.2002) (The line between a constructive amendment and a variance is at times difficult to draw.); 3 Charles Alan Wright & Sarah N. Welling, Federal Practice and Procedure, Criminal § 516 (4th ed.2011) (The distinction between variances and constructive amendments is a matter of degree, and the distinction is rather shadowy. (footnote omitted)). The Supreme Court has interpreted the Fifth Amendment's Presentment Clause to mean that, after an indictment has been returned[,] its charges may not be broadened through amendment except by the grand jury itself. Stirone v. United States, 361 U.S. 212, 215-16, 80 S.Ct. 270, 4 L.Ed.2d 252 (1960); see also id. at 217-19, 80 S.Ct. 270 (holding that an indictment was unconstitutionally broadened where prosecution offered evidence of two theories of liability, but the grand jury indicted defendant only on the first theory). It has also expressly rejected the proposition that a narrowing of the indictment constitutes an amendment that renders the indictment void. United States v. Miller, 471 U.S. 130, 144, 105 S.Ct. 1811, 85 L.Ed.2d 99 (1985). The Miller Court held that the Fifth Amendment was not violated where the government's variance added nothing new to the grand jury's indictment and constituted no broadening, id. at 145, 105 S.Ct. 1811, but rather proved a significantly narrower and more limited, though included, fraudulent scheme, id. at 131, 105 S.Ct. 1811. We have since embraced, as a well-established principle, that a court may narrow the indictment's charges without adding any new offenses. Celestin, 612 F.3d at 25 (alteration omitted) (quoting Miller, 471 U.S. at 138, 105 S.Ct. 1811) (internal quotation marks omitted). The defendants seek to distinguish Miller on the ground that what was removed from the case was in no way essential to the offense on which the jury convicted. [21] See Miller, 471 U.S. at 145, 105 S.Ct. 1811. They rely on a Second Circuit case, United States v. Roshko , for the proposition that, [w]ithout question, the object of a conspiracy constitutes an essential element of the conspiracy offense. 969 F.2d at 5. Thus, they claim, a variance may be permissible where it alters the means of a charged conspiracynot where it alters the object.  To the extent that the defendants argue that the object of a conspiracy is always an improper subject for a variance, they are wrong. In United States v. Glenn , this circuit's pathmarking precedent articulating the variance analysis, we upheld a defendant's conviction for a narrower conspiracy than the one charged. There, the indictment charged two defendants with a single, overarching conspiracy to import both marijuana and hashish. Glenn, 828 F.2d at 857. The government's proof at trial, however, evidenced two separate conspiracies, each with a narrower, distinct object of importing only a single drug. Id. Explaining that conspiracy law, like most criminal law, focuses on the activities of an individual defendant, id., the Glenn court set out to determine what kind of agreement or understanding existed as to each defendant, id. (emphasis omitted) (quoting United States v. Borelli, 336 F.2d 376, 384 (2d Cir.1964)) (internal quotation mark omitted). Although it concluded that the evidence was insufficient to convict the defendants of the conspiracy that the indictment charged, namely, the conspiracy to import and possess both marijuana from Thailand and hashish from Pakistan, it concluded that a permissible variance had occurred because the evidence remained sufficient to permit a jury, under a proper set of instructions, to convict one defendant of a related, similar conspiracy to import just one of the drugs. Id. at 858-61. Roshko is not to the contrary. It involved a conspiracy to defraud the United States whose object was expressly defined as seeking changes in the immigration status of an alien based on a sham marriage to a United States citizen that was falsely represented to be genuine. Roshko, 969 F.2d at 2. At trial, the government introduced evidence that the defendant had conspired in the marriage of her future husband, an immigrant from Israel, to a United States citizen, in order to secure his green card. Id. at 3. It further offered evidence of that couple's subsequent divorce and of the defendant's marriage to her now-permanent-resident-alien husband (which ultimately resulted in her successful application for a green card). Id. When the defendant raised a statute of limitations challenge to the evidence of her husband's sham marriage, the government argued that the conspiracy broadly embraced both marriages, and that the prosecution was therefore timely. Id. at 4. The Second Circuit, emphasizing that the indictment specifically charged a purpose to change the status of  an alien through marriage to a United States citizen, found that the indictment was not so broad as the government claimed. Id. at 5-6 (emphasis added). It held that the unlimited introduction of evidence related to the second marriage, combined with the government's arguments that such conduct was part and parcel of the conspiracy, was impermissible because it could easily have created a basis for conviction which the grand jury did not intend to create. Id. at 6. Roshko thus stands for the unobjectionable proposition that the government's broadening of an indictment's charges through proof at trial constructively amends an indictment. To the extent that the defendants instead argue that the object of the conspiracy here, because of the way in which it was charged, may not be narrowed without fundamentally changing the offense, their claim is unpersuasive. [T]he line between `the crime charged' and `the facts charged' is inherently fuzzy. Mueffelman, 470 F.3d at 38. Hence, our practice has been to look to statutory elements in response to claims by defendants that the crime charged has been changed. [22] We have said that, [s]o long as the statutory violation remains the same, the jury can convict even if the facts found are somewhat different than those charged. United States v. Twitty, 72 F.3d 228, 230 (1st Cir.1995); cf. Glenn, 828 F.2d at 858 (noting that one question in variance analysis is whether sufficient evidence exists of related, similar conspiracy to one charged). Here, the titular crime was not altered. The defendants were indicted under 18 U.S.C. § 371, which criminalizes conspiracies with an object to defraud the United States, or any agency thereof in any manner or for any purpose. Cf. Mueffelman, 470 F.3d at 38 (finding no constructive amendment where Mueffelman was charged with mail fraud and convicted of mail fraud). Pursuant to that provision, the government was required to prove three elements: an agreement, the unlawful objective of the agreement, and an overt act in furtherance of the agreement. United States v. Barker Steel Co., 985 F.2d 1123, 1127-28 (1st Cir.1993) (quoting United States v. Hurley, 957 F.2d 1, 4 (1st Cir.1992)). The objective of the agreement is unlawful if it is `for the purpose of impairing, obstructing or defeating the lawful function of any department of Government.' Id. at 1128 (quoting Dennis v. United States, 384 U.S. 855, 861, 86 S.Ct. 1840, 16 L.Ed.2d 973 (1966)). These elements were fully satisfied by so much of the indictment as charged the defendants with conspiring to defraud the United States for the purpose of impeding, impairing, interfering, obstructing and defeating through deceit, craft, trickery, and dishonest means the lawful functions of the [IRS]. [23] That language is also consonant with the narrower conspiracy proven. To be sure, the government's indictment did not stop there. It specifically alleged that the agreed-upon purpose of the defendants' fraud was to obstruct the IRS in the ascertainment, assessment, and determination of whether Care International, Inc., qualified and should be designated as a 501(c)(3) organization in 1993 and should continue to be accorded status as [a] 501(c)(3) organization thereafter. As the district court noted, this language appears in the key charging paragraph, is identified as a component of the conspiracy's purpose, and appears prior to and apart from the five paragraphs of the indictment setting forth the manner and means by which the conspiracy was sought to be accomplished and the nine paragraphs identifying the overt acts committed in furtherance of the conspiracy. The question is whether, and to what extent, this additional charging language precluded the government from proving a narrower conspiracy that embraced only the agreement of the defendants to act unlawfully to maintain Care's tax-exempt status. We have found no indications in our case law that, as an element of the offense, the unlawful object of a § 371 conspiracy must be defined with the level of specificity to which the defendant now seeks to hold the government. To the contrary, we have previously declined to parse the conspiratorial object so finely. See United States v. Goldberg, 105 F.3d 770, 774 (1st Cir.1997) ([W]e see no sharp distinction under section 371 between a purpose to file [false tax] documents and a purpose to interfere [with the functions of the IRS].); cf. Dennis, 384 U.S. at 863, 86 S.Ct. 1840 (rejecting claim that defendants' specific purpose of filing false documents in violation of another statute precluded trial under general charge of conspiracy to defraud, noting that indictment under the broader charge is permissible so long as it properly reflects the essence of the alleged offense). We have also held, in other contexts, that where the government's charging language identified an element of the crime with greater specificity than was required by the statute, the alteration of that additional language had no bearing on the substance of the charge. United States v. Dowdell, 595 F.3d 50, 68 (1st Cir.2010) (finding no constructive amendment in government's clarification of drug type identified in indictment where charged crime prohibits distribution of any controlled substance regardless of type, and thus the government could technically have omitted reference to a particular controlled substance altogether). This approach is consistent with the approach taken in other circuits. See, e.g., United States v. Kuenstler, 325 F.3d 1015, 1022 (8th Cir.2003) (treating as surplusage language in the indictment that described the object of the conspiracy in detail exceeding that which was needed to make out the statutory offense); United States v. Garcia-Paz, 282 F.3d 1212, 1215-17 (9th Cir.2002) (holding that language preceded by the phrase to wit in the indictment is mere surplusage that may be disregarded and need not be proven); United States v. Pumphrey, 831 F.2d 307, 309 (D.C.Cir. 1987) ([E]xcess allegations in an indictment that do not change the basic nature of the offense charged need not be proven and should be treated as mere surplusage.). [24] Thus, what is striking about the language relied upon by the defendants for the unitary conspiracy theory is that it is needless in the purpose portion of the indictment. If the indictment's reference to the ascertainment, assessment, and determination of whether [Care] qualified and should be designated as a 501(c)(3) organization in 1993 and should continue to be accorded status as [a] 501(c)(3) organization thereafter had appeared in the section of the indictment describing the conspiracy's manner and means, rather than its purpose, the defendants would have no argument at all. Hence, the defendants' argument challenging the government's right to prove a narrower conspiracy elevates form over substance. All of the material in the manner and means portion of the indictment, along with the overt acts alleged, is the specification of the ways in which the defendants sought to accomplish the conspiracy. Given the sufficiency of the more broadly stated purpose of the conspiracy and the detailed specification of conduct in its manner and means portion, the language at issue could have been omitted altogether without affecting the sufficiency of the indictment. See United States v. Troy, 618 F.3d 27, 34 (1st Cir.2010) ([T]he statutory language may be used in the indictment to describe the offense, `but it must be accompanied with such a statement of the facts and circumstances as will inform the accused of the specific offence, coming under the general description, with which he is charged.' (quoting Hamling v. United States, 418 U.S. 87, 117-18, 94 S.Ct. 2887, 41 L.Ed.2d 590 (1974))). In light of the foregoing considerations, the government has demonstrated that variance, rather than constructive amendment, is the proper lens through which to view the narrowing of the conspiracy that occurred in this case. [25] The allegations in the indictment charging, in the words of the district court, a conspiracy with a single, unitary object are not indispensable or essential to the integrity of that document. Indeed, they were effectively surplusage. The government is not seeking to reinstate the defendants' conviction on the basis of a crime other than the one with which they were charged. Although we hold the government to its charging decisions, we must also hold defendants to so much of their criminal conduct that the government has properly charged and successfully proven.