Opinion ID: 3011009
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Intoxication Instruction

Text: Having decided that there is sufficient evidence for a conviction under S 1512(b), we turn to the question whether Davis is entitled to a new trial because the District Court refused to provide an intoxication instruction concerning his specific intent. A defendant is entitled to an instruction on his theory of the case where the record contains evidentiary support for it. See Government of V.I. v. Carmona, 422 F.2d 95, 99 n.6 (3d Cir. 1970). A court errs in refusing a requested instruction only if the omitted instruction is correct, is not substantially covered by other instructions, and is so important that its omission prejudiced the defendant. See United States v. Smith, 789 F.2d 196 (3d Cir. 1986). We first consider whether Davis preserved the issue for appellate review, and then evaluate the merits of his request.
When Davis's trial counsel initially raised the issue of an intoxication charge, the District Court was uncertain that such an instruction was required and requested briefing on the issue. The record reveals the following exchange on March 20, 1998, a Friday: Mr. Cascione: I made an additional submission which I gave Mr. Sierra, so if he wishes to cover it during his opportunity for an intoxication charge because I saw some reason for it as the proof came out. I will submit it to the Court so that the Court has it and we'll cover it in our charge conference. The Court: You better give me law on that. Mr. Cascione: That's understood. The Court: I need law on that. I'm not sure I see the basis for an intoxication charge here, but you can address that factually and legally. Give me these briefs Monday morning. Over the weekend, however, there was an unexpected early spring snowstorm that disrupted much travel in the area; we take judicial notice of the snowstorm. See Elise Young & Barbara Williams, North Jersey Gets a Taste of 28 What Might Have Been: Winter Lands a Late Blow, Bergen County Record, Mar. 23, 1998, at A1 (stating that up to six inches fell in New Jersey, disrupting traffic). On Monday, March 23, 1998, defense counsel stated that the inclement weather had disrupted his research, and, when specifically asked about the intoxication charge, stated: I have the submission. I was prepared to give the Court citing from Blackmore [sic]. There is an Eighth Circuit case on it that I was not able to obtain yesterday. The statement obviously refers to E. Devitt & C. Blackmar, Federal Jury Practice and Instructions, the veritable bible on the subject, which virtually every federal district judge has in his or her chambers. The Court rejected the intoxication charge because defense counsel had not provided enough support for it: I told you I wanted something and you haven't given me anything. The stuff you have given me is not adequate. Now, you've got an intoxication argument, you haven't given me the charge, you haven't given me any law on it. I came in early to handle it. . . . I know the whole idea behind this is for you to preserve this and raise it now so you can bring it up on appeal and I have a real serious problem with that, and I'm going to have to address all this in an opinion with regard to this, which means again I'm going to have to be doing your work and I don't think I should have to do your work. The District Court never ruled that an intoxication charge was not justified by the facts; rather, it apparently rejected the charge because of counsel's failure to brief the issue. The government's appendix contains defense counsel's written request to give an intoxication instruction, along with excerpts from Devitt & Blackmar relevant to intoxication. The government and the defendant cannot agree on whether these papers were in fact submitted to the District Court.7 We need not resolve the conflicting _________________________________________________________________ 7. The government argues that these papers were never submitted to the District Court, and that the Court's subsequent reference to defense 29 accounts, because we conclude that Davis's counsel brought the intoxication issue to the Court's attention with sufficient clarity to preserve the issue, even assuming that he did not provide the Court with any written submission. The government argues that Davis waived the issue by failing to brief it to the District Court. Waiver, however, is an intentional relinquishment of a known right. See United States v. Goldberg, 67 F.3d 1092, 1099 (3d Cir. 1995). Davis's counsel did not relinquish his request for an intoxication instruction, though he failed to supply the court with precedent in support of his request. We are persuaded that the appropriate inquiry is whether defense counsel's acts preserved the issue for appellate review. See United States v. Russell, 134 F.3d 171, 178-79 (3d Cir. 1998). In general, if an instruction is timely requested, is supported by the evidence, and correctly states the law, it should be given. See, e.g., United States v. Jerde, 841 F.2d 818 (8th Cir. 1988); United States v. Hicks, 748 F.2d 854 (4th Cir. 1984). However, counsel is required to draw the court's attention to a specific instruction, or to a problem with an instruction, in order to put the court on notice so that a possible error may be corrected before the jury begins to deliberate. See United States v. Scarpa, 913 F.2d 993, 1020 (2d Cir. 1990); United States v. Kaplan, 832 F.2d 676, 682 (1st Cir. 1987). As we have explained: The specificity requirement imposes a strict standard on defense counsel, but it is not a mere formalism. _________________________________________________________________ counsel's Devitt and Blackmar excerpts referred to materials submitted in response to other portions of the proposed charge. See SA at 1288 (District Court refers to excerpts from Devitt & Blackmar and Aguilar submitted by defense counsel). The government submits that it included the proposed intoxication charge in the appellate record, despite the fact that it was not presented to the District Court, in order to avoid any appearance of concealing relevant material. Davis's appellate counsel, who did not represent Davis at trial, takes the position that the instruction was submitted to the Deputy Court Clerk on the morning of March 23, 1998, and was properly included in the appellate record. Davis's trial counsel offered to submit an affidavit to this effect, but we have found it unnecessary for him to do so. 30 Without a clearly articulated objection, a trial judge is not apprised sufficiently of the contested issue and the need to cure a potential error to avoid a new trial. Government of V.I. v. Knight, 989 F.2d 619, 631 (3d Cir. 1993). At the same time, the requirement that counsel make specific requests is not designed to be a trap. Our cases suggest that a request for an instruction need only be sufficiently clear to enable the trial judge to fairly evaluate it. In United States v. Werme, 939 F.2d 108 (3d Cir. 1991), for example, one of the government's witnesses had pled guilty to receiving the very bribe for which the defendants were on trial for giving. We held that the following statements constituted a sufficient request for a limiting instruction against using the guilty plea as evidence of the defendant's guilt: [I]f they introduce that specific conviction, we're entitled to an instruction at a later time as far as the weight that should be given that. . . . The fact that he entered a plea to a bribery transaction involving $3,000 cannot be used to infer that we were guilty of paying the bribe. Id. at 114. We note that counsel in Werme did not cite any precedent to justify his request. Werme nonetheless found that counsel had clearly taken issue with the offered evidence and requested a curative instruction. See id. at 115; see also Russell, 134 F.3d at 178-79 & n.4 (the purpose of federal rules governing jury instructions is to give a trial court notice of potential error and the underlying basis for the objection rather than to force parties to follow formal or technical requirements); United States v. Kwong, 14 F.3d 189, 195 (2d Cir. 1994) (While the objection could certainly have been more focussed, we find that it was sufficient to alert the trial court and the government to the serious Braxton violation they were about to commit.). The events in this case raise the question of the proper allocation of responsibility between lawyer and judge. A judge should require counsel to participate in the process of crafting instructions. However, the issue here is not 31 arcane. Indeed, not only is the appropriate instruction set forth in Devitt & Blackmar, an instantly available source for any federal trial judge, but there appears to be no dispute as to the substance of the law: Intoxication is a defense when a defendant's intoxication prevented him from possessing the mental state necessary to commit the crime with which he is charged. On a garden-variety issue such as intoxication, where an adequate instruction is available in a standard charge book, the trial court cannot leave everything to the lawyers. The judge has an immanent obligation to research the law and craft an appropriate charge. This obligation cannot be avoided by requiring the lawyers to file legal memoranda on a pedestrian issue and then considering them not to have preserved the issue if they do not. If the requested instruction were complex and involved subtle questions of law, the situation would be different and the lawyers would have the laboring oar, but in this case we are unwilling to deem the request unpreserved merely because defense counsel did not present the Court with a copy of the Devitt & Blackmar charge. There is a dispute, discussed infra, as to whether the record supported the request for an intoxication instruction. That is certainly a basis for requiring memoranda. However, there was a snowstorm that interfered with counsel's ability to present material to the District Court. Moreover, that aspect of the matter could have been argued on the basis of the record, which was fresh in everyone's mind. We do not believe that criminal defense counsel who are immersed in trying a complex case should be deemed to have failed to preserve an issue of this sort for neglecting to produce memoranda over a weekend, even without a snowstorm. While far from perfect, defense counsel's request was straightforward and required consideration on its merits. In these circumstances, we conclude that Davis's counsel properly preserved the issue for our review by making his request for an intoxication instruction clearly and specifically, even though he failed to provide precedent in support of the proposed instruction. Cf. Russell, 134 F.3d at 178 n.4 (adopting aflexible, common-sense interpretation of the rules for preserving objections to proposed instructions). 32
All of the charged crimes were specific intent crimes, and intoxication can negate specific intent. See United States v. Williams, 892 F.2d 296, 303 (3d Cir. 1989). Davis argues that he was drunk at the relevant times--his January 25 and March 2 meetings with Vittorio--and indeed all witnesses agree that he was drinking heavily on those dates. Michael testified that, immediately before Davis saw Vittorio on January 25, Davis was ossified . .. . [d]runk beyond drunk, slurring, he walked in with two bottles of wine. Michael's testimony indicated that Davis was drunk and slurring throughout the part of the conversation that he witnessed. On his part, Vittorio testified that when he first saw Davis on January 25, he had some jeans on with no shirt and he seemed a little disheveled. He seemed very paranoid. Vittorio and Davis then went to a bar, Jester's Pub in Yonkers, to continue the conversation away from Maria and the Lanteris' baby, and it was at the bar that Davis suggested that Vittorio do something about Sabol and that Vittorio should get Davis a gun. Vittorio testified, however, that Davis did not seem drunk to him. Davis himself testified that he was drinking before he called Michael and that he brought bottles of wine to the Lanteris' apartment. He described himself as drunk throughout the conversation with Vittorio, rambling, and using what was left of my brain. Vittorio testified that the March 2 meeting was similar. They went to Jester's Pub, where Davis again asked for a gun. Davis had more than one drink (vodka and lime) during the conversation and Vittorio testified that he already had a few drinks in him before he met me. . . . He wasn't staggering, because I know he does drink a lot so he probably can handle a few drinks. He was a little buzzed, definitely by the time I left by the way he was driving. After the discussion, Davis drove Vittorio home, and Vittorio testified that he had a few drinks and he was all over the road and I was kind of concerned about him. . . . I remember calling [Michael], telling him that Vinnie [Davis] was really drunk and I was worried that he might crash and kill himself or something . . . . Finally, Vittorio stated 33 that Vinnie was very drunk at the end of their conversation. Davis likewise described himself as hammered and very, very drunk on March 2. In order to justify an intoxication instruction, most courts have held that a defendant needs more than evidence of intoxication. He also needs some evidence of interference with his ability to form the relevant intent. See, e.g., United States v. Nacotee, 159 F.3d 1073, 1076 (7th Cir. 1998); United States v. Washington, 819 F.2d 221, 225 (9th Cir. 1987). In Government of the Virgin Islands v. Carmona, supra, however, we apparently set forth a different rule, as we found an intoxication instruction required in a felony murder case when the only evidence of intoxication was that the defendant had a large amount to drink. The government argues that our Carmona holding was dicta because we reversed the defendant's conviction on the alternate ground that the jury instructions failed to define robbery as a specific intent crime. However, we specifically found the jury instructions defective in that they failed to explain the materiality of the intoxication evidence. Furthermore, the errors in the intoxication charge and the robbery charge were interrelated, because they both required the jury to be informed about specific intent. We rejected the government's claim that, because there was evidence only of intoxication and not of interference with the defendant's thinking, no intoxication instruction was required. See Carmona, 422 F.2d at 99 n.6. We reversed because of the errors in the charge to the jury. Id. at 101. It may be that our rule is not substantially different than that of other circuits, in that it is often difficult to determine what might qualify as evidence of interference with ability to form intent. Carmona endorses the conclusion, justified by much human experience, that heavy drinking may interfere with a person's ability to form a specific intent. The facts in Carmona--in which the defendant was drinking heavily in a bar, left for a few minutes, and then returned to rob it--suggested that the crime could have occurred without the defendant forming a specific intent to rob. 34 At all events, in Carmona, the evidence justifying the instruction was weaker than it is here, because the only testimony in Carmona was that the defendant was drinking, and the witnesses refused to say that he behaved in a drunken manner. By contrast, Michael testified that Davis was drunk beyond drunk, and Vittorio testified that Davis was drunk and paranoid at their first meeting on January 25, 1994. Vittorio was so concerned about Davis's drunken driving on March 2, 1994, immediately after their second meeting, that he called Michael to express his concern. While the government notes that a jury could conclude that Davis was not drunk at the beginning of the March 2 conversation, there was also evidence from which a jury could conclude that Davis was significantly affected by alcohol at the time of the critical statements. The government argues that there was no need for an instruction because Davis's drinking clearly did not interfere with his ability to form the specific intent to commit the charged crimes. It maintains that Davis's scheme evolved over some period of time, and that he committed his crimes over many weeks. Despite his drunkenness, Davis initiated meetings with Vittorio in order to explain to him why he should not trust Sabol. While drunk, Davis told Vittorio that Sabol was a rat, thus evidencing that his soused mind retained this crucial fact and that he knew that telling Vittorio would further his objective. The evidence plainly showed that Davis had a fairly complex plan to eliminate Sabol from his (Davis's) life. Yet Davis's plan to eliminate Sabol from his life did not, in the main, involve witness tampering; the witness tampering was only a small part of the plan, which was in other respects not unlawful. As we have explained, an intent to expose a person as an informant, while reprehensible, is insufficient to constitute corrupt persuasion under the statute. Thus, Davis's implacable hatred for Sabol and his consistent intent, held drunk and sober, to expose Sabol as a rat was insufficient to make him guilty of witness tampering. To violate the statute, Davis had to intend to corruptly persuade. The two instances of corrupt persuasion, on 35 January 25 and March 2--asking for the gun and suggesting that Vittorio harm Sabol--did not permeate his discussions with Vittorio, and a jury could have believed that Davis blurted them out drunkenly without intending that his requests should be acted upon. Unlike his hatred for Sabol, his acts of corrupt persuasion were not so extensive as to make the intoxication defense implausible. A jury could also find that Davis possessed the requisite intent despite his drinking. But, to uphold Davis's conviction, we would have to find that the missing instruction was harmless error--that it is highly probable that the error did not contribute to the judgment. Murray v. United of Omaha Life Ins. Co., 145 F.3d 143, 156 (3d Cir. 1998). We cannot say that the error was harmless on this record. See also United States v. Logan, 717 F.2d 84, 92 (3d Cir. 1983) (reversing for plain error where the trial judge had notice of the defense request for an instruction and the evidence showed that the instruction was critical to the defense's theory). Therefore, we will reverse Davis's conviction for witness tampering and remand for a new trial.