Opinion ID: 203367
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 10

Heading: Nature of the Prejudicial Information

Text: Both the information conveyed to the jury and the manner of its conveyance were prejudicial. The district court's confirmation that the thirty-seven defendants named in the Indictment who did not appear at trial were all incarcerated for participation in the conspiracy was tantamount to an announcement to the jury that the thirty-seven absent defendants had been convicted of the charges contained in the Indictment. The Government concedes, as it must, that [t]he fact that other co-defendants are in prison for the same conspiracy is irrelevant to the guilt of those on trial. Courts in this and other circuits have strongly cautioned against the admission of such evidence. [A] defendant is entitled to have the question of his guilt determined upon the evidence against him, not on whether a codefendant or government witness has been convicted of the same charge. United States v. Dworken, 855 F.2d 12, 30 (1st Cir.1988) (quoting United States v. Miranda, 593 F.2d 590, 594 (5th Cir.1979) (internal quotation marks omitted)). The potential for prejudice is present where evidence of a co-conspirator's conviction is admitted for substantive purposes. See United States v. Blevins, 960 F.2d 1252, 1260-62 (4th Cir.1992). Under such circumstances, the jury may abdicate its duty and regard the issue of the remaining defendant's guilt as settled and the trial as a mere formality. United States v. Griffin, 778 F.2d 707, 711 (11th Cir.1985). As the Fifth Circuit, reversing a conviction on the grounds that the jury was told that a non-testifying co-defendant had pleaded guilty, explained in United States v. Hansen, 544 F.2d 778 (5th Cir.1977): There is no need to advise the jury or its prospective members that some one not in court, not on trial, and not to be tried, has pleaded guilty. The prejudice to the remaining parties who are charged with complicity in the acts of the self-confessed guilty participant is obvious. Id. at 780. Regardless of whether an absent co-defendant has pleaded guilty or been convicted after trial, the admission of such evidence not only results in the danger that the jury will improperly infer guilt by association, it also significantly undercuts the defendant's right to have a jury's verdict based only upon evidence that is presented in open court and is thereby subject to scrutiny by the defendant. Blevins, 960 F.2d at 1260. Thus, where a missing co-defendant does not testify, `it is generally accepted that absent agreement, courts and prosecutors generally are forbidden from mentioning that a co-defendant has either pled guilty or been convicted.' United States v. Carraway, 108 F.3d 745, 756 (7th Cir.1997) (quoting United States v. Johnson, 26 F.3d 669, 677 (7th Cir.1994) (internal quotation marks omitted)). Where, as here, the defendants are being tried for their participation in an alleged conspiracy that took place over the course of nearly a decade, the danger that the defendants will be found guilty by sheer association with guilty non-testifying co-defendants is great. See United States v. Izzi, 613 F.2d 1205, 1210 (1st Cir.1980) (Guilt by association is one of the ever present dangers in a conspiracy count that covers an extended period.) (citing Kotteakos v. United States, 328 U.S. 750, 774-75, 66 S.Ct. 1239, 90 L.Ed. 1557 (1946)). Justice Jackson, in his well-known concurrence in Krulewitch v. United States, 336 U.S. 440, 69 S.Ct. 716, 93 L.Ed. 790 (1949), reflected on the abnormally high risk to co-defendants in a conspiracy trial of being found guilty by association: A co-defendant in a conspiracy trial occupies an uneasy seat. There generally will be evidence of wrongdoing by somebody. It is difficult for the individual to make his own case stand on its own merits in the minds of jurors who are ready to believe that birds of a feather are flocked together. Id. at 454, 69 S.Ct. 716 (Jackson, J., concurring). Although a jury may wonder what happened to the co-defendants whose names have been mentioned in the indictment and in the course of the trial but who have not appeared before them, the preferred course is simply to instruct the jury not to concern itself with that question. Carraway, 108 F.3d at 756; see also Edward J. Devitt, Charles B. Blackmar, et al., Federal Jury Practice and Instructions § 5.02, at 106 (1992). The district court's announcement to the jury that thirty-seven absent co-defendants named in the Indictment were incarcerated for the charged conspiracy increased by an order of magnitude the risk that the Appellants would be found guilty because of their association with the absent alleged co-conspirators, rather than because of the evidence offered at trial. Quite simply, the extrinsic information allowed the jury to draw the prejudicial inference that, if thirty-seven non-testifying co-defendants had been found guilty of the crimes described in the Indictment, the Appellants also must be guilty. [7] Moreover, the court did not instruct the jury that the incarcerated status of the thirty-seven absent co-defendants, or the fact that they may have been found guilty, should have no bearing on the jury's verdict with respect to each of the defendants on trial. See United States v. Rivera-Santiago, 872 F.2d 1073, 1083 (1st Cir. 1989). Absent the safeguard of a proper instruction, the prejudice arising from the court's response to the note is even more serious. The Government claims that the district court's answer was not especially prejudicial because the jury note itself illustrates the jury already had knowledge that the other co-defendants were imprisoned, as it begins with the phrase, `those that are imprisoned.' The Government's argument is unavailing. To the extent that the note reveals that the jury knew that the absent co-defendants were imprisoned, as discussed above, such awareness was not gleaned from evidence presented at trial. The fact that the jury demonstrated its knowledge of an undisputably extrinsic fact does not cut against our evaluation of the prejudicial impact of the jury note and the district court's response. As stated, the Sixth Amendment requires that a jury's verdict must be based solely upon the evidence developed at trial, see Turner, 379 U.S. at 472, 85 S.Ct. 546, and [t]he jury's exposure during its deliberations to extrinsic information, whatever its source, is an error of constitutional proportions.... Santana, 175 F.3d at 65 (emphasis added). Moreover, the Government cannot, and does not, attempt to deny that the most prejudicial extrinsic information in fact came from the trial judge  namely, confirmation that the thirty-seven alleged co-conspirators were imprisoned for the conspiracy. It was this information that most readily permitted the jury to draw the impermissible inference of guilt by association. We also find that the manner in which the jury requested the extrinsic information suggests that a direct connection existed between the extrinsic evidence and the jury's verdict. The fact that the note was headed by the word Duda, or Doubt, strongly indicates that the jury may have sustained doubt about some or all of the Appellants' involvement in the charged conspiracy and was looking to the trial judge to resolve that doubt. See Rivera-Santiago, 107 F.3d at 966 (finding it significant, in determining that district court had exposed jury to extrinsic information, that jury was asking for judge to provide portion of record to `clarify some doubts'). That the jury actively sought the information that it received, rather than obtained it accidentally or in an otherwise unsolicited fashion, further indicates that the answer was important to its verdict. See Santana, 175 F.3d at 67 ([B]ecause the jurors specifically asked to observe Santana without his headphones, they obviously deemed such evidence important to their deliberations.). It is also important, in considering prejudice, that the answer to the jury's question was supplied by the trial judge, and thus stamped with the imprimatur of the court, rather than by comparatively less authoritative sources, such as prosecutorial comment, juror misconduct, or the inadvertent admission of extrinsic evidence into the jury room. See id. ; Argentine, 814 F.2d at 788. Finally, the fact that the jury returned with a verdict a mere forty-five minutes after receiving the answer to Note # 2, which was the last note the jury sent out prior to the announcement that it had reached a verdict, supports the inference that the jury attributed weight to the trial judge's response, and indeed considered the court's response to be important, if not critical, in arriving at the verdict. See Rogers v. United States, 422 U.S. 35, 40, 95 S.Ct. 2091, 45 L.Ed.2d 1 (1975) (noting that jury's returning with a verdict five minutes after receiving judge's response to query weighed in favor of finding that judicial response to note was harmful error); Rivera-Santiago, 107 F.3d at 967 (drawing inference that judge's improper response to jury influenced verdict where jury returned verdict two hours after receiving judge's answer and noting that timing of jury's response to judge's answer was factor to consider in harmless error analysis). Thus, although the fact of the absent co-defendants' incarceration was neither raised nor disputed at trial, and although it was not proper for the jury to consider such a fact in reaching a verdict, it was clearly information that was material to the jury's verdict. See Santana, 175 F.3d at 67 (finding that the connection between the extrinsic information at issue here  the appearance of Santana's ears  and an issue material to and disputed throughout the trial  the identity of the [supplier of] crack cocaine  is unmistakable). In sum, the nature of the extrinsic information received by the jury was prejudicial to the Appellants.