Opinion ID: 76334
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The In Interstate Commerce Jury Charge

Text: 71 Drury next argues that, regardless of whether the evidence presented at trial might have been sufficient to establish the jurisdictional nexus, the district court erred by instructing the jury that pay telephones and cellular telephones are `facilities in interstate commerce' under federal law. Such an instruction, Drury maintains, removes from the jury's consideration an essential element of a § 1958(a) violation: the interstate nexus. Citing the Supreme Court's decision in United States v. Gaudin, 515 U.S. 506, 510, 115 S.Ct. 2310, 132 L.Ed.2d 444 (1995), Drury asserts that the district court's instruction violated his right to have the jury decide whether he is guilty of every element of the crime with which he is charged, beyond a reasonable doubt. Id. (citation omitted). 72 The propriety of the trial court's instructions to the jury regarding § 1958(a)'s jurisdictional element is an issue of law which we review de novo. See United States v. Leonard, 138 F.3d 906, 908 (11th Cir.1998). 73 Section 1958(a)'s interstate nexus requirement is an essential element of a murder-for-hire offense. See United States v. Tinoco, 304 F.3d 1088, 1105 (11th Cir.2002) ([T]he use of interstate facilities is a substantive element of Travel Act offenses that must be decided by the jury.) (citing United States v. Perrin, 580 F.2d 730, 737 (5th Cir.1978)), cert. denied sub nom. Hernandez v. United States, ___ U.S. ___, 123 S.Ct. 1484, 155 L.Ed.2d 231 (2003). The Constitution gives a criminal defendant the right to have a jury determine, beyond a reasonable doubt, his guilt of every element of the crime with which he is charged. Gaudin, 515 U.S. at 522-23, 115 S.Ct. 2310. As a consequence, Drury was entitled to have the jury determine whether § 1958(a)'s jurisdictional element was satisfied. Id. at 513, 115 S.Ct. 2310 (noting that there is a historical and constitutionally guaranteed right of criminal defendants to demand that the jury decide guilt or innocence on every issue, which includes application of the law to the facts). 74 We have already determined that the phrase facility in interstate ... commerce is not the functional equivalent to facility of interstate commerce. See supra, Part II(A)(2). Whereas the latter phrase includes all facilities that are capable of effecting interstate communication, the former phrase requires that the facility actually be used in a manner that traverses state boundaries. By instructing the jury that the use of a pay or cellular phone is per se interstate commerce under § 1958(a), the district court both removed an element of the crime from the jury's consideration and did so by way of a faulty definition. 17 Thus, the district court's instructions to the jury constituted an erroneous statement of the law. 75 But this conclusion does not end our inquiry. In addition to finding error, we must determine whether that error provides grounds for a reversal. Chapman v. California, 386 U.S. 18, 22, 87 S.Ct. 824, 17 L.Ed.2d 705 (1967) (We conclude that there may be some constitutional errors which in the setting of a particular case are so unimportant and insignificant that they may, consistent with the Federal Constitution, be deemed harmless, not requiring the automatic reversal of the conviction.). A jury instruction which omits an element of the charged offense is subject to harmless error analysis. See Neder v. United States, 527 U.S. 1, 9, 119 S.Ct. 1827, 144 L.Ed.2d 35 (1999) ([A]n instruction that omits an element of the offense does not necessarily render a criminal trial fundamentally unfair or an unreliable vehicle for determining guilt or innocence.); Ross v. United States, 289 F.3d 677, 681 (11th Cir.2002), cert. denied, 537 U.S. 1113, 123 S.Ct. 944, 154 L.Ed.2d 787 (2003). The appropriate harmless error test in this context is whether it appears `beyond a reasonable doubt that the error complained of did not contribute to the verdict obtained.' Neder, 527 U.S. at 15, 119 S.Ct. 1827. 76 Here, the district court's jurisdictional element instruction was harmless. At trial, the government presented evidence that the telephone calls between Drury and Valoze traveled from Georgia to Florida and then back to Georgia. Drury neither offered testimony to counter this evidence nor disputed its veracity on appeal. Given that the factual foundation for the § 1958(a) jurisdictional nexus is uncontested, we cannot conclude that Drury's substantial rights were impugned by the district court's erroneous statement of the law. See id. We have no reasonable doubt that, had the jury been properly instructed, it would have reached the same result. Neder, 527 U.S. at 15, 119 S.Ct. 1827. Although the district court erred in instructing the jury that telephones are per se facilit[ies] in interstate commerce, we conclude that this error was harmless.