Opinion ID: 611949
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Jury Instruction on Circumstances of the Audit.

Text: 32 The district court, in making a transition from its instructions on the false preparation counts to its instructions on Count Eleven, informed the jury that [t]he final charge in the indictment is in Count 11. Count 11 pertains to information which was provided to the IRS after the IRS saw or suspected some problems in Cynthia Johnson's tax return and asked for supplemental information. RT 2/5/91, at 5-142 to 5-143 (emphasis added). 33 Campbell contends that the Johnson audit was not necessarily generated by something seen or suspected by the IRS, and indeed that Johnson's 1983 return may have been randomly selected for an audit. It was error, he argues, for the trial judge to mislead and confuse the jury with an instruction which was contrary to the evidence as presented in the case. At trial, Campbell's attorney suggested that the judge's characterization of the timing of events puts a [spin] on it that is not in accordance with the evidence. RT 2/5/91, at 5-146. The district court declined to reinstruct. Id. at 5-147. 34 We will reverse on the basis of the trial judge's choice of language in the instructions only for abuse of discretion. United States v. Madrid, 842 F.2d 1090, 1093 (9th Cir.), cert. denied, 488 U.S. 912 (1988). As long as the instructions  'fairly and adequately cover the issues presented,'  we accord the trial judge  'substantial latitude.'  United States v. Powell, 955 F.2d 1206, 1210 (9th Cir.1992) (quoting United States v. Soulard, 730 F.2d 1292, 1303 (9th Cir.1984)). 35 The trial judge's comment had nothing to do with how Johnson's return had been selected for audit. The information was requested after it had been selected for audit. Perhaps the judge might have made his comment more felicitous by stating that the information was requested to verify items on the return, but the judge more likely than not was accurate in characterizing the reason as the IRS's seeing or suspecting a problem. Nothing about the remark prejudiced the defendant. The trial judge's shorthand reference to the evidence 3 was not an abuse of discretion. 36