Opinion ID: 1318048
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Jury charge on the offense of presenting a fictitious financial instrument

Text: Heath's third challenge to the jury charge relates to his conviction for presenting a fictitious financial instrument (i.e., the August 2003 Bill of Exchange) to the IRS in the amount of $88,997.38, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 514(a)(2). His contention is that the statement in the left hand corner of the Bill of Exchange that the document was Void where prohibited by law was a disqualifying mark and that the jury was improperly instructed on whether a document with such a mark qualified as a fictitious financial instrument as defined in § 514(a)(2). Section 514(a)(2) makes it a felony to pass, present, offer, or issue with the intent to defraud any false or fictitious instrument, document, or other item appearing, representing, purporting, or contriving through scheme or artifice, to be an actual security or other financial instrument issued under the authority of the United States, a foreign government, a State or other political subdivision of the United States, or an organization[.] In United States v. Anderson, 353 F.3d 490 (6th Cir.2003), this court adopted the following definition of a fictitious instrument as articulated in United States v. Howick, 263 F.3d 1056, 1067 (9th Cir. 2001): [A] `fictitious' obligation is a bogus document contrived to appear to be a financial instrument, where there is in fact no such genuine instrument, and where the fact of the genuine instrument's nonexistence is presumably unknown by, and not revealed to, the intended recipient of the document. The Anderson court also adopted Howick's definition of the phrase actual security or other financial instrument as one that appears to be `actual' in the sense that it bears a family resemblance to genuine financial instruments or include[s] enough of the various hallmarks and indicia of financial obligations so as to appear to be within that class. Anderson, 353 F.3d at 500. This point was elaborated on in Howick with the comment that the document need only credibly hold itself out as a negotiable instrument and be free of disqualifying marks, such as for example, a statement that the document is not negotiable. 263 F.3d at 1068, 1069. In reading the instructions to the jury, the district court told the jurors to consider whether the document was free of disqualifying remarks  as opposed to disqualifying marks. Because Heath did not object at trial to the language in the charge for fictitious instruments, we review the instruction under the plain-error standard. See United States v. Blood, 435 F.3d 612, 625 (6th Cir.2006). An appellate court may correct an error not raised at trial if the error is obvious, affected the substantial rights of the defendant (i.e., caused actual prejudice), and seriously affected the fairness, integrity or public reputation of judicial proceedings. United States v. Olano, 507 U.S. 725, 735-36, 113 S.Ct. 1770, 123 L.Ed.2d 508 (1993). The district court in the present case instructed the jury on fictitious instruments as follows: A fictitious instrument is a bogus document contrived to appear to be a financial instrument, and where the fact of the genuine instrument's nonexistence is presumably unknown by, and not revealed to, the intended recipient of the document. Fictitious instruments include even bogus instruments that a prudent person might upon consideration be unlikely to accept as genuine, so long as those documents bear a family resemblance to actual financial obligations. The question is whether the document's features are among those commonly found in genuine obligations as well as whether it is free of disqualifying remarks. To trigger liability, the document must credibly hold itself out as [a] negotiable instrument. The government is not required to prove that the defendant actually obtained goods or services using the false of fictitious financial instrument, or that the false or fictitious financial instrument was similar to a genuine financial instrument. However, the government must prove that the false or fictitious instrument appeared to be within the class of genuine financial instruments. Because the district court properly defined both a fictitious instrument and an actual security or other financial instrument according to this circuit's case law in Anderson, it accurately and sufficiently defined the elements of the charge under § 514(a)(2). See Anderson, 353 F.3d at 500-01. The court's mistake in using the term remarks rather than marks did not relate to an element of the offense, nor was it so misleading as to create confusion as to the elements in the statute. As a result, Heath has failed to establish that the court's error seriously affected the fairness, integrity or public reputation of judicial proceedings. See Olano, 507 U.S. at 735-36, 113 S.Ct. 1770. We therefore find that the district court did not commit plain error regarding this instruction.