Opinion ID: 4183670
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Leon Dingle

Text: At the trial, Leon twice submitted proposed instructions to the district court. Consistently with the Seventh Circuit’s Pattern Criminal Federal Jury Instructions, he asked the court to give an “elements” instruction that followed this model: If you find from your consideration of all the evi‐ dence that the government has proved each of these el‐ ements [of the offense] beyond a reasonable doubt, then you should find the defendant guilty [of that charge]. If, on the other hand, you find from your consider‐ ation of all the evidence that the government has failed to prove any one of these elements beyond a reasona‐ ble doubt, then you should find the defendant not guilty [of that charge]. 7TH CIR. CRIMINAL PATTERN INSTRUCTION 4.01 (Elements/Bur‐ den of Proof) (emphasis added). The district judge complied, which puts Leon in the awkward position of attacking the in‐ struction he requested. Leon rests his complaint about this instruction on the firmly established rule of In re Winship, 397 U.S. 358, 364 (1970), that “the Due Process Clause protects the accused against conviction except upon proof beyond a reasonable Nos. 15‐3871 & 16‐1002 7 doubt of every fact necessary to constitute the crime with which he is charged.” No one disputes that this is the rule, in the abstract. But it is not a rule that can help Leon. The first problem is that, by affirmatively requesting the use of the pattern language, Leon has waived this argument. This should have been clear, in light of our consistent hold‐ ings that “approval of a jury instruction in the district court extinguishes any right to appellate review of the instruction.” United States v. Trudeau, 812 F.3d 578, 589 (7th Cir. 2015) (quot‐ ing United States v. Yu Tian Li, 615 F.3d 752, 757 (7th Cir. 2010)). Even if we could stretch to find forfeiture, rather than out‐ right waiver, Leon would be no better off. This court has twice considered and rejected the argument that the use of the word “should” in the jury instruction, rather than the word “must,” impermissibly permits conviction even if the jury concludes that one or more elements has not been proven beyond a rea‐ sonable doubt. United States v. Mansoori, 304 F.3d 635, 655–56 (7th Cir. 2002); United States v. Kerley, 838 F.2d 932, 940 (7th Cir. 1988). As we said in Kerley, “it is hardly plausible that the jury supposed that while they ‘should’ acquit Kerley if he was not guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, they didn’t have to ac‐ quit him if they didn’t want to.” 838 F.2d at 940. We recognize, as Leon points out, that most of our sister circuits use the word “must” in their pattern instructions, but that does not mean that “should” is incorrect. For what it is worth, Web‐ ster’s Third International Dictionary indicates that “should” is used in an auxiliary sense to express “duty, obligation, ne‐ cessity, propriety, or expediency.” This makes it even harder for us to condemn the use of the word “should” as plain error, which is the standard that applies for a forfeited argument. See Puckett v. United States, 556 U.S. 129, 134–35 (2009). 8 Nos. 15‐3871 & 16‐1002 Given the strength of the evidence against Leon, we also find it impossible to believe that the substitution of the word “must” for “should” in this instruction could have affected the jury’s decision. Taken as a whole, the instructions to the jury properly told it how to apply the reasonable‐doubt stand‐ ard. The district court did not commit error at all, much less reversible error, by accepting the language Leon offered and instructing the jury consistently with this court’s long‐stand‐ ing jurisprudence. Leon’s second complaint relates to the district court’s decision to admit evidence of his dalliances with Quinshaunta Golden and Claudia Johnson. The government wanted to use this evidence to show Leon’s close personal ties with a high‐ level Department employee who was steering grants to the straw charities (Golden) and with the head of AWARE (Johnson), one of those “charities.” An important theme of the government’s case was Leon’s close ties with his co‐ conspirators. These explained the structure of the fraudulent scheme, his leadership role, and the trust displayed by the participants. Nothing suggests, furthermore, that the government was obsessed with the sexual nature of these relationships. It also highlighted other ties, such as Leon’s longstanding friendship with Hickombottom. Evidence is relevant if “it has any tendency to make a fact more or less probable than it would be without the evidence” and that fact “is of consequence in determining the action.” FED. R. EVID. 401. Relevant evidence is admissible unless the Constitution, a law, or the rules prohibit it. FED. R. EVID. 402. The only possible rule that might have excluded this evidence was Rule 403, which allows a court to keep out otherwise rel‐ Nos. 15‐3871 & 16‐1002 9 evant evidence “if its probative value is substantially out‐ weighed by a danger of … unfair prejudice … .” FED. R. EVID. 403. The district court has considerable leeway in its applica‐ tion of Rule 403, and we are satisfied that it stayed within the bounds of its authority. Finally, we have Leon’s sentencing arguments. His advi‐ sory sentencing range, based on an offense level of 28 and a criminal history category of I, was 78 to 97 months. This rested on a loss amount between $1.5 million and $3 million, and several upward adjustments, including one for being the or‐ ganizer or leader of the scheme. After weighing the factors outlined in 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a), the district court selected a be‐ low‐guidelines sentence of 72 months, and it ordered Leon to pay $2.9 million in restitution (of which $386,250 was owed jointly and severally with Golden and Jackson). Leon attacks this sentence as procedurally flawed, for allegedly failing to take into account either his age and physical condition or the fact that he already had paid a substantial amount toward his restitution and could pay much more if he were not impris‐ oned. If the district court actually had overlooked these two ar‐ guments, we might have a problem. See, e.g., United States v. Donelli, 747 F.3d 936, 939 (7th Cir. 2014) (judge must address defendant’s principal arguments in mitigation if those argu‐ ments have recognized legal merit). But the court was guilty of no such oversight. First, in keeping with our recommenda‐ tion in United States v. Garcia‐Segura, 717 F.3d 566, 568–69 (7th Cir. 2013), the judge (upon the government’s prompting near the end of the proceedings) asked Leon whether he had “adequately addressed all of [the] sentencing arguments,” and Leon’s attorney said yes. Unless the timing of the question 10 Nos. 15‐3871 & 16‐1002 was a problem—a point on which we would comment only if there were something to his position—that was enough to waive any procedural objection based on the court’s failure to discuss something. Even if Leon’s sentencing arguments were not waived or forfeited, they have no merit whatsoever. The court com‐ mented that “there’s no question that this was a very serious offense … based on greed,” that it went on for several years and involved “staggering” amounts of money, and that the evidence was “overwhelming.” The court also expressly con‐ sidered Leon’s evidence in mitigation. That included his im‐ portance to his family, his lifelong devotion to Chicago’s mi‐ nority community, his ability to pay, his faith, and the charac‐ ter letters in the file. In addition, the court said, “I’ve consid‐ ered the defendant’s age and his physical condition.” It acknowledged that Leon was in his late seventies, and that this was a factor that had to be taken into account. That is just what the court did: on the one hand, it considered the im‐ portance of general deterrence and avoiding disparities, and on the other hand, it considered the seriousness of the crime and its view that age alone does not warrant a discounted sen‐ tence. In short, although Leon may not like the way in which the court weighed his advanced age, the court did not commit the procedural error of overlooking this point. There was no need for the court to delve into the mortality tables for the de‐ mographic group to which Leon belongs, as he argues. There is also nothing to Leon’s complaint about the weight that the court gave to his pre‐payment of restitution. He paid about $1 million in restitution before sentencing. The judge knew this, although he said little about it, commenting only that he had considered Leon’s “ability to pay restitution by Nos. 15‐3871 & 16‐1002 11 selling legitimately obtained assets” as a mitigating factor. Even with a million paid off, Leon still owed another $1.9 mil‐ lion in restitution. All told, this point was insubstantial enough that it did not require more than the brief acknowl‐ edgement the court gave it. Leon’s only remaining argument is that his sentence was substantively unreasonable. Aside from the fact that we have yet to grant relief to a defendant on the ground that a below‐ guidelines sentence is substantively unreasonable, nothing in Leon’s case prompts us to break that pattern. He stole $4.5 million in public funds that were intended to prevent AIDS, cancer, and other serious diseases in Illinois’s needy population. He was thus a reverse‐Robin Hood, stealing from the poor to enrich himself and his family. Even though he will be in his mid‐80s when he leaves prison, that is not the kind of de facto life sentence that has concerned us in the past.