Opinion ID: 202748
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Evidence of Civil and Regulatory Violations

Text: 151 Appellants also protest that the district court improperly admitted evidence of civil and regulatory banking violations. Again, we review this evidentiary ruling for abuse of discretion. Richardson, 421 F.3d at 37-38. 152 Evidence of civil or regulatory violations is admissible so long as the evidence is not presented in such a way that the jury's attention is focused on the civil violations rather than the criminal ones. United States v. Stefan, 784 F.2d 1093, 1098 (11th Cir.1986). The concern is that such evidence could create an alternative standard of guilt. United States v. Christo, 614 F.2d 486, 491 (5th Cir.1980)(prohibiting the introduction of civil banking statutory violations solely for the purpose of proving criminal misapplication). 153 Courts have allowed the introduction of evidence of civil and regulatory violations in a variety of situations. In United States v. Devin, 918 F.2d 280, 287 (1st Cir.1990), we found no abuse of discretion in a district court's decision to allow evidence of violations of police department regulations to demonstrate the knowledge and intent of a police officer charged with RICO violations and attempted extortion. We explained that [s]uch evidence was unquestionably helpful to the jury in determining whether ... [the officer] was willing to disregard his sworn obligations and accept things of value which influenced his performance of official duties. Id. Similarly, in Stefan, the district court permitted the government to introduce testimony regarding violations of a civil regulatory banking statute and charts illustrating how certain loans at issue contravened the statute. It also allowed the government to refer to the statutory violations in its opening statement and closing argument, and even focused the jury's attention on the statute in the instructions. 784 F.2d at 1097. On appeal, the Eleventh Circuit found that the defendant's scheme included efforts to avoid this statute, and that the district court therefore did not abuse its discretion in admitting such evidence to help the jury understand the scheme. In both of these cases, the courts placed emphasis on a jury instruction which made clear that civil or regulatory violations did not equate to criminal conduct. See Devin, 918 F.2d at 288 n. 9; Stefan, 784 F.2d at 1099. 41 154 Here, the court allowed the government to introduce evidence that defendants violated certain regulations of the Federal Home Loan Bank to provide context for their actions and to establish their knowledge of the impropriety of their activities. Although such evidence was discussed from time to time, it was not central to the government's case, as our lengthy discussion of the sufficiency of the evidence demonstrates, see Section III, supra. 155 Moreover, the district court issued a limiting instruction on the use of evidence of civil and regulatory violations: 156 You have heard testimony and evidence that certain civil rules and/or regulations which govern the conduct of banks may not have been followed at times at Caguas. 157 You are hereby instructed that a violation of any of these rules and regulations is not a crime in and of itself, and is not determinative of a defendant's guilt or innocence. 158 The fact that certain civil rules and regulations may have been violated at Caguas may only be used by you to assist you, as you may find useful, in determining a particular defendant's motive or intent as to the crimes charged in the third superseding indictment. 159 This instruction clearly conveys that civil and regulatory violations do not establish criminal culpability. Appellants protest that the instruction exacerbated the problem because the reference to the fact that certain rules and regulations may have been violated improperly suggested that such rules and regulations had been violated. However, we see no such suggestion because the phrase  may have been violated makes clear to the jury that, if it found that such violations had occurred, it could use those violations as one piece of evidence in determining the ultimate question of criminal guilt or innocence. Given this appropriate limiting instruction, we find that the district court did not abuse its discretion by admitting evidence of regulatory violations to provide context and to demonstrate appellants' knowledge of their criminal conduct.