Opinion ID: 712827
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Defendant's Motion to Sever

Text: 12 Because Thierman challenges the joinder of his two indictments for trial as prejudicial, we must determine whether, in failing to grant the motion for severance, the court abused its discretion. See U.S. v. Vasquez-Velasco, 15 F.3d 833, 844 (9th Cir.1993). 13 (A) Thierman argues that this challenge falls under Fed.R.Crim.P. 8(a), but it more accurately falls under Fed.R.Crim.P. 14. Both of Thierman's objections assert that prejudice resulted from joinder--a topic appropriate to Rule 14, not Rule 8(a). 1 14 To establish prejudice under Vasquez-Velasco, a defendant must show such  'clear,' 'manifest,' or 'undue' prejudice from the joint trial, that it violates one of his substantive rights, so that the prejudice is of such a magnitude that the defendant was denied a fair trial. Vasquez-Velasco, 15 F.3d at 845-846. 15 Thierman claims that joinder was prejudicial because (1) it forced him to present antagonistic defenses, and (2) it required the jury to compartmentalize evidence admitted for only one of the two counts in a case far too complex for it do so. 16 Joinder did not force Thierman to present antagonistic defenses. Truly mutually exclusive defenses are said to exist when acquittal of one co-defendant would necessarily call for conviction of the other. U.S. v. Tootick, 952 F.2d 1078, 1081 (9th Cir.1991). For a single defendant in a multi-count indictment to be forced to assert mutually inconsistent or antagonistic defenses, the charging language would have to be of such a nature that one count could be defended only by proving facts, which if found by the jury to be true, would necessarily convict him on another count. This kind of compulsion was not present here. 17 The jury could have found that Thierman had no intent to defraud or mislead during the time period of the first count, and that there was no sale for intended drug use during the time period charged in the second count. The defenses are not mutually exclusive. The shifting claims that GHB was sold as a drug at one time and that it was not sold as a drug at another time may cast some doubt on Thierman's veracity, but these claims do not necessarily prove that the product ever was sold as a drug or that it never was sold as a drug. 18 Thierman found himself wishing to prove that he did not intend to defraud or mislead in one indictment because he openly manufactured GHB and promoted its drug effects to his customers. He was understandably unhappy about having to try to prove in the same trial, before the same jury, that he had not, during the time period charged in the second indictment, sold as a drug, the product he admitted to selling as a drug during the time period of the first indictment. There was no abuse of discretion in denying severance. Thierman's difficulty was of his own confection, and the government understandably attempted to take advantage of that situation. 19 As to Thierman's challenge of the severance denial based upon the alleged inability of the jury to compartmentalize evidence, we note that the instructions to the jury, and the verdicts returned by the jury were scrupulously selective. U.S. v. Cuozzo, 962 F.2d 945, 950 (9th Cir.1992), cert. denied, 113 S.Ct. 475 (1992). The district court gave limiting instructions at the time the evidence was initially admitted, and again in the final instructions. The jury returned a clearly understandable verdict. It convicted on only three charges out of more than twenty. 2 These factors indicate that the jury had no difficulty compartmentalizing the evidence at issue. 20 U.S. v. Lewis, 787 F.2d 1318 (9th Cir.1986), amended on denial of reh'g, 798 F.2d 1250 (9th Cir.1986), cited by Thierman, is unpersuasive here. Unlike the present case, the trial court in Lewis gave a limiting instruction only near the end of the trial, not at the time the evidence was admitted. 21