Opinion ID: 1470216
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: analysis

Text: This Court reviews a decision regarding a defendant's right to be present at a particular stage of trial de novo, see United States v. Canady, 126 F.3d 352, 360 (2d Cir.1997), but a district court's determination of whether the defendant waived his right to be present at a particular stage of trial is reviewed for abuse of discretion, see United States v. Fontanez, 878 F.2d 33, 35-36 (2d Cir.1989). Where, as here, the defendant timely challenges the district court's jury instructions on a legal issue in proceedings below, this Court reviews the validity of the district court's jury instructions de novo. See United States v. George, 386 F.3d 383, 397 (2d Cir.2004).
The Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment guarantees the right of a criminal defendant to be present at trial to confront witnesses and the evidence against him. United States v. Gagnon, 470 U.S. 522, 526, 105 S.Ct. 1482, 84 L.Ed.2d 486 (1985). Through the Due Process Clause of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments, this right to be present has been extended to other critical stages of trial beyond those related to the defendant's rights to confronting witnesses and evidence. See id. That is, a defendant has a due process right to be present in his own person whenever his presence has a relation, reasonably substantial, to the fulness of his opportunity to defend against the charge. Kentucky v. Stincer, 482 U.S. 730, 745, 107 S.Ct. 2658, 96 L.Ed.2d 631 (1987) (internal quotation marks omitted). Taken together, then, the constitutional right to be present at one's own trial exists at any stage of the criminal proceeding that is critical to its outcome if [the defendant's] presence would contribute to the fairness of the procedure. Stincer, 482 U.S. at 745, 107 S.Ct. 2658; United States v. Peterson, 385 F.3d 127, 137 (2d Cir.2004). Rule 43 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure reinforces this constitutional right by providing that a criminal defendant has a right to be present at every trial stage. See Fed.R.Crim.P. 43; Fontanez, 878 F.2d at 35 (stating that Rule 43 was explicitly intended to codify existing law concerning a defendant's constitutional and common law rights to be present throughout trial (internal quotation marks omitted)). As relevant here, [i]t is beyond dispute that a judge's instructions to a jury constitute an integral part of the trial. Fontanez, 878 F.2d at 35. The defendant's constitutional and statutory right to be present, however, may be either expressly or effectively waived by the defendant. See, e.g., id. at 36 (citing, as examples, cases where the defendant effectively waived his or her right to be present by jumping bail, deliberately failing to appear for trial, or behaving in a disruptive manner during trial). To establish waiver, the District Court must conduct a record inquiry to determine whether the defendant's absence was knowing and voluntary and without sound excuseotherwise, a remand is ordinarily warranted in the absence of such record inquiry. See United States v. Hernandez, 873 F.2d 516, 518-19 (2d Cir. 1989). Moreover, even after properly concluding that the right to be present has been waived by the defendant, the District Court must then determine whether there was on balance a controlling public interest to continue the trial in the defendant's absence. Fontanez, 878 F.2d at 35. Any error by the District Court to continue the trial in the defendant's absence is reviewed for harmlessness, i.e., whether the error `created any reasonable possibility of prejudice.' See id. at 37 (quoting United States v. Toliver, 541 F.2d 958, 965 (2d Cir.1976)); Toliver, 541 F.2d at 964-65 (stating that an error is harmless if harmless beyond a reasonable doubt); see also Stincer, 482 U.S. at 745, 107 S.Ct. 2658 (stating that the right to be present is not guaranteed when presence would be useless, or the benefit but a shadow (internal citation and quotation marks omitted)). Here, the record is unclear as to whether the defendant knowingly and voluntarily absented himself from his trial proceedings. Tureseo and one of his attorneys, Witzel, appeared in the District Court shortly after the court had finished giving the limited jury instruction in their absence. Witzel explained that Tureseo begged the marshal to take him to court but that the marshal refused after Tureseo, who allegedly was suffering from a shoulder injury, insisted that he be double-cuffed rather than single-cuffed. Beyond Witzel's explanation, however, the District Court did not conduct the requisite inquiry into the circumstances of Tureseo's absence. It did not confirm or inquire about Tureseo's shoulder injury or attempt to contact the marshals involved with moving Tureseo in and out of the detention facility. Cf. Hernandez, 873 F.2d at 518-19 (remanding case where, after the jury was impaneled in the absence of the defendant, the court failed to conduct inquiry into circumstances of defendant's absence on the next day when the defendant offered an explanation for his absence). The record reveals that the District Court did not initially seek an explanation from either Witzel or Tureseo upon their appearance in court. Instead, following a short colloquy with respect to the content of the jury instructions, it was Witzel who initiated the explanation for Tureseo's absence as one otherone matter with respect to what happened this morning. Although it may be that the District Court at some time conducted a thorough inquiry into the reasons for Tureseo's absence, that inquiry was not conducted on the record as required by law. See id. Accordingly, we are constrained to find that the District Court's decision to continue proceedings in Tureseo's absence was in error. Notwithstanding the District Court's failure to inquire on the record about the nature and reasons for Tureseo's absence, however, we find that such error was harmless in the circumstances revealed here. Tureseo was present on the day when all but a small fraction of the jury instructions were given. He was absent on the following day only for the time it took for the court to give a brief instruction to the jury that it need not reach Count Three unless it first found Tureseo guilty of Count Two. Moreover, the District Court prevented the jury from drawing adverse inferences from Tureseo's absence by instructing it not to place any significance on the absence of defendant and Witzel. Cf. United States v. Fernandez, 829 F.2d 363, 367 (2d Cir.1987) (Fernandez's absence was not improperly used to influence the jury, as the government never called attention to his absence or argued that any negative inferences could be drawn from it, and [the] Judge ... explicitly instructed the jury to disregard Fernandez's absence.); see also United States v. Snype, 441 F.3d 119, 129 (2d Cir.2006) (stating that a jury is presumed to follow the court's instructions). Insofar as Tureseo raises any concerns that the jury did not have an additional opportunity to examine his featuresthe main issue in his prosecution being one of identity these concerns were eliminated when the jury was allowed to return to the courtroom to view him later during deliberations. Moreover, in light of the overwhelming evidence of Tureseo's guilt, there was no possibility of prejudice here. With respect to the illegal reentry charge (Count One), the government established through fingerprint evidence that Tureseo was, in fact, the same Juan Tureseo who had been previously deported following a conviction for assault in the second degree. There was also evidence presented at trial that Tureseo had signed his name Juan Tureseo on his fingerprint card and testimony of a federal agent that Tureseo had admitted to being the previously deported Juan Tureseo at the time of his arrest. On the false claim of United States citizenship charge (Count Two), it is undisputed that Tureseo directed his prior attorney to send a birth certificate of one Danny Ortegaa United States citizento the United States Attorney's Office. There was no dispute at trial that the birth certificate did not belong to Tureseo. The real Danny Ortega testified that the birth certificate was his, and Danny Ortega's birth mother testified at trial that the birth certificate was Danny Ortega's and that Tureseo was not her son. Therefore, considering, in their totality, the brevity of the jury instructions given during Tureseo's absence, the District Court's direction to the jury not to place any significance on Tureseo's absence, the jury's opportunity to view Tureseo at its request, and the overwhelming evidence establishing Tureseo's guilt of Counts One and Two, any error by the District Court to continue proceedings in the absence of Tureseo was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt.
At the time of Tureseo's appeal, our sister circuits were in disagreement as to the elements of the aggravated identity theft provision, 18 U.S.C. § 1028A(a)(1), which provides: Whoever, during and in relation to any felony violation enumerated in subsection (c), knowingly transfers, possesses, or uses, without lawful authority, a means of identification of another person shall, in addition to the punishment provided for such felony, be sentenced to a term of imprisonment of 2 years. 18 U.S.C. § 1028A(a)(1) (emphasis supplied). Specifically, the circuits were divided as to whether the mens rea of knowingly modifies only the verbs transfers, possesses, or uses or also modifies the prepositional phrase of another person, even though that phrase comes after the adverb phrase without lawful authority, the indirect object a means, and the prepositional phrase of identification. Compare United States v. Mendoza-Gonzalez, 520 F.3d 912, 915 (8th Cir.2008) (holding that the knowingly mens rea does not modify of another person); United States v. Hurtado, 508 F.3d 603, 608-09 (11th Cir.2007) (same); United States v. Montejo, 442 F.3d 213, 215 (4th Cir.2006) (same), with United States v. Godin, 534 F.3d 51, 61 (1st Cir.2008) (holding that the knowingly mens rea modifies of another person); United States v. Miranda-Lopez, 532 F.3d 1034, 1040 (9th Cir.2008) (same); United States v. Villanueva-Sotelo, 515 F.3d 1234, 1246 (D.C.Cir.2008) (same). The Supreme Court resolved the circuit split in Flores-Figueroa v. United States, ___ U.S. ___, 129 S.Ct. 1886, ___ L.Ed.2d ___ (2009), where the Court held that the aggravated identity theft provision of 18 U.S.C. § 1028A(a)(1) requires the Government to show that the defendant knew that the means of identification at issue belonged to another person. Id. at 1887. Accordingly, we are constrained to identify error in the District Court's refusal to instruct the jury that an aggravated identity theft conviction requires a finding that Tureseo knew that the means of identity he used to falsely claim United States citizenship belonged to another person, i.e., an actual person. See id. at 1887 (concluding that the aggravated identity theft provision was intended to provide an enhanced sentence to those who knew the identity they were unlawfully using was of a real person). We note that the learned District Court did not have the benefit of the Supreme Court's holding in Flores-Figueroa or any guidance from this Court when it charged the jury in this case. We further conclude that the District Court's error was not harmless. Because a jury instruction that omits an essential element of the offense is constitutional error, a conviction can only stand if such error was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. See DiGuglielmo v. Smith, 366 F.3d 130, 136 (2d Cir.2004) (citing Neder v. United States, 527 U.S. 1, 8-10, 119 S.Ct. 1827, 144 L.Ed.2d 35 (1999)). The government asserts that Tureseo was not simply using a Social Security number or an A-Number.... Instead, he was using someone else's name, date of birth, biographical information and birth certificate, and thus argues that this evidence was sufficient for any reasonable jury to conclude that Tureseo, by assuming an alternate identity, knew that he was using the identity of an actual person. Although there appears to be substantial evidence for the jury to conclude that Tureseo knew that Ortega was an actual person at the time he used Ortega's birth certificate to falsely claim United States citizenship, the evidence does not all flow in one direction. For example, the jury was also presented with Ortega's testimony that he had never met or seen Tureseo before the trial, thus suggesting that Tureseo did not know of Ortega's existence at all. Therefore, we cannot conclude that the District Court's improper jury instructions were harmless beyond a reasonable doubt, and the District Court's judgment of conviction with regard to aggravated identity theft cannot stand.