Opinion ID: 564390
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Change of Appearance Instruction

Text: 16 Perkins also claims the district court erred in instructing the jury that it could consider a defendant's change of appearance as evidence of consciousness of guilt. 3 The government justifies the instruction from the fact that the bank surveillance photographs show the robber to have a long, thick moustache, whereas the booking photograph of Perkins shows him to have only a small amount of growth over his lip. A flight instruction, modified for changes in appearance, is valid only when the links along the extended chain of inference from the defendant's behavior to actual guilt of the crime charged are unbroken, and when the defendant's flight reaction is immediate to the crime. Feldman, 788 F.2d at 555. 4 17 We agree that the record in this case does not contain facts supporting the instruction. A change of appearance instruction contemplates some independent evidence indicating that the defendant himself actually changed his appearance. Thus, when a defendant is known shortly after the commission of a crime to have cut his hair, shaved off facial hair, or changed his hair color, the jury can consider this as evidence of consciousness of guilt and consider it in light of the other evidence in deciding whether the defendant is guilty. See United States v. McKinley, 485 F.2d 1059, 1061 (D.C.Cir.1973) (Another inference available from a change in appearance by someone who has been called to appear in a lineup is, simply, that the change reflects an awareness of guilt and fear of identification.). Without this kind of independent evidence, there is no basis for the trier of fact to infer that the defendant sitting in the courtroom ever evinced any consciousness of guilt. 18 A change of appearance instruction is not justified when there is evidence showing only that the robber may have changed his appearance or that the robber and the defendant at the time of his arrest have different appearances. In these instances, in order to decide that the defendant changed his appearance, it is necessary to decide that the defendant is in fact the robber. Any inference of consciousness of guilt is therefore unnecessary because the jury has already concluded the defendant is the perpetrator. 19 In this case, there is no evidence showing that Perkins changed his appearance. The bank surveillance photographs show the robber had a thick moustache and witness Chris Alamond testified that the man photographed in the bank surveillance pictures was the same man he saw leaving the bank, but that he didn't recall any facial hair. This merely provides support for the inference that the robber may have been wearing a disguise, not that Perkins changed his appearance. Moreover, the fact that the booking photograph shows Perkins to have only a small amount of growth over his lip, while the bank surveillance photographs show the robber to have a thick moustache indicates only that the robber and the defendant at his arrest have different appearances, not that Perkins recently shaved off a moustache. The record does not contain independent evidence that Perkins had a moustache prior to the robbery, or that he shaved off (or removed) a moustache at any time prior to his arrest. Accordingly, the district court improperly instructed the jury on change of appearance. 20 While the district court's instruction was improper, this circuit has previously held that an inappropriate 'consciousness of guilt' instruction may amount to harmless error. United States v. Wagner, 834 F.2d 1474, 1485 (9th Cir.1987) (citing Feldman ). In Feldman, we concluded that the district court erroneously instructed the jury that it could consider the fact that the defendant shaved off his beard prior to trial as evidence of consciousness of guilt. Because the record demonstrated that Feldman shaved his beard nine months after his arrest, and at the request of his mother to please her, the lack of any immediacy of Feldman's behavior rendered the chain of inferences to support the instruction pitifully weak. Feldman, 788 F.2d at 555 & n. 14. Yet we concluded that it is inconceivable that the instruction influenced the outcome of the trial, given the highly probative search and identification evidence against the defendant. Id. 21 Despite the inappropriateness of the instruction in this case, we conclude any error was harmless. First, in order for the jury to have attached significance to any change of appearance, the jury already would have concluded that the defendant was the robber. Additionally, the consciousness of guilt inference which flows from any change of appearance was an inference which the jury could already draw from Perkins's false exculpatory statements concerning his ownership of the blue Datsun. Cf. United States v. Brown, 575 F.2d 746, 747 (9th Cir.1978) (per curiam) (no reversible error where only one example of flight in boilerplate instruction supported by the facts of the case). Moreover, the evidence the government presented showed that Alamond identified Perkins as the man he saw running from the bank and getting in a blue Datsun; the police found in the bank a parking citation issued to the blue Datsun which was registered to Perkins, and found a delinquent notice for the ticket in Perkins's apartment; Perkins lied about his ownership of the car when he actually drove the blue Datsun to the place where he was arrested and had the keys to that car in his pocket, showing his consciousness of guilt; and the police found in Perkins's apartment a rust-colored 1970's style suit and maroon briefcase matching those used in the robbery. 5 These considerations, taken together, convince us beyond a reasonable doubt that the instruction did not affect the verdict. 6 22