Opinion ID: 787694
Heading Depth: 5
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Brown Day Planner

Text: 98 The district court's finding that Mellin was also responsible for the intentional submission of the brown day planner is also clearly erroneous. The district court based this finding upon (1) statements by several witnesses that Mellin had physical possession of the brown day planner during closing argument the day before the evidence was sorted; and (2) the testimony of defense counsel that, on the following morning, Mellin asked for permission to remove the contents and submit the brown leather cover with only the admitted pages and that he had the brown day planner and the admitted copies in hand at the time. This testimony is insufficient to support the district court's determination that Mellin intentionally slipped the brown day planner with its entire contents into the evidence being taken to the jury. 99 First, it was patently insufficient to rest a finding of intentional misconduct on the undisputed fact that Mellin handled the brown day planner during his closing argument and, while doing so, referred to its admitted entries pertaining to Julia's expected date of return. According to the district court, Mellin's act of holding the brown day planner before the jury [during closing] served to focus their attention on it because he wanted to make sure they reviewed it. Accordingly, it is reasonable to infer that Mr. Mellin was himself focused on the importance of the brown day planner. J.A. 2864. 100 Although the district court does not elaborate upon these inferences, we can only assume that the court believed Mellin concocted a plan before closing to sneak the unadmitted and undiscussed portions of the planner into the jury room — evidence he never directly attempted to introduce — with the admitted portions that he discussed in his closing and that, as part of this plan, he drew some special attention to the brown day planner to ensure that the jury looked at it. Again, the district court's view of the evidence was no doubt tainted by its erroneous belief that the day planner had been excluded in the pretrial order and again during trial. Moreover, it is not reasonable to infer from Mellin's mere use of the planner in closing argument that Mellin viewed the unadmitted contents of the brown day planner as so critical or important that he would concoct a plan to highlight the brown day planner to the jury in closing arguments and then slip it to the jury in contravention of court orders. During his closing argument, Mellin referred briefly to the admitted pages from the day planner which corroborated the testimony of numerous witnesses that Doris told them she was bound for Lentz's house on April 23 to pick up Julia. The only other demonstrated importance that the pages held for Mellin was that they contradicted the black day planner pages which, according to Lieberman, had been submitted to demonstrate an inconsistency and some confusion with the government's theory that on April 23rd of 1996, Doris Lentz went to Jay Lentz's house to pick up their daughter. J.A. 2488. 101 We are also unable to endorse the district court's finding of intentional conduct based upon defense counsel's assertion that Mellin requested their permission to insert the admitted excerpt from the brown day planner inside the leather cover. Clark and Lieberman testified that Mellin approached Clark and sought approval to remove the contents of the brown day planner from the brown leather cover and submit the cover with the two admitted pages. According to Lieberman, however, the request was made before Solomon even checked the exhibits. Lieberman testified that, somewhat because of the contentious nature of the relationship Mr. Mellin and I have had over the year, he said, almost sarcastically to Mr. Mellin, you know, that's fine, Steve, as long as you take everything else out. J.A. 2492. 102 Mellin acknowledged having a brief conversation with defense counsel about the brown day planner, but did not recall making this alleged request. Mellin's inability to recall caused the district court great concern. J.A. 2865. However, a fair reading of the evidence does not support the inference that Mellin was not credible, or that this conversation was part of his plan to intentionally slip the entire contents of the day planner to the jury. As lead prosecutor, Mellin was overseeing the process of sorting the exhibits, but no one has asserted that he was involved in the hands-on sorting of evidence. There was no particular controversy going on that would have caused Mellin to remember the specifics of that morning. The prosecution team witnesses had no recollection of a conversation between Clark and Mellin about the brown day planner contents. Solomon and Scruggs were in the area at the time of the purported conversation, but they also testified that they overheard no such conversation. Defense counsel acknowledged that they did not inform Solomon of any agreement to submit the admitted two pages within the brown leather cover and they admitted that no one from the defense team ever saw or examined the brown day planner to see if the contents had been removed and replaced. Indeed, it is quite a stretch to interpret even the defense counsel's recitation of what occurred as an agreement to submit the evidence in a different form. According to Lieberman, Mellin asked for permission to submit Government's Exhibit 548 (which consisted of the four photocopied pages) inside the brown leather binder (which was also marked Exhibit 548 but never admitted in its entirety) before the exhibits were even checked by the court clerk and received a sarcastic response. And, Solomon testified that Exhibit 548 was sent to the jury in its admitted form. Thus, it seems more probable that Mellin, assuming he ever made the request, simply abandoned it in light of Lieberman's sarcastic response. 10