Opinion ID: 2656230
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: throughout the trial the party argued the

Text: disputed matter with the court; (2) it is clear from the record that the court knew the party’s grounds for disagreement with the instruction; and (3) the party proposed an alternate instruction. Id. (internal quotation marks omitted). Chhun, however, never presented an alternative jury instruction, and so, at a minimum, fails the third prong of Klinger. Therefore, we review the district court’s jury instruction for plain error. The jury instruction defining “at peace” tracked the text of one of the district court’s opinions in the case: “At peace,” as that term is used in these instructions, means any time when the United States and another foreign country are not at war with one another or engaged in open and notorious military conflict with one another. Military conflict is open and notorious if it would have been known to an ordinary person in the United States who keeps up with world events. UNITED STATES V. CHHUN 17 See United States v. Chhun, No. CR 05-00519ADDP, 2008 WL 793386, at  (C.D. Cal. Mar. 20, 2008) (unpublished). Even on appeal, Chhun does not articulate an alternative definition for the term “at peace.” The district court below tried to articulate Chhun’s position for him: “Defendant Chhun’s position seems to ask the Court to find that the United States is not ‘at peace’ with a foreign nation that it condemns or opposes even if it takes no military action against that country.” United States v. Chhun, 513 F. Supp. 2d 1179, 1184 (C.D. Cal. 2007). Even assuming, for the purposes of our plain error analysis, that the district court accurately articulated Chhun’s alternative definition of “at peace,” we conclude that the district court did not plainly err in denying Chhun’s alternative jury instruction. The term “at peace” has up to this point been defined only by district courts. In United States v. Terrell, the Southern District of Florida considered whether the Neutrality Act (18 U.S.C. § 960) applied to defendants who were charged with running guns to the Contra rebels in their war against the Sandinista government of Nicaragua. 731 F. Supp. 473 (S.D. Fla. 1989). The district court focused on whether the United States was “at peace” with Nicaragua between October, 1984 and March, 1985, during which period the CIA was covertly providing financial aid to the Contras without Congress’s approval. Id. at 474. The district court held that “at peace” refers to the absence of any hostilities between the United States and a foreign country, declared or undeclared, overt or covert, and concluded that the United States and Nicaragua were not at peace during the relevant period. Id. at 475. The court therefore granted the defendants’ motions to dismiss those counts that included the “at peace” element. Id. at 477. 18 UNITED STATES V. CHHUN In United States v. Jack, the Eastern District of California considered whether the Neutrality Act applied to defendants who were charged with shipping weapons to Laos to overthrow the government. 257 F.R.D. 221 (E.D. Cal. 2009). The defendants filed a motion to compel the government to produce documents regarding, among other things, covert military operations against Laos. The defendants contended that the evidence would demonstrate their lack of knowledge that the United States was “at peace” with Laos. Id. at 223. The court concluded that “at peace” meant an absence of overt as well as covert military operations, fearing that otherwise the statute might not give fair notice and thereby be void for vagueness and violate due process. Id. at 231–32. Therefore, the court granted the defendants’ motion to compel discovery of evidence relating to overt or covert military planning or operations as to Laos during the relevant period. Id. Chhun cites these two cases in support of his contention that the United States may cease to be “at peace” with another nation even in the absence of military conflict if the relationship between the two countries is “distant and tense.” Those two cases, however, both involved actual military conflict between the United States and the foreign country. No case has held that the United States can cease to be “at peace” with another nation with the complete absence of some kind of military operation. Indeed, the history of the Neutrality Act (18 U.S.C. § 960) confirms that the United States and another nation remain “at peace” even when diplomatically they are “distant and tense,” so long as there are no military operations between them. The Neutrality Act was passed in 1794 in response to attempts by French diplomats to use the United States as a UNITED STATES V. CHHUN 19 staging ground from which to prepare expeditions against Great Britain. The United States wanted to prevent individuals from forcing it into a state of war with Britain. Jules Lobel, The Rise and Decline of the Neutrality Act: Sovereignty and Congressional War Powers in United States Foreign Policy, 24 Harv. Int’l L.J. 1, 24–25 & n.134 (1983). Thus, at the time the Neutrality Act was passed, “at peace” described the state of relations between the United States and Britain. “Distant and tense” would be an apt way to describe the diplomatic relationship between Britain and the United States in 1793, a decade after the United States and Britain had signed the Treaty of Paris and in the midst of a war between Britain and the United States’ ally France. Lobel, supra, at 11–15. Nevertheless, despite this diplomatic tension, there were no active military operations between Britain and the United States in 1794, and the “at peace” phrasing of the Neutrality Act would have been understood to describe that diplomatic relationship. We therefore hold that the district court did not plainly err in its jury instruction when it defined “at peace” as the absence of “war” or “military conflict,” and thereby required “military conflict” to end the state of “peace” for the purposes of 18 U.S.C. §§ 956(b) and 960.7 7 Chhun also argues that the jury instruction was erroneous because, by requiring “open and notorious” military conflict to end a state of peace, it excluded covert military operations. We need not decide today whether the district court erred in requiring overt military conflict to render the United States and a foreign country not “at peace” for the purposes of 18 U.S.C §§ 956(b) and 960. Any possible error would be harmless to Chhun, because he acknowledges that “the United States was not engaged in a covert war against the sitting government of Cambodia.” 20 UNITED STATES V. CHHUN V. The District Court’s Failure To Instruct the Jury To Find an Overt Act That Occurred Within the Five-Year Limitations Period Did Not Affect Chhun’s Substantial Rights Chhun argues that the district court should have informed the jury that they must find that at least one overt act supporting each element of the crimes charged in Counts Two8 and Three9 occurred within the statutory period. The statutory period commenced on May 31, 2000, because Chhun was indicted on May 31, 2005. Chhun argues that none of the charged overt acts occurred both within the statutory period and within the United States, as required by 18 U.S.C. §§ 956(b) and 960. Chhun failed to object to the absence of a jury instruction that the jurors must find an overt act in furtherance of the conspiracy within the five-year limitations period, and so the issue is reviewed for “plain error.” United States v. Fuchs, 218 F.3d 957, 961 (9th Cir. 2000). Plain error review consists of three prongs: (1) there is error; (2) the error is plain; and (3) the plain error affects substantial rights. Johnson v. United States, 520 U.S. 461, 467 (1997). If all three of these prongs are met, then the court “may exercise [its] discretion and reverse the defendant[’s] convictions if permitting the convictions to stand would result in a miscarriage of justice.” Fuchs, 218 F.3d at 963. The government acknowledges that the failure to instruct the jury 8 Count Two charged Chhun with conspiracy to damage or destroy property in a foreign country in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 956(b). 9 Count Three charged Chhun with expedition against a friendly nation in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 960. UNITED STATES V. CHHUN 21 on the statute of limitations issue satisfies the first two prongs of this test. Therefore, the remaining issues are whether the plain error affected Chhun’s substantial rights and, if so, whether this court should exercise its discretion to reverse the defendant’s convictions. A plain error affects a party’s substantial rights when it “affects the outcome of the proceedings.” Id. at 962 (internal quotation marks and brackets omitted). Chhun argues that the error affected the outcome of the trial because none of the overt acts underlying the conspiracy occurred both within the statutory period and within the United States. We have stated that a jury must “find that an overt act in furtherance of the conspiracy occurred within the statute of limitations.” Id. at 961. The “only function” of proof of an overt act, however, “is to demonstrate that the conspiracy is operative.” United States v. Andreen, 628 F.2d 1236, 1248 (9th Cir. 1980) (Kennedy, J.). The elements of a conspiracy can be satisfied even if not all of the conspiracy elements occurred within the limitations period. As we have said, “[a]ctions that cannot be prosecuted because of the statute of limitations can be considered as part of an ongoing conspiracy so long as one overt act in furtherance of the conspiracy occurred during the limitations period.” Wilbur, 674 F.3d at 1176. Here, there is ample evidence of overt acts within the statutory period that prove Chhun’s conspiracy to overthrow Hun Sen. Overt Act Number Seven of the Indictment alleges: “On or about May 31, 2000, defendant YASITH CHHUN and other co-conspirators . . . traveled from Los Angeles, California to Bangkok, Thailand in order to set up a base 22 UNITED STATES V. CHHUN camp to coordinate the attempted overthrow.”10 Overt Act Number Eight alleges: “Between July 2000 and November 2000, at defendant YASITH CHHUN’s direction, co- conspirators who were members of CFF purchased approximately $16,000 of radio equipment from Ham Radio Outlet in Anaheim, California in order to communicate during ‘Operation Volcano.’” Overt Act Number Nine alleges: “On or about November 6, 2000, at defendant YASITH CHHUN’s directions, co-conspirators who were members of CFF transported the radio equipment from Los Angeles, California to Bangkok, Thailand so that the equipment could be used to carry out ‘Operation Volcano.’” Chhun does not dispute that the bulk of activity of the conspiracy occurred within the statutory period, albeit outside the United States. Moreover, Chhun’s case is not one in which the court should “exercise [its] discretion and reverse the defendant[’s] convictions if permitting the convictions to stand would result in a miscarriage of justice.” Fuchs, 218 F.3d at 963. In Fuchs, the court decided to exercise its discretion to reverse the defendants’ convictions because the evidence supporting 10 Moreover, Overt Act Number 7 is an example of an overt act in furtherance of the conspiracy that occurred within the United States, contrary to Chhun’s contention that there was none. Chhun boarded the plane in the United States on May 31, 2000, exactly five years before he was indicted. Boarding a plane with his co-conspirators to travel to the site of the intended overthrow was an overt act committed within the United States within the statutory period. See United States v. Tawab, 984 F.2d 1533, 1534 (9th Cir. 1993) (per curiam) (holding that an indictment returned on February 15, 1991 was not barred by a five-year limitation statute where the offense occurred on February 15, 1986). Thus, there is one overt act that occurred within the statutory period within the United States that supports a conspiracy charge. UNITED STATES V. CHHUN 23 their guilt “was not overwhelming,” as there were very few overt acts committed within the statutory period. Id. (internal quotation marks omitted). When the evidence is “overwhelming,” on the other hand, courts have not exercised their discretion to reverse defendants’ convictions. See United States v. Bear, 439 F.3d 565, 570 (9th Cir. 2006) (“Allowing the conviction to stand does not have those serious effects on judicial proceedings when the evidence against the defendant on the issue erroneously explained to the jury is ‘overwhelming’” (quoting Fuchs, 218 F.3d at 963)). Here, as shown above, the evidence of the conspiracy was overwhelming and, indeed, essentially uncontroverted at trial. Therefore, we dismiss Chhun’s challenge to the district court’s jury instructions because any error in failing to instruct the jury to find an overt act within the statutory period did not affect Chhun’s substantial rights.