Opinion ID: 2981294
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Makeup Artist

Text: Defendant’s final substantive claim is that the district court erred in refusing to appoint a professional make-up artist to camouflage potentially offensive tattoos over his face and neck, including: a sketch of Adolph Hitler; a sketch of Bob Matthews, founder of the “New World Order” white supremacy group; and two swastikas. Defendant does not dispute that he wilfully acquired these tattoos. Nonetheless, Defendant claims his tattoos made him less attractive and more frightening than an average defendant and argues that being forced to appear for trial in his normal state deprived him of a fundamentally fair trial. Pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 3006A(e)(1), a district court has authority to approve an indigent defendant’s request for “investigative, expert, or other services” necessary to his defense.4 18 U.S.C. § 3006A(e)(1). In order to obtain the desired services, a defendant must show that “(1) such services are necessary to mount a plausible defense, and (2) without such authorization, [his] case would be prejudiced.” United States v. Gilmore, 282 F.3d 398, 406 (6th Cir. 2002). We review the denial of a services request under § 3006A(e)(1) for abuse of discretion. Id. The district court’s decision to deny Defendant’s motion was not an abuse of discretion. First, the court asked the jury during voir dire whether Defendant’s tattoos would prevent them from being fair and impartial: Let me note that the defendant as you have observed [Defendant] has extensive tattoos on his neck, on his face, on his head. Let me see if that fact raises any particular concerns for any of you, and let me just say if you want to raise that and 4 The United States does not contest that Defendant is indigent. 11 I’d encourage you to do so if you need to, we’ll follow up on that at the bench in terms of any follow-up questions. Does that raise a concern with anybody? Does everyone (sic) feel like they could be fair and impartial in reaching a verdict? Okay. Although defense counsel was originally reticent to voir dire the jury on this issue for fear it would attract more attention to Defendant’s tattoos, the district court was sensitive to these concerns and its approach was effectively crafted to identify juror prejudice without creating it. As the court explained to defense counsel, the court purposefully saved its voir dire questions on Defendant’s tattoos until the end of questioning “because I wanted there to be a period of time in which . . . the jury . . . [had] been in the presence of the defendant given his tattoos” and so that “I would not have to bring too much attention to it (sic)[.] I didn’t want to make it sound like something extraordinarily out of the ordinary so I used [the] question that we agreed to and . . . did a general follow up about being fair and impartial . . . .” Id. at 146. Indeed, defense counsel indicated that he was satisfied with the panel’s reaction: “Judge, regarding the issue of the tattooing, I don’t have anymore questions that I would like the court to raise. There didn’t seem to be an issue with the panel.” Id. at 147. Additionally, the case law Defendant cites in support of his claim is inapposite. The two Supreme Court cases on which he relies, Estelle v. Williams, 425 U.S. 501 (1976) and Holbrook v. Flynn, 475 U.S. 560 (1986), do not affirm the proposition that allowing Defendant’s tattoos to be visible during trial was unfair or prejudicial. In Williams, the Court established the now-recognized rule that defendants cannot be forced to appear for trial in prison clothing, acknowledging that the “clothing is so likely to be a continuing influence throughout the trial that . . . an unacceptable risk is presented of impermissible factors coming into play.” Williams, 425 U.S. at 505. Similarly, in Flynn, the Court held that deployment of numerous security personnel into the defendant’s 12 courtroom was inherently prejudicial and, like shackling a prisoner during trial, could be permitted only in the face of an essential and specific state interest. Flynn, 475 U.S. at 568-69. As the Supreme Court itself has noted, however, Williams and Flynn relate only to prejudice resulting from state-sponsored activities, not private-actor conduct. See Carey v. Musladin, 549 U.S. 70, 76 (2006) (“[P]art of the legal test of Williams and Flynn-asking whether the practices furthered an essential state interest—suggests that those cases apply only to state-sponsored practices.”) (footnote omitted). Although Defendant cites our decision in United States v. Crane, this too is inapposite because it dealt, like Williams and Flynn, with potential prejudice resulting from state-sponsored activity. See United States v. Crane, 499 F.2d 1385, 1388-89 (6th Cir. 1974) (distinguishing the inherent prejudice of a defendant being shackled in a courtroom for an extended duration from the mere fact that jurors briefly observed the defendant in shackles inside the courthouse). Defendant readily admits that the state did not sponsor his tattoos and we find that Defendant’s choice to alter his natural appearance is the very type of private-actor conduct that typically operates outside of the government’s control and responsibility. See United States v. Quintero, 1991 WL 80573, No. 9050563 (9th Cir. May 15, 1991) (holding that Williams “cannot be stretched” to apply to the defendant’s claim that the court deprived him a fair trial by disallowing him to wear a long-sleeve shirt to trial to cover his tattoos because, inter alia, Williams “involved [a] defendant[] compelled by the state” to appear for trial in prejudicial prison clothing (emphasis added)).5 Although these cases do not rule out the possibility that private-actor conduct could render the circumstances of a trial inherently prejudicial, Defendant has not presented such a case. Cf. id. 5 This unpublished decision also appears in a “Table of Decisions Without Recorded Opinions” in the Federal Reporter. It appears there as U.S. v. Quintero, 933 F.2d 1017 (9th Cir. 1991). 13 Moreover, Defendant fails to satisfy Gilmore’s two-prong test for the appointment of professional services. See Gilmore, 282 F.3d at 406 (holding that for professional services to be appointed, a defendant must have shown that they were necessary to his defense and that he was prejudiced by the district court’s failure to authorize them). First, the service of a makeup artist to cover Defendant’s tattoos was not indispensable to his ability to raise a plausible defense. The fact that the jury acquitted Defendant of three of the four charges against him is enough to undermine any claim to the contrary. Second, Defendant cannot show that he was prejudiced by the district court’s ruling. In Flynn, the Supreme Court held that the district court must look at the scene presented to the jurors to determine whether what the jurors saw was so inherently prejudicial that it posed an unacceptable threat to the defendant’s right to a fair trial. Flynn, 475 U.S. at 572. The Court noted that this was a high standard and one not easily reached, adding that the circumstances at trial must leave the defendant branded “‘with an unmistakable mark of guilt’” in the eyes of the jurors. Id. at 571 (quoting Williams, 425 U.S. at 518 (Brennan, J., dissenting)). Again, the jury’s acquittal on the majority of the charges against Defendant is a clear indication that his tattoos did not affect the jury’s ability to impartially weigh the evidence presented. Accordingly, we reject Defendant’s argument that the district court’s refusal to provide a professional makeup artist deprived him of a fundamentally fair trial.