Opinion ID: 613858
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Jury Instructions and Law of the Case

Text: Mr. Kirby frames his second issue in the following manner: Whether the unopposed jury instruction “This website belonged 10 to someone other than the defendant” became an element of the case and formed the law of the case[,] and because the only evidence presented at trial on the status of the ownership of the website was from the alleged victim stating “Mr. Kirby was the owner and administrator”, the conviction must be vacated? Aplt. Combined Br. at 5. To the extent that Mr. Kirby is raising a sufficiency-of-the-evidence challenge regarding whether someone other that Mr. Kirby owned the website—a required element of the fraud charge—we address that contention in Part VI infra. However, insofar as Mr. Kirby is bringing a challenge related to the jury instructions or the law-of-the-case doctrine, he did not raise these issues before the district court. Generally, we “will not consider an issue raised for the first time on appeal.” Tele-Commc’ns, Inc. v. Comm’r of Internal Revenue, 12 F.3d 1005, 1007 (10th Cir. 1993). Mr. Kirby’s failure to argue for application of the plain-error standard in this instance “surely marks the end of the road for [this] argument for reversal not first presented to the district court.” Richison v. Ernest Grp., Inc., 634 F.3d 1123, 1131 (10th Cir. 2011). 4