Opinion ID: 3002581
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Brownlee

Text: Brownlee raises one argument on appeal: that the district court’s “ostrich” or “deliberate avoidance” instruction was erroneous because, he argues, no facts existed for the jury to conclude he deliberately avoided finding out about the marijuana. Brownlee did not object to the ostrich instruction at trial, so our review is for plain error. Griffin v. Foley, 542 F.3d 209, 222 (7th Cir. 2008). The instruction informs the jury that defendants who suspect they are committing a crime, and deliberately avoid confirming that suspicion, intend to commit the crime in the eyes of the law. United States v. Black, 530 F.3d 596, 604 (7th Cir. 2008). The instruction is appropriate where a defendant claims a lack of guilty knowledge and the government has presented sufficient evidence for the jury to conclude that the defendant deliberately avoided learning the truth. United States v. Carani, 492 F.3d 867, 873 (7th Cir. 2007). Brownlee believed there were only two choices for the jury to make: either that he had actual knowledge of the marijuana plot, or that he was innocent. See United States v. Craig, 178 F.3d 891, 898 (7th Cir. 1999). The ostrich instruction is inappropriate where the jury is left with such a “binary choice.” Id.; United States v. Giovannetti, 919 F.3d 1223, 1228 (7th Cir. 1990). Here, though, the jury had more than two choices. At Brownlee’s trial, the government presented evidence that Brownlee drove Bautista and other men carrying picks and machetes to the plot multiple times, but never once went into the field himself, and never discussed with the men what they were doing on the land. During his closing argument, Brownlee’s attorney told the jury, “don’t you think, by the way, that if Gordon Brownlee really knows what’s going on back there, at some point he’d have gotten curious enough to go back there and look at this stuff?” The district court did not plainly err in issuing the ostrich instruction in Brownlee’s trial. In fact, Brownlee’s attorney’s comments seemed to invite the instruction by arguing that Brownlee would have been too curious to stay away if he had known what the men were growing on the plot. And the government presented sufficient facts to support a finding of deliberate avoidance—namely, Brownlee’s apparent lack of curiosity about what several men from Chicago were doing on his property with machetes. This “avoidance of Nos. 06‐4422 & 07‐1093 Page 4 confirmation of one’s suspicions”—both physical and psychological—is the equivalent of knowing that the land was being used to grow marijuana. Black, 530 F.3d 596, 604 (7th Cir. 2008) (suggesting that knowledge of wrongdoing can be inferred where “you think you’ve rented your house to a drug gang, but to avoid confirming your supposition you make sure not to drive near the house, where you might observe signs of drug activity.”) The district court did not plainly err in issuing the ostrich instruction.