Opinion ID: 2801457
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Plain-Error Analysis

Text: We begin our plain-error analysis of Mann’s constructive-amendment argument by asking whether Mann can even show error. We note that he claims error based on “Alleyne and [United States v.] Stirone, [361 U.S. 212 (1960)], and this Court’s decisions on constructive amendment of indictments. . . .” Appellant’s Br. at 21. Accordingly, we evaluate each of these two distinct bases in determining whether the district court constructively amended his indictment contrary to law. First, we observe that we have already concluded that the Alleyne error here—failure to instruct the jury that it must find discharge beyond a reasonable doubt—does not qualify Mann to any relief in view of the overwhelming evidence that he did discharge a firearm during the assaults. In fact, in his recorded FBI interview—played for the jury— Mann admitted several times that he had discharged his firearm. On appeal, Mann concedes that “the jury would have found the mere fact of discharge of a firearm on Count 5.” Appellant’s Rep. Br. at 3. - 12 - Thus, despite the district court’s failure to instruct the jury that it must find that Mann had discharged a firearm, the error was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt because overwhelming evidence established the “discharge.” See Recuenco, 548 U.S. at 214–15 (affirming enhanced sentence for second-degree assault with a firearm despite the jury’s not being presented the question whether the assault was with a “firearm” instead of a generic “deadly weapon,” because the government had introduced overwhelming evidence that defendant had in fact used a firearm during the assault); United States v. Pizarro, 772 F.3d 284, 287 (1st Cir. 2014) (affirming enhanced drug sentence despite error in not instructing the jury on individualized drug quantity for aggravated conspiracy count and aggravated possession count after concluding “beyond a reasonable doubt that the omitted element[s] [were] uncontested and supported by overwhelming evidence, such that the jury verdict would have been the same absent the error[s]”); United States v. King, 751 F.3d 1268 (11th Cir. 2014) (affirming enhanced § 924(c) sentence for brandishing a firearm despite Alleyne error because video surveillance and victim testimony made it “clear beyond a reasonable doubt that a rational jury would have found King guilty of brandishing a firearm absent the Alleyne error.”); United States v. Cureton, 739 F.3d 1032, 1046 (7th Cir. 2014) (affirming on same basis because it was highly unlikely that a jury would not have found brandishing based on the victim’s testimony that defendant had held a gun to her head); United States v. Mack, 729 F.3d 594, 606–09 (6th Cir. 2013) (affirming on same basis because “the jury would have found beyond a reasonable doubt . . . that the defendant brandished a firearm during the robberies. . . .”). - 13 - Having lost on Alleyne, and having conceded that issue rather than appeal it, Mann cannot uproot the first two prongs of plain error from the district court’s Alleyne analysis and replant them in his constructive amendment analysis. The two claims of error are distinct. Even so, the government endorses Mann’s shortcut, conceding that Mann can satisfy the first two prongs of plain error for his constructive-amendment argument by transplanting the conceded Alleyne error. This concession is mistaken. Even if Mann were allowed to use an error under one theory to establish error under a different theory, he would still fail. Alleyne does not require a district court to instruct that a jury must find that a defendant “knowingly discharged” a firearm “in relation to” an underlying crime of violence. The error he claims under Alleyne is not the error needed to show a constructive amendment. Second, we reject Mann’s argument that under Supreme Court cases the district court impermissibly constructively amended the indictment. In making his constructiveamendment argument, Mann first and primarily relies on Ex parte Bain, 121 U.S. 1 (1887). He analogizes his case to Bain, focusing on Bain’s reversing a district court for striking extraneous language from an indictment. Specifically, as here, the government in Bain charged conduct unneeded to sustain its statutory burden. There, the government charged that the defendants had made a “false statement and report in manner and form . . . with intent to deceive the comptroller of the currency and the agent appointed to examine the affairs of said association. . . .” Id. at 4 (emphasis in original). The district court struck the italicized language from the indictment because nothing in the criminal statute required intent to deceive the comptroller of currency. Id. - 14 - On appeal to the Supreme Court, the defendant argued that the district court had constructively amended the indictment. The government opposed this by contending that the stricken language was “surplusage” and that “the grand jury would have found the indictment without this language.” Id. at 9. The Supreme Court rejected the government’s approach, concluding that it was not for the Supreme Court to “say whether [the grand jury] would or not [have indicted]” and that “[t]he party can only be tried upon the indictment as found by such grand jury, and especially upon all its language found in the charging part of that instrument.” Id. at 9–10. If Bain were still good law on this point, Mann might well prevail. But it is not. Although Mann acknowledges United States v. Miller, 471 U.S. 130 (1985), in his brief, he fails to give the case its full import. In Miller, a unanimous Court addressed Bain head-on, restating Bain’s second proposition10 before rejecting it: Bain can support the proposition that the striking out of parts of an indictment invalidates the whole of the indictment, for a court cannot speculate as to whether the grand jury had meant for any remaining offense to stand independently, even if that remaining offense clearly was included in the original text. Id. at 142. Reviewing its post-Bain cases, the Court noted that “when defendants have sought to rely on Bain for this point, this Court has limited or distinguished the case, sustaining convictions where courts had withdrawn or ignored independent and unnecessary 10 Bain’s first proposition against broadening an indictment still holds. That proposition relates not to a district court’s striking surplusage from an indictment but to a conviction’s being “based on an offense that is different from that alleged in the grand jury’s indictment.” Miller, 471 U.S. at 142. - 15 - allegations in the indictments.” Id. at 144 (citing Ford v. United States, 273 U.S. 593, 602 (1927), and Salinger v. United States, 272 U.S. 542, 549 (1926)). In “explicitly rejecting” Bain’s second proposition, the Miller Court noted that the case “has simply not survived” and rejected any notion that it is “an unconstitutional amendment to drop from an indictment those allegations that are unnecessary to an offense that is clearly contained within it. . . .” Id. at 144. Faced with Miller’s plain holding, Mann refers us to Stirone, 361 U.S. at 218–19, which preceded Miller by 25 years. Nothing in that case supports Mann’s constructiveamendment argument. Stirone addressed Bain’s first proposition, which Miller left intact. Specifically, Stirone disallowed the government from broadening its indicted Hobbs Act count at trial. Id. at 219. Although the government charged that the defendant had impeded commerce by delaying shipments of ready-mix concrete across state lines for use in erecting a steel plant, the government sought to convict on an uncharged theory— that he had impeded interstate commerce by interfering with steel shipments between states. Id. at 213. See also United States v. Farr, 536 F.3d 1174, 1180 (10th Cir. 2008) (reversing district court for allowing government to broaden charges from willfully evading quarterly employment tax to failure to pay trust-fund recovery penalty). Mann does not argue that the district court erred in this fashion. Instead, he argues a broadening-by-subtraction position that Miller expressly rejected. Nor has our court been slow to recognize the difference between cases involving Bain’s first and second propositions. Consistently with Miller, we have rejected Bainarguments similar to the one Mann makes here. See, e.g., United States v. Smith, 838 F.2d - 16 - 436, 439–40 (10th Cir. 1989) (limiting necessary proof to the elements of the offense and not finding a constructive amendment by not requiring the government to prove surplusage from the indictment—that invoices were for amounts “intended for [defendants’] personal use unrelated to said project”) (emphasis original). We conclude that Mann fails even to show error, the first of the four needed showings to establish plain error. Thus, we have no need to address the third or fourth prongs of plain-error analysis. See United States v. Pablo, 696 F.3d 1280, 1301 (declining to address other prongs of plain-error review because defendant failed on the third prong).