Opinion ID: 170931
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Mutually Exclusive Defenses

Text: A trial court must apply a three-step inquiry when considering an argument that a defendant will be prejudiced because he and a co-defendant will present defenses that are mutually exclusive. Pursley, 474 F.3d at 765. First, the court must determine whether the two defenses are so antagonistic that they are mutually exclusive. Id. (internal quotation marks omitted). Second, because mutually antagonistic defenses are not prejudicial per se,  the court must consider whether there is a serious risk that a joint trial would compromise a specific trial right . . . or prevent the jury from making a reliable judgment about guilt or innocence. Id. (quoting Zafiro, 506 U.S. at 539, 113 S.Ct. 933). Third, if a defendant shows that his case satisfies the first two factors, the trial court must weigh the prejudice to a particular defendant caused by joinder against the obviously important considerations of economy and expedition in judicial administration. Pursley, 474 F.3d at 765 (alteration and internal quotation marks omitted). We have observed that [t]o warrant a finding that a district court abused its discretion by not severing a trial, the conflict between the defendants' defenses must be such that the jury, in order to believe the core of one defense, must necessarily disbelieve the core of the other. United States v. Dazey, 403 F.3d 1147, 1165 (10th Cir.2005) (emphasis added) (internal quotation marks omitted). According to Mr. Wright, the core of his defense was that the government's witnesses were lying and that he did not in fact commit bank fraud or enter into a conspiracy to do so. He observes that Ms. Jones's counsel made some statements that were antagonistic to this defense, contending that Mr. Wright orchestrated the bank fraud and even exercised some measure of control over Ms. Jones. For example, Ms. Jones's counsel asserted in her opening statement that Mr. Wright was the head of the bank fraud operation. Rec. vol. VI, at 174. In her closing argument, counsel for Ms. Jones again accused Mr. Wright of running that organization. Rec. vol. IX, at 37. To be sure, these statements were antagonistic to Mr. Wright's defense, but the core of Ms. Jones's defense was not so antagonistic to Mr. Wright's that the two defenses were mutually exclusive. Mr. Wright's guilt was not, in itself, a viable legal defense for Ms. Jones, and it was not an indispensable component of her theory of the case. Indeed, the core of Ms. Jones's defense  that she did not act knowingly or voluntarily with respect to any of the alleged acts  did not necessarily depend on Mr. Wright's guilt. See id. (Ms. Jones's counsel stating, [I]t will be up to you to decide when you go back to deliberate, did Shyla Jones act knowingly and voluntarily[?]). In our view, the jury could have simultaneously believed that the government's witnesses were lying about Mr. Wright's involvement in the bank fraud conspiracy and that Ms. Jones did not knowingly commit bank fraud. Cf. Zafiro, 506 U.S. at 542, 113 S.Ct. 933 (Stevens, J., concurring) (There is no logical inconsistency between a version of events in which one person is ignorant, and a version in which the other is ignorant; unlikely as it may seem, it is at least theoretically possible that both versions are true, in that both persons are ignorant.). Thus, a severance was not necessary.