Opinion ID: 693893
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Jury Instructions Regarding The Structuring Offenses

Text: 19 Defendant argues that the trial court's jury instruction regarding the structuring offenses was inconsistent with the Supreme Court's decision in Ratzlaf v. United States, 114 S.Ct. 655 (1994), which was issued subsequent to his convictions. On this basis, defendant seeks reversal of all of his structuring convictions, his RICO conviction, and his RICO conspiracy conviction. 20 Federal law requires banks and other financial institutions to report all transactions involving over $10,000 in cash. 31 U.S.C. Sec. 5313. It is illegal to structure cash transactions to avoid the reporting requirements. 31 U.S.C. Sec. 5324. Persons willfully violating the antistructuring provisions are subject to criminal penalties. 31 U.S.C. Sec. 5322. 21 Defendant was convicted of willfully violating 31 U.S.C. Sec. 5324 by breaking up cash transactions over $10,000 into smaller transactions which would not trigger the reporting requirements. The trial court instructed the jury that in order to find defendant guilty of this offense it must conclude beyond a reasonable doubt that (1) defendant knew the financial institution was legally obligated to report cash transactions exceeding $10,000, and (2) defendant sought to structure his transactions to avoid this reporting requirement. It is undisputed that this instruction accurately stated the elements of the offense as defined by this court prior to defendant's trial. Defendant neither offered an alternative instruction nor objected to the court's instruction. After his trial, however, the Supreme Court held that to convict for illegal structuring, the government must prove that a defendant knew the structuring he undertook was unlawful. Ratzlaf, 114 S.Ct. at 658. 22 Defendant concedes that because of his failure to object below, this court reviews the jury charge for plain error. Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 52(b) governs our plain error review. United States v. Olano, 113 S.Ct. 1770, 1776 (1993). Rule 52(b) provides, Plain errors or defects affecting substantial rights may be noticed although they were not brought to the attention of the court. (Emphasis added). 23 Rule 52(b) vests appellate courts with discretion to notice plain error. If the forfeited error is 'plain' and 'affect[s] substantial rights,' the Court of Appeals has authority to order correction, but is not required to do so. Olano, 113 S.Ct. at 1779. In exercising its discretion, [t]he Court of Appeals should correct a plain forfeited error affecting substantial rights if the error 'seriously affect[s] the fairness, integrity or public reputation of judicial proceedings.'  Id. (citing United States v. Atkinson, 297 U.S. 157 (1936)). See also United States v. Thomas, 11 F.3d 620, 630 (6th Cir.1993) (if court finds plain error affecting substantial rights, it must then consider whether to exercise [its] discretionary power under Rule 52(b)....), cert. denied, 114 S.Ct. 1570 (1994). 24 Ordinarily, the omission of an essential element of an offense from the jury instruction compromises the fairness and integrity of a criminal trial. See, e.g., United States v. Nelson, 27 F.3d 199, 202 (6th Cir.1994) (reversing conviction on these grounds). On the particular facts of this case, however, we do not find the instructional error to have seriously affected the fairness, integrity or public reputation of the proceedings below. Thus, we decline to exercise our remedial discretion here. Olano, 113 S.Ct. at 1779. 25 We recognize that in United States v. Bencs, 28 F.3d 555, 564 (6th Cir.1994), cert. denied, 115 S.Ct. 915 (1995), a panel of this court exercised its discretion to recognize plain error, in reliance upon Ratzlaf. But in that case, the instruction to which Bencs failed to object specifically told the jury that the government need not prove that Bencs knew that his structuring of the transaction was against the law. Furthermore, many characteristics of this case distinguish it from Bencs. 26 A number of considerations lead us to conclude that reversal for plain error is unwarranted here. First, overwhelming evidence in the record establishes that defendant was well aware that his structuring activities were illegal. He sought to distance himself from the transactions by having other people purchase most of the cashier's checks. He broke the transactions into smaller amounts than necessary to avoid the reporting requirements, in an apparent effort to conceal his activity. Defendant also told undercover agents that he sought a way to launder his money without having to use cashier's checks, and expressed concern that his name appeared as payee on the cashier's checks. This compelling evidence assuages any concerns that the district court's failure to instruct on this point resulted in the conviction of an innocent man. See United States v. Marder, --- F.3d ----, 1995 WL 34072 (1st Cir.) (affirming structuring conviction despite failure of district court to give knowledge of illegality instruction because, inter alia, any claim of lack of knowledge of the illegality of structuring tends to be belied by defendant's conduct), cert. denied, 1995 WL 105711 (1995). 27 Second, the instruction at issue here was silent about whether the prosecution had to prove defendant knew his conduct was illegal. By contrast, the district court in Bencs explicitly instructed the jury that the prosecution did not have to prove such knowledge. Bencs, 28 F.3d at 564. It is well-established that an improper jury instruction will rarely justify reversal of a criminal conviction when no objection has been made at trial, ... and an omitted or incomplete instruction is even less likely to justify reversal, since such instruction is not as prejudicial as a misstatement of the law. United States v. Hook, 781 F.2d 1166, 1172-73 (6th Cir.) (citations omitted), cert. denied, 479 U.S. 882 (1986). In addition, here the government never argued to the jury that it did not have to prove defendant knew his conduct was illegal. 28 Finally, defendant's trial attorney failed to object to the court's instruction or offer an alternative. Cf., Bencs, 28 F.3d at 564 (although defendant failed to object, he did request an instruction imposing a knowledge of illegality requirement). Although the court's instruction complied with the settled law of this court, the Supreme Court granted certiorari in Ratzlaf several months before defendant's trial. Indeed, defendant concedes that the grant of certiorari was widely reported in legal publications and the mainstream media.