Opinion ID: 771926
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Rex Henley

Text: 51 The district court found, by a preponderance of the evidence, that appellant Rex Henley was aware of the bribe attempt before the verdict was rendered; accordingly, the court ruled that Henley's motion for a new trial was untimely filed because it was not based on newly discovered evidence. 16 The court recognized that there was no direct evidence of Henley's pre-verdict knowledge, but nevertheless concluded that the strong circumstantial evidence compels that reasonable inference. Henley maintains that the district court's factual finding that he had pre-verdict knowledge of the bribery attempt was clearly erroneous, and that we should treat him in the same manner as the other three appellants for purposes of this appeal. 52 We need not resolve the question that Henley raises as to the correctness of the district court's untimeliness ruling, because we elect, for reasons of judicial economy, to consider Henley's jury tampering claim along with his admittedly timely juror bias claim and the identical tampering and bias claims raised by his co-appellants. Because we conclude that, as a matter of substantive law, all four appellants are entitled to the benefit of further proceedings with respect to both claims, it seems just and sensible to allow all of the claims to proceed together, rather than to require the district court to conduct a separate proceeding for one of the appellants on one of his claims. 17 53 Our decision to allow Henley to proceed with his appeal from the untimely portion of his new trial motion is supported by Rule 2 of the Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure, which vests in the court of appeals the discretionary authority to suspend any provision of these rules in a particular case and order proceedings as it directs in order to expedite its decision or for other good cause . . . . 18 Because we find ample good cause for facilitating the district court's resolution of all four appellants' claims in a single proceeding, we exercise that discretion here. 54 Accordingly, we instruct that, on remand, Henley's claim with respect to the jury tampering issue be adjudicated together with the identical claims of the other appellants on that point, and along with Henley's and the other appellants' claims regarding the racial bias question. 19