Opinion ID: 3188678
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Baston’s Appeal

Text: Baston raises three arguments on appeal. First, Baston argues that the district court abused its discretion when it issued the supplemental jury instruction. Second, Baston contends that the district court should have granted his motion for a judgment of acquittal because the government provided insufficient evidence that his trafficking of J.R. was “in or affecting interstate . . . commerce,” 18 U.S.C. § 1591(a)(1). Third, he contends that the district court used unreliable testimony to calculate his restitution obligations. We address each argument in turn. 1. The District Court Did Not Abuse Its Discretion by Issuing the Supplemental Jury Instruction. Baston argues that the supplemental jury instruction was an abuse of discretion for three reasons: it did not answer the jury’s question, it misled the jury, and it misstated the law. But Baston has a problem: he made none of these arguments in the district court. Because Baston is challenging the supplemental jury instruction for the first time on appeal, we review his arguments for plain error. Fed. R. Crim. P. 52(b). The government argues that we should not review Baston’s arguments at all because he affirmatively agreed to the initial jury instructions in the district court. Under the doctrine of invited error, “[w]here a party expressly accepts a jury instruction, ‘such action . . . serve[s] to waive [his] right to challenge the accepted instruction on appeal.’” United States v. House, 684 F.3d 1173, 1196 (11th Cir. 11 Case: 14-14444 Date Filed: 03/24/2016 Page: 12 of 35 2012) (third and fourth alterations in original) (quoting United States v. Silvestri, 409 F.3d 1311, 1337 (11th Cir. 2005)). But “the issue here is the supplemental instruction given in response to the [jury’s] question—not the initial instruction[s].” United States v. Isnadin, 742 F.3d 1278, 1297 (11th Cir. 2014). Although Baston agreed to the initial jury instructions, he did not agree to the supplemental jury instruction. Baston instead failed to object to the supplemental jury instruction on the specific grounds he raises on appeal. But “failing to object does not trigger the doctrine of invited error.” United States v. Dortch, 696 F.3d 1104, 1112 (11th Cir. 2012). When a defendant objects to a jury instruction in the district court, but on different grounds than the ones he raises on appeal, we review the instruction for plain error. See Fed. R. Crim. P. 30(d). We now turn to Baston’s three challenges to the supplemental jury instruction. None identifies an abuse of discretion by the district court. “[T]he court’s supplemental instruction[] w[as] sufficiently clear and responsive to the jury’s inquiry to fall squarely within the trial court’s range of discretion in this area.” United States v. Fuiman, 546 F.2d 1155, 1160 (5th Cir. 1977). Because the district court did not err, it did not plainly err either. United States v. Franklin, 694 F.3d 1, 9 (11th Cir. 2012). 12 Case: 14-14444 Date Filed: 03/24/2016 Page: 13 of 35 a. The Supplemental Jury Instruction Answered the Jury’s Question. Baston contends that the supplemental jury instruction did not answer the jury’s question. “When a jury makes explicit its difficulties,” the district court “should clear them away with concrete accuracy.” Bollenbach v. United States, 326 U.S. 607, 612–13 (1946). The district court instructed the jury that it could convict Baston of money laundering whether or not prostitution is legal in Australia. This answer was non-responsive, according to Baston, because the jury asked whether the legality of prostitution affected the charges of sex trafficking. At trial, Baston argued that he did not coerce K.L. or T.M. into prostitution; instead, they prostituted because it was legal in Australia and they could make money doing it. Baston contends that the jury wanted more information about this defense. The problem with Baston’s argument is that the jury did not ask about sex trafficking. The jury asked about money laundering: its note asked whether it would be “illegal to transfer funds” to the United States “[i]f prostitution is legal in [A]ustralia[] and money was made there by those means.” (Emphases added.) And the note asked a legal question about choice of law—“Which laws are we to consider?”—not a factual question about the victims’ motives for prostituting in Australia. Tellingly, the jury’s question mirrored the choice-of-law argument that Baston made in his closing argument. 13 Case: 14-14444 Date Filed: 03/24/2016 Page: 14 of 35 The district court answered this question, and its answer must have been satisfactory because the jury asked no further questions about money laundering or sex trafficking after receiving the supplemental instruction. “[T]hat there was no further inquiry after the judge’s response to the note [] indicates that the judge’s response cleared the jury’s difficulty with concrete accuracy.” United States v. Parr, 716 F.2d 796, 809 (11th Cir. 1983) (second alteration in original) (quoting United States v. Andrew, 666 F.2d 915, 922 (5th Cir. 1982)). The district court did not abuse its discretion by answering the question that the jury actually asked instead of the question that Baston now argues it asked. b. The Supplemental Jury Instruction Did Not Mislead the Jury. Baston argues that the supplemental jury instruction misled the jury by suggesting it no longer needed to find that Baston’s conduct was “in or affecting” commerce, 18 U.S.C. § 1591(a)(1), an essential element of sex trafficking. The supplemental instruction essentially erased this element, according to Baston, by not repeating it and by stating that he could be convicted so long as he “was present in the United States at the time he was charged.” We disagree. The jury was not misled by the supplemental jury instruction because the supplemental instruction said nothing about the elements of sex trafficking. As explained above, the jury’s note asked only about money laundering, and the supplemental instruction addressed only that offense. Indeed, the instruction began 14 Case: 14-14444 Date Filed: 03/24/2016 Page: 15 of 35 with a prefatory clause—“With respect to Counts 13–21”—that specifically referred to the counts of money laundering. The jury would not have understood the supplemental instruction as saying anything about the elements of sex trafficking. Nor did the supplemental jury instruction need to repeat the elements of sex trafficking. Although sex trafficking was the “specified unlawful activity” for the counts of money laundering, id. § 1956, “[a] conviction for money laundering does not require proof that the defendant committed the specific predicate offense,” United States v. De La Mata, 266 F.3d 1275, 1292 (11th Cir. 2001). A jury instruction on money laundering can omit the elements of the specified unlawful activity. See United States v. Martinelli, 454 F.3d 1300, 1311–12 (11th Cir. 2006). The district court did not confuse the jury by leaving out that unnecessary information. If any confusion somehow remained, the district court eliminated it by reminding the jury to “consider all of my instructions as a whole.” See Parr, 716 F.2d at 809. The jury could refer to the initial jury instructions, which correctly stated the elements of sex trafficking and the requirement that Baston’s conduct be “in or affecting” commerce. Because “the district court’s additional instruction was responsive to the jury’s specific concern while prudently refocusing the jury on the instructions . . . as a whole,” United States v. Davis, 490 F.3d 541, 548 (6th Cir. 2007), the district court did not abuse its discretion. 15 Case: 14-14444 Date Filed: 03/24/2016 Page: 16 of 35 c. The Supplemental Jury Instruction Did Not Misstate the Law. Baston contends that the supplemental jury instruction misstated the law because it failed to explain that he could not be convicted of sex trafficking unless he knew his conduct was in or affecting commerce. We rejected this argument in United States v. Evans, 476 F.3d 1176 (11th Cir. 2007), where we held that sex trafficking by force, fraud, or coercion does not “requir[e] knowledge by a defendant that his actions are in or affecting interstate commerce,” id. at 1180 n.2; accord United States v. Phea, 755 F.3d 255, 265 (5th Cir. 2014); United States v. Sawyer, 733 F.3d 228, 230 (7th Cir. 2013). Baston contends that Evans was wrongly decided, but “a prior panel’s holding is binding on all subsequent panels unless and until it is overruled or undermined to the point of abrogation by the Supreme Court or by this court sitting en banc.” United States v. Archer, 531 F.3d 1347, 1352 (11th Cir. 2008). And Evans has not been overruled or abrogated. Accordingly, the district court did not abuse its discretion because it was “under no obligation to give a requested instruction that misstates the law.” United States v. L’Hoste, 609 F.2d 796, 805 (5th Cir. 1980). Even if Evans was wrongly decided (which we doubt), Baston would still lose. As explained above, the jury’s note asked about money laundering, not sex trafficking. If the supplemental jury instruction had discussed the knowledge element of sex trafficking, it would have been nonresponsive and confusing. When 16 Case: 14-14444 Date Filed: 03/24/2016 Page: 17 of 35 a jury requests a supplemental instruction, the district court should answer “within the specific limits of the question presented.” United States v. Martin, 274 F.3d 1208, 1210 (8th Cir. 2001) (quoting United States v. Behler, 14 F.3d 1264, 1270 (8th Cir. 1994)). The district court did not abuse its discretion by failing to discuss something that was irrelevant to the jury’s question. If Baston disagreed about the elements of sex trafficking, he should have objected to the initial jury instruction that addressed that element, not the supplemental jury instruction. 2. The District Court Did Not Err When It Denied Baston’s Motion for a Judgment of Acquittal. Baston contends that his conviction of sex trafficking J.R. was supported by insufficient evidence. A defendant is guilty of sex trafficking by force, fraud, or coercion if he “knowingly in or affecting interstate or foreign commerce . . . recruits, entices, harbors, transports, provides, obtains, advertises, maintains, patronizes, or solicits by any means a person . . . knowing . . . that means of force, threats of force, fraud, [or] coercion . . . will be used to cause the person to engage in a commercial sex act.” 18 U.S.C. § 1591(a)(1) (emphasis added). Baston contends that his trafficking of J.R. was not “in or affecting” interstate commerce. The question for our review is “whether, after viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the prosecution, any rational trier of fact could have found [this element] beyond a reasonable doubt.” Musacchio v. United States, 136 S. Ct. 709, 715 (2016) (quoting Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 319 (1979)). 17 Case: 14-14444 Date Filed: 03/24/2016 Page: 18 of 35 The parties dispute our standard of review. The government argues that, because Baston did not contest the commerce element in the district court, we should review his challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence only for a “manifest miscarriage of justice.” Baston contends that we should review his argument de novo because he raised a “general” challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence in the district court. Neither party is correct: we review Baston’s argument for plain error. Fed. R. Crim. P. 52(b). Our review is not limited to correcting a “manifest miscarriage of justice,” contrary to the government’s argument. That standard does not apply unless the defendant makes no challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence after the close of all evidence. See United States v. House, 684 F.3d 1173, 1196 (11th Cir. 2012); United States v. Tapia, 761 F.2d 1488, 1491 (11th Cir. 1985). Baston challenged the sufficiency of the evidence in his renewed motion for a judgment of acquittal. But our review is not de novo either, contrary to Baston’s argument. He failed to raise the specific challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence that he now raises on appeal. Other circuits have held that a defendant preserves all challenges to the sufficiency of the evidence if he raises a “general” challenge in the district court. See United States v. Cooper, 654 F.3d 1104, 1117 (10th Cir. 2011); United States v. Spinner, 152 F.3d 950, 955 (D.C. Cir. 1998); United States v. Hoy, 137 F.3d 726, 729 (2d Cir. 1998). But see United States v. Clarke, 564 F.3d 949, 953– 18 Case: 14-14444 Date Filed: 03/24/2016 Page: 19 of 35 54 (8th Cir. 2009). We need not decide whether those decisions are consistent with the law in this Circuit because, even if they are, Baston did not raise a “general” challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence. Although his motion for a judgment of acquittal challenged the sufficiency of the evidence “on the indictment as a whole,” Baston challenged the “whole” indictment by raising specific arguments against each count. With respect to the count of sex trafficking J.R., Baston argued that he did not force her into prostitution; he did not argue that his conduct was not “in or affecting” commerce. When a defendant raises specific challenges to the sufficiency of the evidence in the district court, but not the specific challenge he tries to raise on appeal, we review his argument for plain error. See United States v. Joseph, 709 F.3d 1082, 1103 (11th Cir. 2013); United States v. Straub, 508 F.3d 1003, 1011 (11th Cir. 2007); United States v. Hunerlach, 197 F.3d 1059, 1068 (11th Cir. 1999). Turning to the merits, we conclude that a rational juror could have found, beyond a reasonable doubt, that Baston’s trafficking of J.R. was “in or affecting” interstate commerce. Because there was no error, there was no plain error either. Franklin, 694 F.3d at 9. The district court correctly denied Baston’s motion for a judgment of acquittal. Baston’s conduct was in commerce. The phrase “in commerce” refers to the “channels” and the “instrumentalities” of interstate commerce. United States v. 19 Case: 14-14444 Date Filed: 03/24/2016 Page: 20 of 35 Ballinger, 395 F.3d 1218, 1233 (11th Cir. 2005) (en banc). Baston used both when he trafficked J.R. He communicated with her by phone, text message, and Instagram; he convinced her to cross state lines on a bus; he advertised her services on Backpage.com; and he stayed with her in various hotels. Any one of these is sufficient to prove that Baston’s conduct was “in commerce.” See United States v. Daniels, 685 F.3d 1237, 1246 (11th Cir. 2012) (cell phone, interstate bus travel); Evans, 476 F.3d at 1179 (hotels that serve interstate travelers); United States v. Pipkins, 378 F.3d 1281, 1295 (11th Cir. 2004) (Internet), vacated on other grounds, 544 U.S. 902 (2005), op. reinstated, 412 F.3d 1251 (11th Cir. 2005). Baston argues that none of his interstate conduct involved force, fraud, or coercion—the actus reus of the statute—and that his actual trafficking of J.R. occurred exclusively in Florida, but we disagree. Baston also trafficked J.R. in Louisiana, Texas, Tennessee, and New York. And even if we were to assume that Baston trafficked J.R. exclusively in Florida, we have held that a defendant whose “illegal acts ultimately occur intrastate” still acts “in commerce” if he “uses the channels or instrumentalities of interstate commerce to facilitate their commission.” Ballinger, 395 F.3d at 1226. Baston’s use of phones, the Internet, hotels, and buses facilitated his trafficking of J.R., so his conduct was “in commerce.” 20 Case: 14-14444 Date Filed: 03/24/2016 Page: 21 of 35 Alternatively, Baston’s conduct affected commerce. The phrase “affecting commerce” is a term of art that “ordinarily signal[s] the broadest permissible exercise of Congress’ Commerce Clause power.” Citizens Bank v. Alafabco, Inc., 539 U.S. 52, 56 (2003). That power reaches “purely local activities that are part of an economic ‘class of activities’ that have a substantial effect on interstate commerce.” Gonzales v. Raich, 545 U.S. 1, 17 (2005). As we explained in Evans, sex trafficking by force, fraud, or coercion—even when it occurs “solely in Florida”—“ha[s] the capacity when considered in the aggregate . . . to frustrate Congress’s broader regulation of interstate and foreign economic activity.” 476 F.3d at 1179. Baston argues that Evans involved the sex trafficking of children, not women, but the reasoning in Evans cannot be limited to children. The statute prohibiting sex trafficking by force, fraud, or coercion is a valid exercise of Congress’s full commerce power, so the government can satisfy the commerce element in that statute by proving that the defendant’s conduct had “a minimal effect on interstate commerce.” United States v. Rodriguez, 218 F.3d 1243, 1244 (11th Cir. 2000); accord United States v. Walls, 784 F.3d 543, 548 (9th Cir. 2015). That standard is easily satisfied here. Because Baston’s conduct was in commerce, it necessarily affected commerce as well. See United States v. Viscome, 144 F.3d 1365, 1369 (11th Cir. 1998). 21 Case: 14-14444 Date Filed: 03/24/2016 Page: 22 of 35 3. The District Court Did Not Clearly Err or Abuse Its Discretion in Calculating Baston’s Restitution Obligations. Baston’s final argument on appeal is that the district court used unreliable evidence to calculate his restitution obligations to K.L., J.R., and T.M. The district court calculated the obligations based on the victims’ testimony at trial: it multiplied how often the victims said they worked by how much they said they charged and then subtracted their estimated living expenses. Baston does not challenge the math; instead, he complains that the victims’ testimony was unreliable because it was not subjected to rigorous cross-examination. Baston maintains that he had no occasion to cross-examine the victims about their earnings at trial because their earnings were not relevant to his guilt or innocence. Baston contends that the district court should have forced the victims to testify a second time at the restitution hearing so he could cross-examine them. This argument is meritless. The district court did not clearly err or abuse its discretion by relying on the victims’ trial testimony. In calculating a victim’s losses, districts court can rely on any evidence “bearing ‘sufficient indicia of reliability to support its probable accuracy.’” United States v. Singletary, 649 F.3d 1212, 1217 n.21 (11th Cir. 2011) (quoting United States v. Bernardine, 73 F.3d 1078, 1080–81 (11th Cir. 1996)). That evidence includes the “proof at trial.” United States v. Hairston, 888 F.2d 1349, 1353 n.7 (11th Cir. 1989). Contrary to Baston’s argument, evidence can be 22 Case: 14-14444 Date Filed: 03/24/2016 Page: 23 of 35 sufficiently reliable for purposes of restitution even if it was not subjected to rigorous cross-examination. See, e.g., id. at 1353 (relying on hearsay evidence); In re Sealed Case, 702 F.3d 59, 67 (D.C. Cir. 2012) (relying on grand jury testimony). And district courts are not required to hear live testimony at every restitution hearing. See United States v. Sabhnani, 599 F.3d 215, 258–59 (2d Cir. 2010). District courts have broad discretion in choosing the procedures to employ at a restitution hearing, “so long as the defendant is given an adequate opportunity to present his position as to matters in dispute.” United States v. Maurer, 226 F.3d 150, 151 (2d Cir. 2000). Baston had the opportunity to challenge the victims’ testimony at trial and again at the restitution hearing, and he still has not offered any specific reason why their testimony was inaccurate or untrustworthy. The district court committed no error.