Opinion ID: 613898
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Maniego Instruction

Text: Maniego involved two attorneys who operated a sham-marriage scheme to secure lawful permanent resident (LPR) status for aliens. At trial, their defense was that they were unaware that their clients' marriages were fraudulent. A client testified that she told them about her prior marriage, which made her LPR-qualifying marriage invalid. The trial court instructed the jury that an attorney is not held to a higher standard of conduct, or legal obligation, to verify independently the truth of the information given by a client. 710 F.2d at 28. This court found that instruction proper and affirmed the convictions. Id. Archer requested, nearly verbatim, the same charge as given in Maniego. Def.'s Am. Req. to Charge 3-4, United States v. Archer, No. 08-cr-288 (E.D.N.Y. Mar. 21, 2010), ECF No. 147. As with the Phillips instruction, there is no dispute that Maniego accurately states the law or that, if the jury had believed that Archer's clients provided him with false information and Archer was unaware of its falsity, it would have had to acquit him. Thus, as above, the only issue before us is whether the mens rea instruction given by the district court adequately represented the requirements of knowledge as an element of the crime. As we said above, it did. The jury could not have convicted Archer if it both believed his defense and followed this instruction. Therefore, Archer has failed to show reversible error.