Opinion ID: 6330205
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Drug-Involved Premises Instruction

Text: All four defendants were charged with maintaining a drug-involved premises in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 856(a)(1). At the close of evidence, the district court instructed the jury as follows: Count 13 of the superseding indictment charges that from in or about September 2013 through on or about March 10, 2015 . . . Hofstetter, Newman, Clemons, and Womack, aided and abetted by one another and others, did knowingly and intentionally, open, use, and maintain a business . . . for the purpose of illegally distributing Schedule II controlled substances . . . . In order to prove a defendant guilty of opening, using, or maintaining a druginvolved premises, the government must prove each of the following elements beyond a reasonable doubt . . . : First, that the defendants knowingly opened, used, or maintained a place, whether permanently or temporarily; Nos. 20-6245/6426/6427/6428 United States v. Hofstetter, et al. Page 9 And second, that the defendant did so for the purpose of distributing any controlled substance. (Trial Tr., R. 897, PageID 61800.) The defendants now argue that the district court’s § 856(a)(1) instructions were erroneous because the “jury should have been instructed that the distribution of the controlled substances from the clinics had to have been done without a legitimate medical purpose and outside the usual course of professional practice.” (Clemons Br. 41; see also Hofstetter Br. 44; Newman Br. 24; Womack Br. 23–24.) In other words, because the district court did not include illegal distribution as a third element of the § 856(a)(1) offense, the defendants say the instructions violated their due process rights. See Patterson v. New York, 432 U.S. 197, 210 (1977) (“[T]he Due Process Clause requires the prosecution to prove beyond a reasonable doubt all of the elements included in the definition of the offense of which the defendant is charged.”). The defendants also submit that the § 856(a)(1) instructions were confusing, misleading, and prejudicial. Before the district court issued the above instructions, it provided the defendants with advance copies of its proposed language and convened three charging conferences to review the draft instructions. None of the defendants objected to the § 856(a)(1) instructions at that time. We therefore review the instructions “as a whole, for plain error.” United States v. Stewart, 729 F.3d 517, 530 (6th Cir. 2013). “To prevail on plain-error review, [a] defendant must show: (1) error, (2) that is clear and obvious, and (3) that affects [her] substantial legal rights.” Id. at 528–29. “In the context of challenges to jury instructions, plain error requires a finding that, taken as a whole, the jury instructions were so clearly erroneous as to likely produce a grave miscarriage of justice.” Id. at 530 (quoting United States v. Morrison, 594 F.3d 543, 546 (6th Cir. 2010)). “[A]n improper jury instruction will rarely justify reversal of a criminal conviction when no objection [was] made at trial,” and “an omitted or incomplete instruction is even less likely to justify reversal, since such an instruction is not as prejudicial as a misstatement of the law.” Id. (quoting United States v. Rayborn, 491 F.3d 513, 521 (6th Cir. 2007)). This Court has already concluded that the § 856(a)(1) instructions in this case were not clearly erroneous, in two nearly identical orders that responded to motions for release pending appeal by Clemons and Newman. United States v. Clemons, No. 20-6427, Dkt. 23-2, slip op. 3 Nos. 20-6245/6426/6427/6428 United States v. Hofstetter, et al. Page 10 (6th Cir. Feb. 25, 2021); United States v. Newman, No. 20-6428, Dkt. 18-2, slip op. 3 (6th Cir. Feb. 18, 2021). The previous panel provided three main reasons for doing so. First, “the instruction was an accurate statement of the law” because it set forth the elements of a § 856(a)(1) violation “exactly as listed in the United States Code.” Clemons, slip op. 3; Newman, slip op. 3. In general, “a proposed jury instruction must be a correct statement of [the] law,” so we do not find fault on the part of the district court when it issues instructions that “more closely mirrored the statute” than the defendant’s proposed language does. Pritchard, 964 F.3d at 523 (internal quotation omitted). We therefore agree that we “cannot conclude the district court abused its discretion,” much less plainly erred, in providing “language more faithful to the statute” over the defendants’ alternative language.3 Id. Second, “this [c]ourt has consistently listed the elements of a 21 U.S.C. § 856(a) conviction without including illegal distribution,” even in pill mill cases. Clemons, slip op. 3; Newman, slip op. 3; see also United States v. Sadler, 750 F.3d 585, 592 (6th Cir. 2014) (“To support [a § 856(a)(1)] charge, the government had to show that the [defendants] knowingly maintained their [pain] clinics for the purpose of distributing a controlled substance.”); United States v. Lang, 717 F. App’x 523, 545 (6th Cir. 2017) (“To convict a defendant on [a § 856(a)(1)] charge[], the government must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant (1) knowingly (2) maintained any place, whether permanently or temporarily, (3) for the purpose of distributing a controlled substance.”) (citing United States v. Russell, 595 F.3d 633, 644 (6th Cir. 2010)). Defendants do not cite, and we have not found, any case law that answers the question of whether the district court was required to list illegal drug distribution as one of the elements of a § 856(a)(1) offense in a pill mill case. And “[a] lack of binding case law that answers the question presented” precludes “our finding of plain error.” United States v. AlMaliki, 787 F.3d 784, 794 (6th Cir. 2015) (citing United States v. Woodruff, 735 F.3d 445, 450 (6th Cir. 2013)). 3Womack contends that two recent Supreme Court decisions demonstrate that “merely tracking the language of the statute may not suffice to properly instruct a jury as to what they must find for guilt.” (Womack Br. 24 (citing Rehaif v. United States, 139 S. Ct. 2191, 2199 (2019), and Maslenjak v. United States, 137 S. Ct. 1918, 1930 (2017).) These cases, however, contain inapposite facts and do not bear on the instructions at issue here. Nos. 20-6245/6426/6427/6428 United States v. Hofstetter, et al. Page 11 Third, “taken as a whole, [the instructions] made it clear to the jury that they had to determine that the premises were used for the illicit distribution of drugs.” Clemons, slip op. 4; Newman, slip op. 4. The district court began by instructing the jury that the § 856(a)(1) offense “charges that . . . [the defendants] did knowingly and intentionally open, use, and maintain a business . . . for the purpose of illegally distributing Schedule II controlled substances[.]” (Trial Tr., R. 897, PageID 61800 (emphasis added).) This explanation immediately preceded the district court’s recitation of the statutory elements of a § 856(a)(1) offense. Given the proximity of the illegality explanation to the recitation of the elements, the instruction did not “likely produce a grave miscarriage of justice.” Stewart, 729 F.3d at 530. Furthermore, the indictment and the jury verdict form underscore the completeness of the jury instruction when taken as a whole because language in both also made clear that the defendants were being charged for and convicted of unlawful opioid distribution. Accordingly, the district court did not plainly err by giving the instruction, and we affirm the district court.