Opinion ID: 201379
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Attempted Conversion.

Text: 22 A motion for a new trial in a federal criminal case, other than a motion alleging newly discovered evidence, must be filed within seven days next following the initial entry of judgment. Fed.R.Crim.P. 33(b)(2). Mr. Moran filed no such motion within the allotted interval. In an endeavor to repair this omission, he asseverates that the defendants' timely motion for judgment of acquittal should have been considered alternatively as a motion for new trial and that, therefore, the district court should have converted that Rule 29 motion into a Rule 33 motion for a new trial. 4 This asseveration is hopeless. 23 The motion to which Mr. Moran alludes was captioned Motion[] for Judgment of Acquittal and for Additional Time to File Memoranda. The body of the motion reads in relevant part: 24 NOW COME defendants John and Nora Moran, through counsel, and pursuant to Rule 29 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure and hereby renew their motions for this Honorable Court to enter a judgment of acquittal as to all counts of the Superseding Indictment. In support thereof, counsel states the following: 25 ... 26 6.... [T]he government failed to offer sufficient evidence upon which a rational jury could find the Defendants guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of the crimes of bank fraud and conspiracy to commit bank fraud. 27 7. The government's evidence is equally consistent with guilt as it is with innocence which requires a judgment of acquittal. 28 8. Assuming arguendo that the government established that the Defendants violated bank policy and/or civil banking regulations, the government failed to introduce any other conduct which may form the basis for a bank fraud conviction. 29 9. The government has failed to prove intent on the part of the Defendants. 30 10. Assuming arguendo that the government has proven that the Defendants intended to defraud First American Bank, it failed to prove that their statements or omissions were material. 31 WHEREFORE, based upon the foregoing arguing [sic] arguments and authorities this Honorable Court is respectfully urged to permit the Defendants additional time to file memoranda in support of the instant motion and to enter a judgment of acquittal as to all counts of the Superseding Indictment. 32 Mr. Moran suggests that this motion was sufficient to permit a judge to grant him a new trial based on the following syllogism: (i) the substance of a motion, not its title, controls; (ii) a motion pointing out that the government did not have enough evidence to convict a defendant, a priori, supports a claim that the weight of the evidence tipped greatly in the defendant's favor; (iii) such a weight-of-the-evidence finding would support the granting of a new trial; and so (iv) a motion seeking judgment of acquittal because of insufficient evidence — like Mr. Moran's motion — logically must encompass a request for a new trial. 33 Taken in the abstract, some of these premises are correct. For example, we have stated that [i]n addressing a post-judgment motion, a court is not bound by the label that the movant fastens to it and may reclassify the motion as its substance suggests. Vasapolli v. Rostoff, 39 F.3d 27, 36 (1st Cir.1994). So too a timely motion for new trial may be granted when evidence preponderates heavily against the verdict. United States v. Wilkerson, 251 F.3d 273, 278 (1st Cir.2001) (internal quotation marks omitted). But two swallows do not a summer make, and Mr. Moran's syllogism falls apart when one analyzes its conclusion: that a motion seeking a judgment of acquittal on sufficiency-of-the-evidence grounds necessarily must be read as requesting a consolation prize in the nature of a new trial. 34 That reading is neither logically compelled nor legally appropriate. Where the motion papers cannot be fairly construed as a request for a new trial, a district court does not have the authority, sua sponte, to convert a motion for judgment of acquittal into a motion for a new trial. United States v. Navarro Viayra, 365 F.3d 790, 793 (9th Cir.2004); United States v. Brown, 587 F.2d 187, 189 (5th Cir.1979). That choice is the defendant's — and the defendant's alone. What is more, it must be exercised within the time parameters prescribed by the Criminal Rules. 35 As said, Fed.R.Crim.P. 33(b)(2) specifies that a motion for new trial, other than a motion grounded on newly discovered evidence, must be filed within seven days of the jury verdict (i.e., the entry of judgment). That rule was amended in 1966 to make it clear that a judge has no power to order a new trial on his own motion once judgment has entered. Fed.R.Crim.P. 33 advisory committee notes (1966 Amendments). Simultaneously, the advisory committee made it pellucid that the Criminal Rules forbid an interpretation that would allow a district court, on its own initiative, to evade the temporal strictures of Rule 33 by reading into a Rule 29 motion for judgment of acquittal a request for a new trial, not solicited by the movant. See Fed.R.Crim.P. 29 advisory committee notes (1966 Amendments, Subdivision (c)) (explaining that Rule 29(c) precludes an interpretation that gives the [district] court power to order a new trial even though the defendant ... has not asked for one). 36 Viewed against this backdrop, it is transparently clear that even if a motion for judgment of acquittal contains a substantive basis sufficient to ground the grant of a new trial, a court is without power to treat the motion as a motion for a new trial unless it also contains some overt indication that the movant desires that relief. The motion in this case contained no such indication. It invoked Rule 29, not Rule 33, and the only relief requested was an outright acquittal. It was not until September 15, 1999 — well beyond the seven-day deadline — that Mr. Moran informed the district court of his desire for a new trial. That was too late. 5 37 That disposes of this assignment of error. The Criminal Rules gave Mr. Moran seven days within which to move for a new trial. He failed to seek that relief, and his timely motion for judgment of acquittal did not fill the void. Consequently, the district court acted appropriately both in denying Mr. Moran's belated conversion request and in refusing to grant a new trial.