Opinion ID: 787694
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Intentional Misconduct Findings

Text: 57 The following facts, gleaned from the evidentiary hearing conducted by the district court, appear to be undisputed. On the afternoon of June 16, 2002, the jury received its instructions and the parties completed their closing arguments in the guilt phase of Lentz's trial. The jury was then instructed to return at 10:00 the following morning to begin deliberations. At approximately 9:30 the next morning, the defense team (Michael Lieberman, Frank Salvato, and Judy Clark) and the prosecution team (AUSA Steven Mellin, AUSA Patricia Haynes, and Michael Chellis) met with courtroom deputy clerk Joanna Solomon and court security officer William Scruggs in the courtroom to assemble the admitted trial exhibits and prepare them for transport into the jury room. Also present and assisting in the endeavor at various times were FBI Special Agent Brad Garrett, Arlington County Sergeant John Coale, Information Technologist Tyrone Bowie, and an intern with defense counsel Salvato's office. After Solomon sorted and reviewed the exhibits with counsel for both sides, the items were turned over to Scruggs to be loaded onto an evidence cart and transported into the jury room. According to the jurors, at some point after they began their deliberations, the black and brown day planners were noticed and reviewed in the jury room, although the earliest any juror recalled seeing the day planners was on the second day of deliberations. 58 By all accounts, the process of sorting and loading the evidence took place among four counsel tables for a period of at least 45 minutes and involved up to twelve people (not counting any persons milling about behind the bar or unnoticed in the well). The precise events occurring during this time period and, in particular, the method by which the two day planners found their way into the jury room, however, have been the subject of much uncertainty and confusion. 59 Solomon, the courtroom deputy clerk, testified that she began her task by checking her exhibit list with counsel for both sides and that the sorting of unadmitted evidence from admitted evidence took place primarily at the back counsel table used by the government. According to Solomon's list, four pages from the brown day planner and two pages from the black day planner had been admitted into evidence, and it appears that these excerpts were marked as exhibits, placed with the admitted evidence, and taken to the jury. Solomon testified that when sorting the evidence, she endeavored to look at everything on the [back] table and that everything on the back table [was to] be put on the cart to go to the jury. J.A. 2430. She then turned the evidence over to Scruggs for loading onto the cart. She testified that she did not see either the brown day planner or the black day planner during the process. 60 According to Scruggs, after the evidence was turned over to him by Solomon, his understanding was that only items that were sitting on the back table on the right hand side ... [were] approved to go back to the jury. J.A. 2439. Scruggs testified that he was responsible for loading the cart, but that the cart was actually loaded by a combination of people helping him. J.A. 2440. Specifically, he testified that Chellis, Agent Garrett, and Sergeant Coale all offered to assist him. Scruggs testified that he saw the brown day planner on the back table with the evidence for the jury at the time the cart was loaded and that he later saw the black day planner with the evidence when he retrieved it from the jury room. In an earlier affidavit, however, Scruggs stated that he had seen both the black and brown day planners [s]itting on the rear table with the items of physical evidence. J.A. 3525. According to Scruggs's affidavit: 61 I was in court on August 14, 2003, when Judge Lee determined that these same two diaries that I had seen on the rear table with the other items of physical evidence, had gone to the jury. The books Judge Lee held up in open court on that occasion appeared to be the same two books I saw on the prosecution's rear table. 62 As I loaded the notebooks on the front table onto the cart, [Garrett, Coale, and Chellis] offered to assist me by loading the items from the rear table onto the cart. At that time, the two diaries were included along with the other items loaded onto the cart. I cannot say which of the three gentlemen actually placed the diaries on the cart or where on the cart they were actually placed ..., but I do remember that they were on the cart. 63 J.A. 3525-26. Scruggs testified at the hearing that [n]o one got near the cart once it was loaded. J.A. 2459. In sum, Scruggs testified that when Judge Lee held up the [day planners] in open court and said ... the issue was how did they get back to the jury, he knew right then how they had gotten back to the jury — they were present on the back prosecution table and were loaded along with the items of admitted evidence onto the cart that day. J.A. 2461. Scruggs could not state who placed the day planners with the evidence or which helper loaded the day planners onto the evidence cart, but made no mention of Mellin's presence in the area at the time or any assistance offered by him. 64 Defense counsel Lieberman, Salvato, and Clark testified that they were also present when the exhibits were assembled for the jury, but did not observe anyone placing the day planners with the admitted evidence or on the evidence cart. According to defense counsel, at one point very early in the process, Mellin sought approval to remove the contents of the brown day planner from its leather cover and to submit the cover with the admitted excerpts from it, but no one checked to see if this was done. According to Clark, after the exhibits were loaded on the cart, somebody said, well, who wants to inspect the cart now and Lieberman walked over to the cart, looked it over, and moved some boxes around. J.A. 2471. Lieberman confirmed that he did so, but he did not individually examine every item and he did not recall seeing either day planner on the cart. This testimony appears to be inconsistent with Scruggs's testimony that [n]o one got near the cart once it was loaded. J.A. 2459. 65 Michael Chellis, an attorney employed by the U.S. Attorney's office, testified that he was charged with the primary responsibility for sorting the government's exhibits after the trial. Chellis testified that he met with Solomon to review the Clerk's exhibit list. He testified that Solomon told counsel for both sides that the few items not listed as admitted could be admitted if both sides agreed. In particular, Chellis recalled that the blood evidence was not listed as admitted, but that the parties agreed that it should be loaded on the cart and taken to the jury anyway. Haynes also testified about a similar conversation between counsel and Solomon. Chellis testified that he had placed the black day planner on Mellin's office chair a few days before closing and that he later saw it on the government's counsel table in the courtroom. Chellis admitted that he personally placed the brown day planner on the back counsel table, which is consistent with Scruggs's testimony, but that he did not intend to place it with the admitted items of evidence. 66 After Chellis testified, Solomon was recalled by the government. Solomon initially denied having ever told either side that evidence that was intended to be, but inadvertently not, admitted during the trial could be admitted and sent to the jury by agreement. After retrieving her exhibit list, however, Solomon acknowledged that her list did not have the blood evidence as being used or admitted and did not have the car seat evidence as being admitted. These exhibits were loaded onto the cart and taken to the jury, and it appears that the parties agreed that these exhibits should have been shown as having been used and admitted during the trial. According to Solomon, there was another list that she believed she must have inadvertently discarded, thinking [she] had everything transferred to one list. J.A. 2716. 6 There was also undisputed evidence that, after the jury deliberations had concluded, Solomon had mistakenly returned a borrowed CD player to the AUSA's office with an original CD exhibit in it. 67 For his part, AUSA Mellin testified that he last remembered seeing the brown day planner during closing arguments the night before the evidence was submitted to the jury. He testified that he arrived at the courtroom with AUSA Haynes the next morning and had a conversation with defense counsel about the brown day planner early during the process of sorting the evidence. He did not recall, however, asking to insert the photocopied pages in the brown leather binder in lieu of its entire contents or having it in his hand at the time of the conversation. With regard to the black day planner, Mellin also did not exclude the possibility that it was in the courtroom that morning, although he testified that he was not aware of it being there and last remembers specifically seeing it several days before closing arguments. 68 Based upon the testimony and evidence presented, the district court made a number of findings and conclusions regarding the responsibility of the people involved in the trial process for the extraneous evidence reaching the jury. The district court attributed no responsibility to the court clerk or court security officer and no responsibility to any member of the defense team. Rather, the district court attributed sole responsibility for the erroneous submission to Mellin and found that the submission was the result of intentional misconduct on his part. Specifically, the court found that Mellin [personally] placed the two day planners with the evidence for the jury, and that [h]e did this after the lawyers and court clerk had prepared all of the admitted evidence for the jury. J.A. 2867. According to the district court's view of the evidence, 69 after all of the lawyers and the courtroom clerk completed their review of the evidence, Mr. Mellin placed the unadmitted day planners in the evidence box. The unmarked black day planner, inadmissible evidence, did not emerge from the clear blue sky, and land in the jury room. Mr. Mellin had the black day planner last and was well aware it was inadmissible. Similarly, Mr. Mellin's submission of the whole brown day planner to the jury was an intentional act. Mr. Mellin, after discussing whether he could send the brown day planner to the jury with defense counsel and acknowledging the Court's order excluding the whole day planner, inserted the brown day planner in the evidence box as evidence for the jury.... 70 The Court concludes that Mr. Mellin's testimony indicates much more than a lack of credibility; rather his testimony demonstrates his intent to act outside the Orders of this Court and the confines of the law. In sum, the Court finds that Mr. Mellin's actions with the day planners suggest that this conduct was not a benign act or negligent error. Rather this action was reckless, and it was intentional. 71 J.A. 2868-69.
72 We review for clear error the district court's factual findings that AUSA Mellin intentionally placed the day planners with the evidence for the jury. See United States v. Jones, 356 F.3d 529, 533 (4th Cir.2004). A finding is `clearly erroneous' when although there is evidence to support it, the reviewing court on the entire evidence is left with the definite and firm conviction that a mistake has been committed.' Scrimgeour v. Internal Revenue, 149 F.3d 318, 324 (4th Cir.1998) (quoting United States v. United States Gypsum Co., 333 U.S. 364, 395, 68 S.Ct. 525, 92 L.Ed. 746 (1948)). As an appellate court, we are `reluctant to overturn factual findings of the trial court,' and `this is doubly so where the question goes to the demeanor and credibility of witnesses at trial, since the district court is so much better situated to evaluate these matters.' Jones, 356 F.3d at 537 (quoting United States v. D'Anjou, 16 F.3d 604, 614 (4th Cir.1994)). Provided that there are two permissible ways to view the evidence, such findings are virtually unreviewable on appeal. Id. (internal quotation marks omitted). 73 Although we have the utmost respect for factual findings made by a district court and, in particular, its credibility determinations, in this instance we are compelled to vacate the district court's factual finding that Mellin intentionally placed or otherwise ensured that the day planners in their entirety were taken to the jury room along with the admitted exhibits. None of the witnesses observed Mellin or anyone else placing the day planners with the admitted evidence being taken to the jury. Nor did any of the witnesses profess knowledge of any evidence that Mellin or anyone else intentionally slipped the day planners to the jury in order to gain some advantage in the trial. Rather, the district court's factual finding of misconduct is based solely upon its belief that both day planners had been excluded in a pretrial ruling, that the brown day planner had again been excluded at trial, that Mellin's responses concerning the whereabouts of the day planners on the day the evidence was sorted were unconvincing, and that Mellin's demeanor generally indicated that he was not credible on the issue. Having thoroughly reviewed the transcript from the trial and the evidentiary hearing, we are convinced that the district court's finding of intentional misconduct rests upon several clearly erroneous underlying factual findings.
74 At the outset of the findings of fact, the district judge stated that [t]he trial judge's responsibility is to rule on the admission or exclusion of evidence and to rule clearly so that the parties are aware of what evidence conforms to the law. J.A. 2857. However, the district judge erroneously found that, as a result of a pretrial motion in limine filed by the government, he had issued a seventy-six page definitive opinion where [he had] excluded Doris Lentz's day planners, J.A. 2857-58, that he had denied a subsequent motion to reconsider this ruling, and that he had again ruled the brown day planner inadmissible during trial. It is apparent that this erroneous belief regarding his rulings held special importance for the district judge in assigning responsibility for the day planners reaching the jury room. Throughout the findings pertaining to this issue, the district judge frequently referred to what he believed were government attempts to introduce the evidence which had been refused. 7 And, the district court obviously relied upon this erroneous belief in concluding that Mellin placed the day planners with the evidence with the intent to act outside the Orders of this Court and the confines of the law. J.A. 2869. 75 Contrary to the district court's opinion, the seventy-six page pre-trial order did not specifically exclude Doris's black day planner or brown day planner from evidence. See United States v. Lentz, 282 F.Supp.2d 399, 411-425 (E.D.Va.2002). 8 The district court was never presented with a motion to admit either of the day planners into evidence in their entirety. Although the district court's pretrial ruling rejected evidence similar to that contained within the day planners, see id at 423-24, the motion itself only sought a pretrial ruling regarding those pages of each day planner that were ultimately ruled admissible. 76 Compounding this error, the district court also erroneously stated that the government had attempted to persuade me to revise my rulings on this evidence, and that AUSA Haynes sought to admit the brown day planner in full despite the clear definitive ruling excluding the full day planner. J.A. 2858. We can find no such definitive ruling, nor any place in the record where Haynes unsuccessfully sought to admit the brown day planner in its entirety. 77 During her cross-examination of Rigger, Clark had introduced the two pages from the black day planner admitted in the pretrial order that indicated that Julia was scheduled to return on April 24 rather than April 23. On redirect examination, Haynes moved to introduce the two pages from the brown day planner also admitted in the pretrial order that corroborated Rigger's testimony that Doris was to pick up Julia on April 23. The precise colloquy from the redirect examination was as follows: Ms. Haynes: Your Honor, I'd move in Government's Exhibit 548, and there is no objection to it. If I can — 78 Ms. Clark: It's just a two-page section because the whole page is a bigger one. 79 Ms. Haynes: I think later we might try to want to move the rest in. But for now, we'll just move in these two pages. 80 The Court: Okay. Two pages of 548 will be received. 81 J.A. 599. At the evidentiary hearing, Clark, when asked if she recalled objecting to Haynes's supposed attempt to admit the entirety of the day planner testified as follows: 82 [Ms. Clark]. I do now that you've shown me the transcript where I did object. What I did was object to the admission of the entire document rather than just two pages.... [A] [r]ather unintelligible one, but I thought I got the message across. 83 J.A. 2463-64. In our view, if Clark intended to convey that message, she failed to do so. Both the entire brown day planner and the excerpt admitted in the pretrial order were marked by the government as Exhibit 548. Although at first blush it might appear that Haynes was seeking to admit the entirety of Exhibit 548, Clark's interruption of Haynes's motion to introduce the evidence actually indicates that Haynes was only attempting to move in the two-page excerpt from the brown day planner in response to Clark's introduction of the two-page excerpt from the black day planner. 84 Moreover, we cannot fairly interpret Clark's statement as an objection. At best, it was an interruption that might be viewed as clarification that Exhibit 548 consisted only of the admitted sections and not the brown day planner in its entirety. Finally, we do not interpret the district court's ruling as one excluding disputed evidence. The colloquy rather clearly demonstrates that Haynes only moved to introduce the excerpt admitted pretrial and the district court simply admitted that particular evidence. 9 85 For the foregoing reasons, we conclude that the district court clearly erred in finding that the government sought to introduce the entire contents of black and brown day planners into evidence pretrial and sought to introduce the entire contents of the brown day planner during trial in contravention of the pretrial order. These clearly erroneous findings regarding the government's attempted use of the day planners are significant because the district court inferred from this perceived pattern on the part of Mellin a steadfast intent and motive on his part to get the day planners admitted into evidence in their entirety despite the Orders of th[e] Court and the confines of the law. J.A. 2869.
86 The district court also clearly erred in finding that his courtroom staff had no responsibility for the extraneous evidence reaching the jury. This clearly erroneous factual finding, upon which the district court also bolstered its finding that Mellin must have intentionally slipped the evidence to the jury, is likewise not supported by a fair view of the evidence. 87 First, it is undisputed that the court clerk made at least two negligent errors in the handling of the exhibits in this case: she discarded the complete exhibit list and kept an incomplete copy, and inadvertently returned an original exhibit to the AUSA's office. The district court acknowledged that the court clerk's error of discarding the original exhibit list is significant because the unofficial clerk's exhibit list does not accurately reflect the exhibits that were identified and used at trial. J.A. 2860. However, the district court found that Solomon could not be held responsible for the extraneous evidence reaching the jury because (1) the attorneys' exhibit list reflected that the day planners were not admitted into evidence; (2) Solomon's incomplete exhibit list was accurate with respect to the black and brown day planners because it reflected the fact that only the photocopied pages, and not the original day planners, were admitted into evidence; and (3) Solomon had never been in possession of the day planners. J.A. 2860. 88 There is no dispute that counsel knew that only the small excerpts from the day planners had been introduced into evidence and, as far as we know, Solomon was never in possession of the complete day planners, at least prior to sorting the evidence. But these findings do not support the ultimate conclusion that Solomon had no responsibility whatsoever for the evidence getting to the jury room. It is the duty of the court clerk to be responsible for admitted exhibits during trial and jury deliberations and, as acknowledged by the court clerk, to assure that only admitted evidence goes to the jury at the conclusion of the trial. To do this, at the least the clerk must maintain an accurate list of exhibits and handle them with great care. Here, all agree that the court clerk reviewed the trial exhibits at the counsel tables for between 45 minutes and an hour while in the company of, and perhaps being assisted by, up to twelve persons. Having supposedly separated the admitted items from the non-admitted exhibits at the same counsel table, the court clerk delegated exclusive responsibility to the court security officer to physically load the exhibits onto the cart, with the assistance of whoever happened to help, for transport to the jury. There is no indication that the court clerk at any time separated or reviewed these exhibits by herself or even took primary responsibility for doing so. Nor is there any indication that, after going through the initial process of meeting with counsel to separate and sort exhibits, she physically segregated the exhibits away from the tables in order to check them off from the official court exhibit list to fulfill her duty of ensuring that no extraneous material was taken into the jury room. 89 As a general observation, we think it highly unlikely that anyone would have taken the brazen step of intentionally placing unadmitted exhibits either with the evidence on the table or in the loaded cart while in the presence of his or her colleagues, court personnel, opposing counsel, and law enforcement officers. The manner in which the evidence was sorted and loaded for transport to the jury, on the other hand, invited any one of numerous persons to inadvertently place the extraneous items with the admitted stack of the sorted evidence. In short, had the court clerk taken the step of physically removing the admitted exhibits from counsels' tables to check them against her official exhibit list, the day planners (however they found their way into the wrong pile) would likely have been discovered and removed without incident. 90 The district court's findings that Scruggs did not cause the extraneous evidence to go to the jury and cannot be held accountable for the submission of the unadmitted black and brown day planners because his responsibility was limited to the transport of evidence, J.A. 2859, are also clearly erroneous. Scruggs was not merely loading into the cart the evidence that the courtroom clerk instructed him to load. According to his testimony, he was allowing numerous other persons to assist him in his duties and, according to Chellis, the day planners were last known to be at counsel table near the area where this activity was taking place. Thus, Scruggs or one of his helpers may well have inadvertently placed the day planners in the cart while loading it. Scruggs, at least, was convinced that this was exactly how the error had occurred. In addition, the district court never addressed the testimony of Scruggs and defense counsel over who was handling the evidence after it was placed in the cart. According to Scruggs, no one got near the cart after it was loaded. However, if the testimony of defense counsel is to be credited, Lieberman was invited to handle the evidence after it was loaded.
91 Having erroneously found that the government repeatedly attempted to admit the day planners and that the district court rejected these attempts both during the pretrial and trial proceedings, and having erroneously exonerated the court staff from any responsibility for the day planners finding their way into the jury room, the district court proceeded to make a rather broad leap to a finding that Mellin intentionally placed both day planners with the evidence after the lawyers and the clerk completed their review of the evidence in order to circumvent the court's prior rulings. These findings are unsupported by the evidence and clearly erroneous as well. 92
93 The district court found that Mellin is responsible for the intentional submission of the black day planner, excluded evidence, to the jury based upon his conclusion that Mellin's demeanor and testimony demonstrate that he was being less than candid with the Court with respect to the black day planner. J.A. 2861. This adverse credibility determination is, in turn, grounded in the following three observations by the trial court: (1) Mellin was the last person known to have handled the black day planner, but did not recall its appearance in court on the day the evidence went to the jury; (2) Mellin testified that he was unaware of the location of the black day planner during the trial, but filed a response to Lentz's motion for a new trial stating that both day planners were in the courtroom on the Government's counsel table; and (3) Mellin was acutely aware of the importance of the unadmitted black day planner because he directed the jury's attention to it in his closing argument, but he appeared to diminish its importance on the day of the hearing. J.A. 2861-62. These observations, however, are wholly insufficient to support the district court's credibility determination or the ultimate finding of intentional conduct. 94 First, the fact that Mellin did not recall seeing the black day planner when the evidence was being sorted, but was known to have had it a few days before, does not support an adverse credibility determination. According to the undisputed evidence, Chellis, at Mellin's request, retrieved the black day planner from the evidence room a few days before closing arguments to make copies of the pages introduced by defense counsel. Chellis testified that he placed the black day planner with the copies in Mellin's chair at their office and that he later observed the black day planner in the courtroom at the government's table. However, none of the other witnesses testified that they saw the black day planner in the courtroom on the day the evidence was sorted (although Scruggs averred in his affidavit that he did). For his part, Mellin confirmed that he asked Chellis to obtain copies of the two admitted pages from the day planner in preparation for his closing argument. He did not deny that the black day planner was in the courtroom or deny the possibility that he might have brought it there. In short, Mellin's testimony that he did not recall seeing the black day planner in the courtroom is not contradicted and is hardly incriminating. The only evidence presented was that the black day planner was last seen on the government's table, but not in Mellin's personal possession. 95 Second, the government's response to Lentz's motion, indicating that the black day planner was in the courtroom on government's counsel table, is not inconsistent with Mellin's testimony that he did not personally recall seeing the black day planner in the courtroom. Mellin testified that he did not personally observe the black day planner it in the courtroom, but Chellis testified that he did see it on counsel's table at some point after he made copies, which would render the government's response entirely consistent with the AUSA Office's internal investigation into the matter. In addition, the court security officer, at least early on, was attesting that it was in the courtroom as well. 96 Finally, the district court clearly erred in finding that Mellin's use of the black day planner during closing was inconsistent with his position at the evidentiary hearing that he placed no particular importance upon it. During closing, Mellin argued that the black day planner, which indicated an April 24 pick-up date for Julia, was consistent with Lentz's April 20th telephone message moving the pick-up from the 24th to the 23rd and that, in any event, the difference was irrelevant because neither date coincided with Julia's return ticket. If anything, Mellin's argument demonstrates that he did not view the black day planner entries as important, but rather as a red herring raised by the defense that warranted only a brief explanation in closing. 97
98 The district court's finding that Mellin was also responsible for the intentional submission of the brown day planner is also clearly erroneous. The district court based this finding upon (1) statements by several witnesses that Mellin had physical possession of the brown day planner during closing argument the day before the evidence was sorted; and (2) the testimony of defense counsel that, on the following morning, Mellin asked for permission to remove the contents and submit the brown leather cover with only the admitted pages and that he had the brown day planner and the admitted copies in hand at the time. This testimony is insufficient to support the district court's determination that Mellin intentionally slipped the brown day planner with its entire contents into the evidence being taken to the jury. 99 First, it was patently insufficient to rest a finding of intentional misconduct on the undisputed fact that Mellin handled the brown day planner during his closing argument and, while doing so, referred to its admitted entries pertaining to Julia's expected date of return. According to the district court, Mellin's act of holding the brown day planner before the jury [during closing] served to focus their attention on it because he wanted to make sure they reviewed it. Accordingly, it is reasonable to infer that Mr. Mellin was himself focused on the importance of the brown day planner. J.A. 2864. 100 Although the district court does not elaborate upon these inferences, we can only assume that the court believed Mellin concocted a plan before closing to sneak the unadmitted and undiscussed portions of the planner into the jury room — evidence he never directly attempted to introduce — with the admitted portions that he discussed in his closing and that, as part of this plan, he drew some special attention to the brown day planner to ensure that the jury looked at it. Again, the district court's view of the evidence was no doubt tainted by its erroneous belief that the day planner had been excluded in the pretrial order and again during trial. Moreover, it is not reasonable to infer from Mellin's mere use of the planner in closing argument that Mellin viewed the unadmitted contents of the brown day planner as so critical or important that he would concoct a plan to highlight the brown day planner to the jury in closing arguments and then slip it to the jury in contravention of court orders. During his closing argument, Mellin referred briefly to the admitted pages from the day planner which corroborated the testimony of numerous witnesses that Doris told them she was bound for Lentz's house on April 23 to pick up Julia. The only other demonstrated importance that the pages held for Mellin was that they contradicted the black day planner pages which, according to Lieberman, had been submitted to demonstrate an inconsistency and some confusion with the government's theory that on April 23rd of 1996, Doris Lentz went to Jay Lentz's house to pick up their daughter. J.A. 2488. 101 We are also unable to endorse the district court's finding of intentional conduct based upon defense counsel's assertion that Mellin requested their permission to insert the admitted excerpt from the brown day planner inside the leather cover. Clark and Lieberman testified that Mellin approached Clark and sought approval to remove the contents of the brown day planner from the brown leather cover and submit the cover with the two admitted pages. According to Lieberman, however, the request was made before Solomon even checked the exhibits. Lieberman testified that, somewhat because of the contentious nature of the relationship Mr. Mellin and I have had over the year, he said, almost sarcastically to Mr. Mellin, you know, that's fine, Steve, as long as you take everything else out. J.A. 2492. 102 Mellin acknowledged having a brief conversation with defense counsel about the brown day planner, but did not recall making this alleged request. Mellin's inability to recall caused the district court great concern. J.A. 2865. However, a fair reading of the evidence does not support the inference that Mellin was not credible, or that this conversation was part of his plan to intentionally slip the entire contents of the day planner to the jury. As lead prosecutor, Mellin was overseeing the process of sorting the exhibits, but no one has asserted that he was involved in the hands-on sorting of evidence. There was no particular controversy going on that would have caused Mellin to remember the specifics of that morning. The prosecution team witnesses had no recollection of a conversation between Clark and Mellin about the brown day planner contents. Solomon and Scruggs were in the area at the time of the purported conversation, but they also testified that they overheard no such conversation. Defense counsel acknowledged that they did not inform Solomon of any agreement to submit the admitted two pages within the brown leather cover and they admitted that no one from the defense team ever saw or examined the brown day planner to see if the contents had been removed and replaced. Indeed, it is quite a stretch to interpret even the defense counsel's recitation of what occurred as an agreement to submit the evidence in a different form. According to Lieberman, Mellin asked for permission to submit Government's Exhibit 548 (which consisted of the four photocopied pages) inside the brown leather binder (which was also marked Exhibit 548 but never admitted in its entirety) before the exhibits were even checked by the court clerk and received a sarcastic response. And, Solomon testified that Exhibit 548 was sent to the jury in its admitted form. Thus, it seems more probable that Mellin, assuming he ever made the request, simply abandoned it in light of Lieberman's sarcastic response. 10
103 Having thoroughly reviewed the transcript from the trial and the evidentiary hearing, we hold that the district court's finding that Mellin engaged in intentional misconduct is built upon several clearly erroneous underlying factual findings and an impermissible view of the evidence of record. 104 It is clear that the evidentiary hearing did little to solve the mystery of how the day planners found their way into the jury room. According to Mr. Chellis, both day planners were in the courtroom prior to the sorting of the evidence and that he placed the brown day planner on the back table where the admitted evidence was being segregated. Scruggs admitted that he saw the brown day planner on the rear table and, in an earlier affidavit, stated that he had seen both day planners on the government's table. The court clerk denies ever seeing either day planner anywhere. By all accounts, three attorneys and one staff person with the defense team, three attorneys and one staff person with the prosecution team, two law enforcement officers, and two court officers were all present at various times during the sorting process. The evidence was sorted on and around four tables in the courtroom and involved hundreds of pieces of documentary and physical evidence. Not a single witness observed Mellin place the brown or black day planner with the evidence to be placed on the cart. There is no direct evidence whatsoever, and plainly insufficient circumstantial evidence, that Mellin placed any item on the cart or even that Mellin handled either day planner after the exhibits had been checked or while the cart was being loaded. There is no evidence that Mellin was ever alone in the area of the exhibits. And, there is no evidence that Mellin told anyone to include the day planners with the admitted evidence or to place them in the cart. 11 105 In our view, despite the best intentions on the part of the district court and the frustrations associated with this serious incident, the evidence simply cannot support the district court's findings that Mellin intentionally slipped these items into the jury room in contravention of court orders and at risk to his legal career. 12 The district court clearly erred in finding that it had excluded both day planners from evidence pretrial and that it had excluded the brown day planner during a renewed attempt on the part of the government during trial, and erred in finding that these attempts demonstrated a motive on the part of Mellin to get the day planners before the jury notwithstanding the court's rulings. 106 The district court also clearly erred in finding that his court staff had no responsibility whatsoever for the extraneous evidence reaching the jury room (although we acknowledge that their failures were likely the result of negligence, inattention, or poor procedures on their part). And, the district court clearly erred in concluding that Mellin intentionally placed the brown and black day planner with the evidence to go to the jury based upon testimony that he handled both of the day planners in the days leading up to the sorting of the evidence and handled the brown day planner prior to the exhibits being checked by the court clerk, and the district court's perception that the contents of those planners were especially significant to him. 107 Accordingly, we reverse the district court's finding of intentional misconduct on the part of the government and, in particular, Mellin. As an appellate court, we are reluctant to overturn factual findings of a district court. Such findings, particularly those as to credibility, are entitled to great deference, but they are not unreviewable. When findings are based on an erroneous recitation of the record and impermissible inferences drawn from it, we are compelled to vacate them. Here, the evidence was insufficient to support the district court's finding of intentional misconduct or even exclusive responsibility on the part of Mellin for the submission of the extraneous evidence, and the district court clearly erred in so ruling.