Opinion ID: 775760
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Charge Issues

Text: 28 Defendants claim that the district court erred by refusing to add language that they proposed to its definition of the labor exception to Hobbs Act culpability and by failing to define fear adequately.
29 The Hobbs Act prohibits, inter alia, interference with commerce by extortion. 18 U.S.C. 1951(a). The Act defines extortion as the obtaining of property from another, with his consent, induced by wrongful use of actual or threatened force, violence, or fear, or under color of official right. 18 U.S.C. 1951(b)(2). 30 There is a labor exception to culpability for Hobbs Act extortion. United States v. Enmons, 410 U.S. 396, 401, 35 L. Ed. 2d 379, 93 S. Ct. 1007 (1973). Thus, the Act does not apply to the use of force to achieve legitimate labor ends. Id. Legitimate labor ends include increasing the number of minorities hired by a contractor that the defendant reasonably believes discriminates against minorities. United States v. Taylor, 92 F.3d 1313, 1319 (2d Cir. 1996). However, the use of force for the achievement of illegitimate objectives by employees or their representatives, such as the exaction of personal payoffs, or the pursuit of 'wages' for unwanted or fictitious services, is not exempt from the Act. Enmons, 410 U.S. at 407. Judge Casey used the following language in explaining the difficult concepts underlying the labor exception to the jury: 31 The Hobbs Act, which describes the crime of extortion, does not apply to labor disputes in which workers seek to obtain lawful and legitimate labor objectives. A labor dispute can include good-faith efforts to obtain jobs for minorities from contractors or subcontractors who the defendants reasonably believe discriminate against minorities in hiring employees, or who the defendants reasonably believe failed to obey the law regarding the employment of minorities. 32 This exception does not imply that violence is lawful or proper in general. Obviously, it is not. Therefore, the labor exception to the Hobbs Act does not apply to efforts to obtain jobs from contractors whom the defendants reasonably believed did not discriminate or violate employment laws, or to efforts to obtain money or wages for unwanted or superfluous employees[,] no show-jobs[,] or contracts, or other valuable consideration. 33 Nor does it apply to the charge of using coercive or extortive means in order to force an employer to place a person on his or her payroll solely in exchange for preventing that person or other people or organizations he is associated with from disrupting work. 34 If you find that any defendant engaged in such conduct, then you might find him guilty of extortion, if the other elements of the crime have been proven. 35 The government has the burden of proving beyond a reasonable doubt that the labor exception does not apply. 36 Just before explaining the labor exception, the court instructed the jury, that force, violence or fear . . . used . . . to obtain property [was] wrongful and that the jury did not need to determine whether the defendants believed the property was legitimately theirs. 37 The defense asked that the court insert the following language in the second paragraph of the labor exception charge immediately after, This exception does not imply that violence is lawful or proper in general. Obviously it is not: 38 Acts of violence are prohibited by other laws. Whether or not such laws have been violated here, however, is irrelevant to the issue that you have to consider. The issue here is whether the defendants have violated this specific statute - the Hobbs Act. 39 A labor dispute, within the labor exception to the Hobbs Act, is a dispute between an employer and an individual employee, a group of employees, a representative of employees or any group of individuals seeking legitimate employment with an employer. The dispute need not involve representatives of recognized labor unions nor need it involve claims of contract violations by the employer. It can include good faith attempts to obtain jobs for minorities from contractors or subcontractors. 40 Although the government did not object to inclusion of this language, the court declined to adopt it. Defendants requested, in the alternative, that the court remove the word, Therefore, immediately after Obviously, it is not and before the labor exception does not apply and begin a new paragraph with The labor exception does not apply. The Court also declined to make this change. 41 We review jury instructions de novo. United States v. Pujana-Mena, 949 F.2d 24, 27 (2d Cir. 1991). To succeed in their challenge, defendants must show that the requested charge accurately represented the law in every respect and that, viewing as a whole the charge actually given, [they were] prejudiced. Id. (emphasis added and internal quotation marks omitted). We must also look to the charge as a whole to determine whether it adequately reflected the law and would have conveyed to a reasonable juror the relevant law. United States v. Jones, 30 F.3d 276, 284 (2d Cir. 1994). 42 Defendants' proposed language is legally correct and may have helped the jury better understand the counter-intuitive proposition that the use of violence in a labor dispute does not violate the Hobbs Act. However, the court's charge also was correct. It states that the labor exception applies to efforts to induce the hiring of minorities under certain circumstances but does not allow labor coalitions to coerce the hiring of minorities if the coalition lacks a reasonable belief that the targeted employer discriminated or, under any circumstances, to force the hiring of coalition coordinators for no-show jobs. See Taylor, 92 F.3d at 1319 n.2, 1333 (holding that labor exception does not apply to efforts to obtain coordinator's fees or contracts and noting that the district court made it clear to the jury that the exception did not apply to efforts to obtain jobs from contractors whom defendants reasonably believed did not discriminate or violate employment laws, or to efforts to obtain money, wages for unwanted or superfluous employees, contracts or other valuable consideration). 2 Moreover, a reasonable juror would have understood the court's charge correctly. The district court defined the labor exception immediately after defining the wrongfulness element of the Hobbs Act and stated that the labor exception constituted an exception to this aspect of wrongfulness. The juxtaposition of the two portions of the charge indicates that use of fear in the service of legitimate labor goals including increased hiring of minorities is not wrongful and is within the labor exception.
43 Defendants also urge that the court erred by refusing to give a supplemental charge instructing that a defendant's attempt to make a victim fearful must be wrongful in order to subject the defendant to Hobbs Act liability after the jurors asked several questions concerning the definition of extortion. 44 On December 11, the jury asked the court to define the words 'willfully', unlawfully' and 'knowingly.' At the same time, the jury submitted another note that said: 45 On p. 27, P 1, fear is defined to include fear induced by persons other than the defendants. On p. 27, P 3 and p. 28, P 3, your use of fear implies that it must have been induced by the defendants. Which is correct? Can defendants be held liable on count two if they exploit fear induced by others? Is that wrongful? What if the fear is of economic loss induced by others? 46 Defendants responded by asking the court to further explain the word wrongful in wrongful use of actual or threatened force or violence or fear by saying, wrongful in this context means that, for each defendant named in the count under consideration, the defendant's specific purpose in using or threatening force or violence or in seeking to induce fear must have been for a prohibited purpose. They also asked the court to explain once more that it is not wrongful under the statute to use or threaten force or violence or to protest job sites or to picket or induce fear to obtain legitimate good faith labor goals . . . . including good faith efforts to obtain genuine jobs or higher wages for minorities. Defendants further suggested that the court erred in its initial charge by defining wrongful as meaning that the defendants' purpose in using the threatened force or violence, or in inducing fear, must have been to obtain property from the victim in the count you are considering. 47 Rather than adopt defendants' language, the court reread a portion of the charge indicating that the defendants' knowing and willful exploitation of fear caused by others would be wrongful, read the definitions of unlawfully, knowingly, and willfully, and referred the jury to the charge as a whole. 48 On Monday, December 14, the jury submitted three pertinent notes. One asked,  In order to find that Defoe had 'fear' for purposes of Count II, is it sufficient if any of the following persons - John Amicucci, Craig DePalma, Ed Schluter or Bobby Colella [the president and several high-level employees of Defoe] - had 'fear'? Another said: 49 Drawing your attention to the fear element of the extortion charge, can a corporation be deemed to have the human emotion of fear when it acts in a purely rational manner? To be specific, if we find: 50 (a) Defoe knew there could be a job stoppage if it did not deal with defendants; (b) Defoe knew it would lose money if there was a job stoppage; (c) Defoe did not want to lose money; and (d) for these reasons Defoe dealt with defendants, 51 does this compel a finding of the fear element of extortion, notwithstanding that at all times Defoe acted in a purely rational[] and business[-]like manner, devoid of human emotion? 52 Later that same day, the jurors submitted a similar note, adding the concept that the corporation could act through its agents and employees. In response to the notes, the court informed the jury that it could consider the state of mind of any Defoe employee and told the jurors that whether Defoe acted in a rational and business-like manner was not an element of extortion, adding -- over the objection of all counsel -- it is unclear to me why you include in your question the phrase that Defoe acted through its officers, employees and agents at all times in a purely rational and business manner. 53 To establish that the court erred by refusing to give the charge they requested, defendants rely principally on United States v. Abelis, 146 F.3d 73 (2d Cir. 1998). In Abelis, we considered an extortion instruction that, in defining fear, did not state that the defendant must act wrongfully. See id. at 82. Although we said that to avoid question, it would have been better if the district court had included the notion of wrongfulness in its definition of fear and had explained that the defendant must be aware of a victim's fear in order for the defendant's exploitation of that fear to be wrongful, we did not reverse because the district court clearly indicated in other places that the inducement or exploitation of fear must be wrongful. Id. at 84. The court in this case instructed the jurors that defendants' use of fear must be wrongful when it read the indictment, when it summarized the government's position, and, most importantly, when it set out the elements of a Hobbs Act violation. It was under no obligation to further emphasize the wrongfulness element in response to the jury's questions on elements of fear other than wrongfulness. The court also, in effect, charged that the defendants must be aware of the fear that they exploited by charging that the law prohibits knowingly and willfully attempting to exploit existing fear. 54 Defendants also argue, relying on United States v. Garcia, 907 F.2d 380 (2d Cir. 1990), overruled on other grounds, Griffin v. United States, 502 U.S. 46, 57n.2, 112 S. Ct. 466, at 473 n.2, 116 L. Ed. 2d 371 (1997), that the court erred when it instructed the jury that Defoe's rational self-interest was irrelevant to the issue of extortion. 3 In Garcia, we reversed the Hobbs Act convictions of former Congressman Robert Garcia and his wife. Garcia offered his influence to a corporation in return for a job for his wife. Id. at 382-83. We found that there was no evidence of the fear element of extortion and that Garcia's victim had the mindset of a shrewd, unethical businessman who senses and seeks to capitalize on a money-making opportunity. Id. at 383. Garcia thus involves a very different factual scenario from this case. Instead of offering access to influence, defendants offered freedom from violence, property damage, and costly shutdowns. Therefore, fear logically co-existed with rational, economic self-interest in this case, and the court's instruction could not confuse the jurors.
55 Carnes argues that the court erred when it allowed the jury to rehear a tape in which Carnes and another BFB member threatened to shut down a job site without also rereading a stipulation stating that the job site never was shut down. Because the jurors did not request the stipulation and a threat is sufficient for Hobbs Act culpability, the district court did not err.