Opinion ID: 24411
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Sufficiency of record on appeal

Text: The defendants also argue that the record on appeal does not include all the motions filed during the trial by their codefendants, and that their representation on appeal is therefore inadequate. The government counters that all motions were listed on the docket sheet, and that each of the defendants were given the 3 However, we do not hold, as the Green court did, that the jury implicitly found the drug quantities stated in the indictment. Though the inclusion of the specific drug quantities in the indictment and the instruction to the jury to first find that the conspiracy existed “as charged,” in combination with the dearth of evidence indicating drug quantities contrary to those charged in the indictment, compel a holding that the Apprendi errors here are harmless under Neder, they cannot support a holding that the jury made an implicit finding of drug amounts such that there was no Apprendi error. Here, the trial court instructed the jury that “[t]he evidence in this case need not establish that a particular amount or quantity of [controlled substances] was involved, as alleged in the Indictment, but only that some amount of [controlled substances] was in fact the subject of the acts charged in the Indictment.” Even under the narrow reading of Apprendi adopted in this Circuit, such an instruction is plain Apprendi error when the drug amounts were subsequently used to enhance the defendants’ sentences. Therefore, we only hold that such error, in this case, was harmless. 30 opportunity to supplement the record by requesting that any motion listed on the docket sheet be included in the record. In this light, and because defendants have the burden to create the record on appeal, United States v. Myers, 198 F.3d 160, 168 (5th Cir. 1999), we find no merit in this argument.