Opinion ID: 754514
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Prior Litigation in the Court of International Trade

Text: 11 The first of the defendants' evidentiary challenges relates to the charge that they conspired to defraud the Customs Service and the FDA, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 371. To prove its case, the government argued, in relevant part, that the defendants failed to pay certain duties to Customs. But after earlier civil litigation with Vitek in the Court of International Trade, the government had stipulated that certain shipments from Pricor to Vitek were duty-free. In the criminal trial against Vitek and Doppenberg, the government argued that these same shipments were part of a scheme to defraud Customs. When Vitek sought to admit the government's prior stipulations, the district judge excluded this evidence pursuant to Federal Rule of Evidence 403, on the grounds that the stipulations would confuse the jury and cause undue delay. We review this ruling for an abuse of discretion. See United States v. York, 933 F.2d 1343, 1352, 1354 (7th Cir.1991). 12 The government made its stipulations in the course of litigating Vitek Supply v. United States, 17 C.I.T. 111 (Ct. Int'l Trade 1993). In the events leading up to that case, Vitek had imported shipments of veal premix--or rather, what it declared to be veal premix--from Pricor. The Customs Service imposed a duty on these shipments on the theory that animal feed loses its duty-free status if it contains vitamins and minerals that are suitable for human consumption. Vitek paid the duties under protest and then successfully challenged the policy of the Customs Service in the Court of International Trade. See id. After the court determined that the veal premix could enter the United States duty-free, Vitek sought a refund of the duties it had paid on other shipments that had been declared as veal premix. The government stipulated that these shipments were covered by the ruling of the Court of International Trade and granted the refund. During its criminal investigation, however, the government learned that its stipulations covered shipments that were in fact bulk vitamins, avoparcine and zinc bacitracin-not veal premix, as the government had been led to believe. 13 As the district judge recognized, admitting the government's stipulations into evidence would have opened the door to a panoply of issues surrounding the litigation in the Court of International Trade. In order to digest the import of the stipulations, the jury would have had to consider various Customs classifications, whether the information before the Court of International Trade was accurate and sufficient, and whether certain sworn statements were truthful. The nature of the questions addressed by the Court of International Trade would have only compounded the difficulty of the jury's task; the district judge candidly admitted that he did not get a handle on the documents the defendants sought to present to the jury until he had the benefit of oral argument. Tr. at 3642. This is not a simple case like United States v. Fisher, 106 F.3d 622 (5th Cir.1997), on which Vitek and Doppenberg rely. In Fisher, the defendants sought to admit evidence that they had prevailed in an arbitration proceeding that involved an issue relating to their criminal prosecution. See id. at 633. The district court excluded the evidence under Rule 403 after the government objected on the grounds that the arbitrator had not detailed the reasons for the result and that the jury may not understand that it was not bound by the arbitrator's decision. See id. The court of appeals reversed, explaining that the evidence went to the heart of the case and that the government could easily address its concerns during cross-examination See id. In the case at bar, however, the district judge may have found himself presiding over a complex mini-trial that focused on the significance of the Court of International Trade's opinion and the actions the parties took in its aftermath. In light of these circumstances, the district judge did not abuse his discretion when he decided that admitting evidence of the government's prior stipulations would result in confusion and unnecessary delay. 14 As a practical matter, we also question whether the evidence would have benefitted Vitek and Doppenberg. They argue that the stipulations were important because the jury would question how the defendants could have deceived the Customs Service with respect to shipments that the government had stipulated were duty-free. But after the jury heard all the facts relating to the stipulations, they would perceive the defendants as trying to ride the coattails of an earlier, successful deception. We doubt that this would have given the jury reason to acquit the defendants of a charge of conspiracy to defraud the Customs Service.