Court Opinion

ID: 9465938
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 01:00:43.574353+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:39:27.575616
License: Public Domain

CASTLE, Senior Circuit Judge,
dissent-
ing.
I agree with the majority’s conclusion that on the basis of the evidence presented at the trial, the jury could not, as a matter of law, have found the single overall conspiracy charged in the indictment. In such a situation, our holding in United States v. Johnson, supra, requires both a multiple conspiracies instruction and an instruction that evidence relating to other conspiracies may not be used against defendant under any circumstances. The trial judge here did not give the jury either instruction and this was error. However, contrary to the majority, I believe that this error was rendered harmless by the limiting instructions on the use of the evidence that the trial judge did give the jury.
The trial judge did not in so many words instruct the jury not to consider evidence relating to other conspiracies, but he did caution the jury to “leav[e] out of consideration entirely any evidence pertaining to the other defendant” and to consider only defendant’s “own connection with the action and conduct of others.” (Tr. 703 and 684). It is hard to see how the judge could have been much more explicit short of actually instructing the jury on the existence of separate conspiracies, so the thrust of defendant’s argument must be that it was prejudicial error for the judge not to submit the case to the jury on a multiple conspiracy theory. But the whole point of Blumenthal, supra, is that the error of submitting a case to a jury on a single conspiracy theory can be rendered harmless by a limiting instruction. In Blumenthal, the jury was specifically directed not to consider an admission by Goldsmith and Weiss in determining the participation in the conspiracy of Blumenthal, Feigen and Abel because the admission linked Goldsmith and Weiss to a separate conspiracy in which there was no evidence of involvement by the other three defendants. The instruction was held to adequately protect Blumenthal from prejudice even though the jury had been presented with evidence (the admissions) from a separate conspiracy in which he was not proved to have been involved. In United States v. Johnson, supra, we held that the error of submitting a case to the jury on a single conspiracy theory when two conspiracies were proved was prejudicial, but in that case there was no instruction limiting or excluding the use of certain evidence by the jury.
Given that submission to the jury of a multiple conspiracy case on a single conspir*790acy theory is not per se prejudicial error, the question is whether the instructions tendered in this case were adequate to render the error harmless.
The jury was instructed:
In considering whether or not a defendant and any other particular party to the alleged conspiracy was a member of the specific conspiracy charged . . ., you must do so without regard to and independently of the statements and declarations of others. That is, you must determine the membership of a particular defendant from the evidence, if any, concerning his own actions, his own conduct, his own declarations, or his own statements, and his own connection with the action and conduct of others. (Instruc. # 25, Tr. 683-84).
You are not to consider what one person may have said or done in concluding whether or not another person was a member of the conspiracy partnership; his membership must be established by evidence as to his own conduct, what he himself said or did in becoming a member. (Instruc. # 25, Tr. 686). [G]ive separate, personal consideration to the case of each of the defendants . analyze what the evidence shows with respect to each defendant, leaving out of consideration entirely any evidence pertaining to the other defendant. Each is entitled to have his case determined from his own acts and statements and the other evidence in the case which may be applicable to him. (Instruc. # 34, Tr. 703).
These instructions are not substantially different from the saving instruction in Blumenthal telling the jury to disregard the admissions of two conspirators which related to a conspiracy other than the one with which Blumenthal was charged. The fact that the inadmissible evidence in the present case was not specifically delineated by the court for the benefit of the jury as it was in Blumenthal is not prejudicial in the circumstances of this case. First, because the very structure of a theft-on-order operation involves each purchaser in a separate arrangement with the core, and because this is evident on a common sense level — regardless of whether these separate arrangements are recognized to be separate conspiracies or not — instructing a jury to consider only the evidence relating to defendant and to leave out of consideration entirely any evidence pertaining to the other defendant is substantially the same as an instruction not to consider evidence from other conspiracies. This result would obtain only where the conspiracies are structurally separate, as in a hub and spokes operation, in contrast to the situation where there are separate conspiracies as a result of a failure of proof, as may have been the case in Blumenthal.1 Second, far from suffering prejudice, defendant may have benefited from his joint trial with Caldwell, as his own lesser involvement as a purchaser would stand in contrast to Caldwell’s comparatively greater involvement as a dismantler or stripper of vehicles. This view of the case is supported by the fact that defendant never requested a severance of his trial from that of Caldwell.
In sum, the jury instructions explaining what evidence was relevant to defendant’s participation in a motor vehicle theft conspiracy were sufficient, in the circumstances of this case, to render harmless the error of submitting the case to the jury on a single conspiracy theory. The conviction of defendant Lindsey on the conspiracy count should, therefore, be affirmed.2

. It is possible that Blumenthal, Feigen, and Abel also knew of the existence of the undisclosed owner of the whiskey being sold above the OPA price ceilings, in which case there would have been one overall conspiracy, but the Government never proved such knowledge on their part.

. Defendant was sentenced to serve 6 months in prison, with the balance of his 3-year term being suspended. (Defendant’s Br. at A-9).