Court Opinion

ID: 9488893
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 12:58:53.663172+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:53:10.343461
License: Public Domain

CYNTHIA HOLCOMB HALL, Circuit
Judge, concurring in part and dissenting in part:
Although I concur with the majority as to the reversal of Nash’s § 1014 convictions, I write separately because I am not convinced that the jury instructions which invalidated Nash’s § 1014 convictions also tainted his § 1344 convictions.
The majority reasons that the jury abdicated its duty to decide the materiality element of § 1344 because the jury might have wrongly believed that Instruction 40, which admittedly required the jury to find certain statements material as a matter of law, also applied to the § 1344 counts. I do not believe the jury would be so easily confused.
Instruction 40 states: “False statements of income and assets are material for purposes of these instructions.” Jury Instruction 40 (emphasis added). While the majority finds fault with the words “these instructions,” I think it is essential to examine first the instructions to which the jury might think to apply Instruction 40. Instruction 38 clearly listed “materiality” as an element of 18 U.S.C. § 1014, see Jury Instruction 38, so a reasonable juror would apply Instruction 40 to § 1014 counts. However, Instruction 27, which set forth the elements of § 1344, nowhere used the term “material” — instead, it required the jury to find that the defendant made “false statements” that “would reasonably influence a bank to part with its property.” Jury Instruction 27. Thus, the jury would not normally think to apply Instruction 40 — an instruction defining “materiality” — to § 1344, a crime that to a layman has no “materiality” element.
It is true that Instruction 39 read: “A statement is material for purposes of § 1014 if it has the capacity to influence a decision of the bank.” Jury Instruction 39. For this to influence the jury’s § 1344 analysis, however, we would have to assume that the jury noted that the Instruction 39’s “capacity to influence a decision” language and the “reasonably influence a bank” element of § 1344 were similar; to assume that the jury reasoned that the “reasonably influence” element was in fact a materiality element; and further to assume that the jury disregarded Instruction 39’s plain language confining the instruction’s application to § 1014 by applying it to the § 1344 counts. These are assumptions I am unwilling to make.
While the majority’s argument is persuasive now, on appeal, when examined by judges who know that § 1344’s third element is a materiality element, the key is whether Nash’s jury would have engaged in the elaborate chain of reasoning set forth above to reach that conclusion. I do not believe that it did. Because it did not, Nash’s § 1344 convictions rest on the solid ground of a jury’s factual findings. I therefore would not reverse Nash’s § 1344 convictions.