Court Opinion

ID: 9480135
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 07:39:28.305026+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:47:30.556893
License: Public Domain

SEITZ, Circuit Judge,
concurring.
The majority opinion holds that a defendant may be convicted of a scheme to defraud under 18 U.S.C. § 1344(a)(1) without proof of a false representation. I agree. I also agree that there was sufficient evidence to convict defendant under *249§ 1344(a)(1). I part company with my colleagues on the approach to the disposition of the appeal insofar as it attacks the verdict.
I
Although the majority opinion does not say so explicitly, it appears to recognize that the jury charge was erroneous in requiring proof of a false representation to obtain a conviction under § 1344(a)(1). It, in effect, finds the error harmless because, in its view, the charge merely increased the government’s burden and thus did not prejudice defendant. If I felt required to decide whether the error was harmless, I would find the claimed error more substantial than does the majority. I say this because of the mandatory language in the charge which collapsed the separate crimes created by § 1344(a)(1) and (2) (false representations) into one crime despite the disjunctive language between (a)(1) and (a)(2).
The claimed error was not raised in the district court by any attack on the charge. Consequently, this court may only reach this issue under the plain error doctrine of Rule 52(b) as explicated in United States v. Young, 470 U.S. 1, 15-16, 105 S.Ct. 1038, 1046-47, 84 L.Ed.2d 1 (1985):
The plain-error doctrine of Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 52(b) tempers the blow of a rigid application of the contemporaneous-objection requirement. The Rule authorizes the Courts of Appeals to correct only “particularly egregious errors,” United States v. Frady, 456 U.S. 152, 163, 102 S.Ct. 1584, 1592, 71 L.Ed.2d 816 (1982), those errors that “seriously affect the fairness, integrity or public reputation of judicial proceedings,” United States v. Atkinson, 297 U.S. [157], at 160 [56 S.Ct. 391, at 392, 80 L.Ed. 555 (1936)]. In other words, the plain-error exception to the contemporaneous-objection rule is to be “used sparingly, solely in those circumstances in which a miscarriage of justice would otherwise result.” United States v. Frady, 456 U.S., at 163, n. 14 [102 S.Ct. at 1592, n. 14].. Any unwarranted extension of this exacting definition of plain error would skew the Rule s “careful balancing of our need to encourage all trial participants to seek a fair and accurate trial the first time around against our insistence that obvious injustice be promptly redressed.” Id., at 163 [102 S.Ct. at 1592]. Reviewing courts are not to use the plain-error doctrine to consider trial court errors not meriting appellate review absent timely objection — a practice which we have criticized as “extravagant protection.” Henderson v. Kibbe, 431 U.S. 145, 154, n. 12 [97 S.Ct. 1730, 1736, n. 12, 52 L.Ed.2d 203] (1977); Namet v. United States, 373 U.S. 179, 190 [83 S.Ct. 1151, 1156-57, 10 L.Ed.2d 278] (1963).
Especially when addressing plain error, a reviewing court cannot properly evaluate a case except by viewing such a claim against the entire record.
Thus, I ask whether the claimed error here seriously affected the fairness, integrity or public reputation of these judicial proceedings and thereby resulted in a miscarriage of justice. Among those factors, only fairness is applicable on this record.
The evidence of a scheme to defraud set forth in the majority opinion, even apart from any erroneous reliance by the jury on the worthless checks as constituting misrepresentations, was substantial. Furthermore, defendant does not contend that the worthless checks were not properly admitted into evidence as partial proof of the scheme to defraud under § 1344(a)(1). Consequently, this is not a case where the allegedly erroneous charge resulted in the conviction of the defendant for a nonexistent crime. Rather, the charge required proof of a false representation even though such proof was not required under § 1344(a)(1) and even though the mere deposit of a worthless check was not a misrepresentation. See Williams v. United States, 458 U.S. 279, 284, 102 S.Ct. 3088, 3091, 73 L.Ed.2d 767 (1982). Thus, viewing the claimed error in light of the entire record in this case, I am unable to say that it constituted such unfairness as to result in a miscarriage of justice. Since I do not find the asserted error so plain as to be *250cognizable, I therefore agree with the majority that the verdicts and sentences should stand.