Court Opinion

ID: 9486375
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 11:46:34.830269+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:51:41.691146
License: Public Domain

KOZINSKI, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
The heart of Dorri’s defense was that he wasn’t acting corruptly. He was, rather, conducting a one-man sting: He would lure Sarafian into paying a bribe in order to trap her employer. Far-fetched? No doubt. Goofy? To be sure. But — if believed by the jury — surely not illegal.
The trouble was, the jury said it had difficulty with the term “corruptly,” an element of 18 U.S.C. § 201(b)(2)(A), and the key to Dorri’s defense. After learning that the jury was confused, Dorri’s counsel objected to the original instruction and asked the judge to clarify this term. The majority, nevertheless, says that defendant failed to comply with Fed.R.Crim.P. 30, which requires only that an objecting party “stat[e] distinctly the matter to which that party objects and the grounds of the objection.” According to the majority, defense counsel was required to do more than point out the problem — he was required to come up with a solution, i.e., propose specific language the district judge could use to further instruct the jury.
While it’s certainly good practice for a lawyer to suggest such language, I had always thought the responsibility for getting the law right lay with the district judge. The lawyer’s responsibility, as I understood it, was to focus the judicial mind on the issue. Once he does this, the burden shifts to the judge to do whatever research and reflection is necessary to draft a legally sufficient instruction. If Fed.R.Crim.P. 30 was designed to make lawyers come up with correct instructions — rather than merely object to those the court proposed — it surely could have said so more clearly. I suspect that today’s ruling will be mighty surprising to many defense lawyers — as well as judges and prosecutors.
A. The majority reviews for plain error1 because “defendant did not comply with Rule 30 by stating distinctly the matter to which he was objecting and giving the grounds of his objection.” Maj. op. at 891. Yet Dorri’s counsel told the court, “I think what [the jury’s] asking for is clarity on my client’s motivation. I mean, what is corrupt_” RT 2/11/92 at 10. He tried to convince the judge to clarify the meaning of “corruptly”, suggesting language approved by this court in United States v. Strand, 574 F.2d 993 (9th *893Cir.1978). Where then is the Rule 30 problem?
According to the majority, it’s counsel’s failure to “articulate [his objection] sufficiently for the court to give a valid clarification to the jury.” Maj. op. at 891. And counsel failed to articulate the objection sufficiently because he did not propose a better “alternate formulation.” Id. But Rule 30 doesn’t affect the burden of properly instructing the jury — that still lies with the district judge. The point of Rule 30 is to make sure the court understands when and why counsel doesn’t agree with an instruction — “to prevent unnecessary new trials caused by errors in instructions that the district court easily could have corrected if they had been brought to its attention at the proper time.” United States v. Payne, 944 F.2d 1458, 1463-64 n. 2 (9th Cir.1991). That doesn’t mean counsel has to tell the court how it can be done better. Rule 30 says nothing about alternative instructions; not a word. Indeed, our cases make clear that Rule 30 is not even satisfied by offering an alternative instruction, no matter how good. See, e.g., United States v. Williams, 990 F.2d 507, 511 (9th Cir.1993) (“Because defense counsel did not distinctly state the grounds of his objection and merely offered an alternative instruction, plain error review is appropriate.”) (emphasis added).2
Thus, whether Dorri’s counsel made a helpful suggestion by pointing to the “bad purpose” language of Strand is beside the point. What matters is that he told the judge he thought the jury was “asking for ... clarity on [Dorri’s] motivation,” on “what is corrupt.” RT 2/11/92 at 10. Given Dorri’s defense — that his motives were pure — counsel’s objection sufficiently alerted the district judge to the problem. It was then the judge’s responsibility — and ultimately ours— to come up with an instruction that solves it.3
The notion that lawyers must come up with a perfect substitute instruction not only finds no support in the language of Rule 30, it’s also suspect on due process grounds. Raising an objection — that is, pointing out a problem — is something a lawyer can reasonably be expected to do in the heat of an ongoing trial. Drafting a perfect instruction is a much more difficult matter; it may well require time and research. A generic instruction might exist somewhere in the case law or in form books. Or, as in this case, a generic instruction simply may not suffice. See pp. 894-95 infra. If we are going to read Rule 30 as requiring lawyers to come up with perfect instructions, we ought to build in some procedural protections to assure sufficient time for this task.
The majority’s reliance on United States v. Varela, 993 F.2d 686 (9th Cir.1993), is misplaced. In Varela, the defendant “made no specific objection to the proposed lan-guage_[and] [a]t no time ... mentioned] the burden of proof,” id. at 688, the very issue he was trying to raise on appeal. Here, defendant plainly did object, and vigorously. Varela does mention that the district court “reiterated several times that it would be willing to consider any alternate formulation that [the defense] would prefer; [counsel] proposed no alternative.” Id. But this was just another way of pointing out that defense counsel didn’t object. See n. 2 supra. Varela surely does not impose an additional requirement that defense counsel come *894up with perfect alternative instructions in addition to making an objection. Here Dor-ri’s counsel specifically asked the court to clarify the meaning of “corruptly” because he thought the jury was confused on this element, and referred to Strand to suggest a way of doing so. The objection here was more than “sufficient to alert the court to error.” United States v. Kramas, 672 F.2d 766, 769 (9th Cir.1982).4 Rule 30 was satisfied.
B. The question, then, is, did the district court correctly instruct the jury on the elements of 18 U.S.C. § 201? United States v. Johnson, 956 F.2d 197, 199 (9th Cir.1992).
Whether Dorri’s conduct, if his story be believed, amounts to bribery under section 201 is not obvious. Section 201 doesn’t absolutely prohibit public officials from “seek[ing] ... anything of value personally or for any other person or entity, in return for ... being influenced in the performance of any official act.” It only bars them irom doing so corruptly, and “corruptly” is nowhere defined in the statute.
In fact, “corruptly,” like “due process,” “malice aforethought” or “proximate cause,” is a concept that can’t be easily captured in a single formula, as it varies too much from situation to situation. There’s certainly a core meaning to it: Conduct is corrupt if it’s an improper way for a public official to benefit from his job. But what’s improper turns on many different factors, such as tradition, context and current attitudes about legitimate rewards for particular officeholders.
A judge, for instance, wouldn’t be acting corruptly if he conditioned a shorter prison sentence on payment of restitution to the victim; but he would if he conditioned the lower sentence on defendant’s cutting the judge’s lawn. Legislative logrolling — Senator A tells Senator B “I’ll vote for your bill if you vote for a bailout of Corporation C”— isn’t corrupt, unless A owns a chunk of C. Managers regularly offer their employees incentives to influence their behavior; we promote public servants who perform above the call of duty (sometimes even if they bend a few internal rules in the process), decorate war heroes, reward whistleblowers. Such inducements aren’t usually considered corrupt, though sometimes they might be.
Attempts to cabin the definition of “corruptly” within a single rule have proven unsatisfactory. United States v. Popkin, 943 F.2d 1535, 1540 (11th Cir.1991), for instance, defines “corruptly” (in the obstruction of justice context) as “done with the intent to secure an unlawful benefit either for oneself or for another,” but what benefits are unlawful? Black’s Law Dictionary says “corrupt ly” refers to “a wrongful design to acquire some pecuniary or other advantage,” Black’s Law Dictionary 345 (6th ed. 1990), but this too begs the question: Exactly when is a design to acquire some advantage “wrongful”? Ballentine’s Law Dictionary defines “corruptly” as involving an “intent to obtain an improper advantage for [onejself or someone else, inconsistent with official duty and the rights of others,” Ballentine’s Law Dictionary 276 (3d ed. 1969): Again, though, whether the intended advantage is improper and whether the conduct is inconsistent with official duty are the very questions we should be answering.5
C. “Corruptly,” then, can only be defined case by case.6 In this ease, Dorri’s conduct as he describes it — soliciting a bribe only to catch a crook, intending to turn the money and the evidence over to his superiors, and *895hoping only for a commendation or promotion — would be an attempt to get something of value (a promotion), but it wouldn’t be corrupt.
Say Dorri had arranged things so he couldn’t possibly keep the bribe — for example, suppose he sent his boss a note explaining the whole plan just before he asked Sarafian for the money. Surely his conduct couldn’t then be described as corrupt. The only gap between this hypothetical and Dor-ri’s story is the problem of proof. If Dorri could convince the jury his intentions were pure — admittedly much harder in his case than in the hypothetical — he would have to be acquitted.
Thus, if the jury found Dorri was telling the truth about his plans, it should have found him not guilty. Unfortunately, nothing in the instruction given by the court—
An act is “corruptly” done if it is done voluntarily and intentionally to bring about either an unlawful result or a lawful result by some unlawful method "with a hope or expectation of either financial gain or other benefit to one’s self or to another.
AER 20 — told the jury to do this. A reasonable juror could well have convicted Dorri under this instruction even if he believed Dorri’s testimony.
Dorri conceded his acts were “done voluntarily and intentionally,” and “with a hope or expectation of ... other benefit to one’s self,” namely recognition by his superiors and a possible promotion. It would have been perfectly reasonable for the jurors to consider a promotion to be a “benefit.” In- fact, both the district court, ruling on the motion for a new trial, ER 63, and the government counsel, arguing before us, said as much. Clearly there was a “reasonable likelihood that the jury ... applied the instruction,” Boyde v. California, 494 U.S. 370, 380, 110 S.Ct. 1190, 1197, 108 L.Ed.2d 316 (1990), the way the judge and prosecutor thought it should be applied.
And a juror who believed Dorri’s story might also have reasonably concluded Dorri was trying “to bring about either an unlawful result or a lawful result by some unlawful method.” Whether Dorri was using an “unlawful method” depended entirely on the ultimate question to be decided by the jury, namely whether his motive was corrupt. In other words, the definition of corruption given to the jury was hopelessly circular: If Dorri’s conduct was illegal, then he wás using an unlawful method, which means he was acting corruptly, which means his conduct was illegal. If Dorri’s conduct was permissible, then he wasn’t using an unlawful method, which means he wasn’t acting corruptly, which means his conduct was lawful.
Faced with language like this, it should be no surprise that the jurors were confused, and without a clarification it’s hard to guess what they did. Maybe they read into the instruction the notion that “corruptly” in this case required an intent to keep the money. But maybe they didn’t. There was certainly nothing about the instruction the jury was given that told them Dorri acted corruptly if he meant to keep the money but not corruptly if he was only angling for a promotion.
Because there’s no generic definition of “corruptly,” the district court should have tailored its instruction to the facts and circumstances of this case, and clearly explained to the jury what, under these circumstances, would be a corrupt motive and what would be a proper one. See Bollenbach v. United States, 326 U.S. 607, 612-13, 66 S.Ct. 402, 406, 90 L.Ed. 350 (1946) (“When a jury makes explicit its difficulties a trial judge should clear them away with concrete accuracy.”). In this case, the district court should have instructed the jury that Dorri would have been acting “corruptly” only if he solicited the money with the intent to keep it rather than turn it over to the authorities. Because the instruction actually given doesn’t make this distinction clear, I would reverse.

. In its closing paragraphs, the majority seems to suggest it is also reviewing for abuse of discretion. See Maj. op. at 892. I do not read the majority there as saying it would affirm the conviction even if the district court had rejected a perfect alternative instruction proffered by Dor-ri's counsel. Rather, I understand my colleagues to be saying that the district judge didn't abuse his discretion because the defense lawyer didn't come up with a good alternative. This is really no different than the majority's principal ruling.

. Whether an alternative instruction is offered becomes an issue when a party does not object, and argues — under the one recognized exception to Rule 30 — that objecting would have been a “pointless formality.” It is then one factor we consider in determining whether the failure to object didn’t matter — because the trial judge was fully aware that the party did not agree with the court's instruction. United States v. Kessi, 868 F.2d 1097, 1102 (9th Cir.1989). Clearly the majority did not find such a problem here. Maj. op. at 891 ("In the case at bar, defense counsel made his objection_").

. I am at a loss as to how the majority can assert — after the jury submitted a note requesting clarification specifically on this point, and Dor-ri's counsel repeatedly asked the judge to clarify the term — that "no one seemed to be overly concerned about the specificity of the word 'corruptly,' until the trial was over." Maj. op. at 891. Similarly, I don’t see how the “judge was not on notice that it would be a troublesome issue," id., when — as the majority recognizes — a large part of Dorri’s case was devoted to proving that his behavior was not in any way corrupt, id. at 890 ("he testified at length about conducting this secret, unauthorized investigation.... that he had no intent to keep the money....”).

. Although Kramas dealt with Rule 30's civil analogue, Fed.R.Civ.P. 51, the standard for a proper objection is the same under both. Kessi, 868 F.2d at 1102.

. Nor can "corruptness” be a question of fact for the jury to decide. A jury isn’t free to conclude logrolling is bad and the senators in the example above are acting "corruptly.” What’s legal and what’s not is for courts to decide.

. Cf. John T. Noonan, Jr., Bribes 644 (1984) (pointing out that courts "decide case by case, without statutory guidance, what acts should be characterized as done ‘corruptly,’ ” but arguing that the "corruptly” requirement should be dropped from the statute).
Of course, if in a particular case a court finds itself defining "corruptly” in a way that can't fairly be applied retroactively, the Due Process Clause might bar the court from applying the statute to the defendant before it. See United States v. Poindexter, 951 F.2d 369, 378-79 (D.C.Cir.1991).