Court Opinion

ID: 9492950
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 14:54:02.77009+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:55:34.081292
License: Public Domain

MANION, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
While I concur with the panel’s decision not to restrict the trial judge’s discretion by inventing affirmative duties for standby counsel, I respectfully dissent from the panel’s decision to remand this case for a new trial because I think that the exclusion of the shackles was not an abuse of discretion. Byrd bears a “heavy burden” under the abuse of discretion standard, White v. United States, 148 F.3d 787, 791 (7th Cir.1998), because he must convince the court that no “reasonable person could agree with the district court.” United States v. Hook, 195 F.3d 299, 305 (7th Cir.1999) (quoting Jackson v. Bunge Corp., 40 F.3d 239, 246 (7th Cir.1994)). And even if the trial judge erred by excluding the shackles, that error is not ground for a new trial unless it “appears to the court inconsistent with substantial justice,” Fed. R.Civ.P. 61, which means that there must be a “significant chance” that the error “affected the outcome of the trial.” Hasham v. California State Bd. of Equalization, 200 F.3d 1035, 1048 (7th Cir.2000).
The court should note the fact that Byrd walked from the jail to the car and entered the car in his shackles, and this fact enabled the jury to reasonably infer (not just imagine) that Byrd had a sufficient range of motion to strike Brannigan with his knee and elbow while Brannigan was leaning over Byrd to fasten his seatbelt. Brannigan was in close proximity and in a vulnerable position, giving Byrd an easy target with his knee and elbow. But even if the shackles prevented Byrd from actually striking the officers, his threatening “display of physical aggression” toward them was sufficient to constitute an assault under 18 U.S.C. § 111. United States v. Woody, 55 F.3d 1257, 1266 (7th Cir.1995). Moreover, Byrd directed more than profanity at the officers, as he actually threatened them with violence, which alone can support a jury’s verdict under the statute. See United States v. Mathis, 579 F.2d 415, 418 (7th Cir.1978). And finally, the jury also heard testimony that Byrd spit in Brannigan’s eye, which alone may also constitute a “forcible assault” under the statute. See United States v. Frizzi, 491 F.2d 1231, 1232 (1st Cir.1974); see also United States v. Masel, 563 F.2d 322, 323-24 (7th Cir.1977). Since displaying the shackles would not have assisted Byrd’s defense in any material way against the *597evidence that he verbally and physically threatened the officers with violence, and even spit on one of them, there is no “significant chance” that the exclusion of the shackles affected the outcome of the trial. Therefore, since a reasonable person could certainly agree with the district court that the admission of the shackles would have been merely cumulative, not admitting them was not an abuse of discretion. Thus, I would affirm.