United States v. Albert Flowers, Jr., 664 F. App'x 887

Albert Flowers Jr. was convicted of wire fraud for submitting fraudulent claims to the Gulf Coast Claims Facility (GCCF) after the Deepwater Horizon spill, including a claim in the name of a non-existent business, "Flowers Clean Up Service."
The government moved to admit Flowers’s prior Florida unemployment-fraud conviction as evidence; it argued the conviction was intrinsic to the charged scheme because the wire-fraud claims omitted sources of income.
Flowers conceded the underlying facts giving rise to the unemployment-fraud conviction were admissible but objected to admission of the judgment reflecting a nolo contendere plea, arguing it could not be used as an admission, was cumulative, and was unfairly prejudicial.
The district court admitted the document containing both the nolo plea and the conviction, instructing the jury to consider the conviction only if they found Flowers had intent to deceive in the unemployment-fraud matter.
On appeal Flowers argued the judgment was inadmissible because a nolo contendere plea does not admit guilt; the Eleventh Circuit acknowledged the nolo plea cannot be used as an admission but treated any error in admitting the judgment as harmless.
The court affirmed Flowers’s wire-fraud conviction because the record contained overwhelming evidence that the lawn-service business never existed and that Flowers intended to defraud the GCCF, so any erroneous admission of the judgment did not substantially influence the verdict.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Admissibility of prior conviction judgment (nolo contendere)	Judgment inadmissible; nolo plea "admits nothing" and cannot be used as admission of guilt	Judgment admissible to show underlying facts and to prove intent and that claimed business did not exist	Court doubted probative value outweighed prejudice but found any error harmless and affirmed conviction
Use of underlying facts from prior conviction	Underlying acts admissible (Flowers conceded this)	Government relied on those facts as intrinsic evidence of scheme and to disprove business existence	Underlying facts admissible; admission of judgment unnecessary to prove those facts
Whether nolo contendere plea can be used to prove admission of guilt	Nolo plea cannot be used as admission or for impeachment in later proceedings	Gov’t could use underlying facts but not plea to prove admission	Court reaffirmed nolo plea does not admit guilt; prior plea cannot be used as admission in separate proceedings
Harmless-error standard for erroneous evidentiary ruling	Admission of judgment was prejudicial and could affect outcome	Any evidentiary error was harmless given overwhelming independent evidence of fraud	Error (if any) was harmless; conviction affirmed

United States v. Jiminez, 224 F.3d 1243 (11th Cir. 2000) (standard of review for district court evidentiary rulings)
United States v. Williams, 642 F.2d 136 (5th Cir. 1981) (nolo contendere plea "admits nothing" for later proceedings)
Mickler v. Fahs, 243 F.2d 515 (5th Cir. 1957) (nolo plea is not receivable in another proceeding as evidence of guilt)
United States v. Morrow, 537 F.2d 120 (5th Cir. 1976) (nolo contendere plea generally not usable for impeachment or to show intent in separate proceedings)
United States v. Wyatt, 762 F.2d 908 (11th Cir. 1985) (underlying facts of a nolo plea may be admissible but the plea itself cannot be used to prove admission of guilt)
United States v. Bradley, 644 F.3d 1213 (11th Cir. 2011) (harmless-error standard for evidentiary mistakes)
Bonner v. City of Pritchard, 661 F.2d 1206 (11th Cir. 1981) (en banc) (prior Fifth Circuit decisions remain binding precedent in the Eleventh Circuit)