United States v. Mahealani Ventura-Oliver, 664 F. App'x 647

Ventura-Oliver was convicted by a jury of conspiracy to create and utter fictitious obligations and to commit mail fraud, multiple counts of mail fraud, a money-transaction offense, and false-claims conspiracy and filing counts; she appealed the convictions.
On appeal she raised two principal errors: (1) the district court’s failure to give a "dual role" jury instruction concerning testimony by FBI Case Agent Steven Carter; and (2) the denial of a mistrial after a juror discovered an imprint reading "guilty" on a recycled notebook.
The dual-role instruction claim rested on the contention that Agent Carter acted as both a witness summarizing records and as an expert, requiring a special instruction about dual roles.
The mistrial claim turned on whether the juror exposure to the notebook imprint constituted prejudicial ex parte contact necessitating a new trial.
The Ninth Circuit reviewed the unpreserved jury-instruction complaint for plain error and reviewed the mistrial denial for abuse of discretion.
The court affirmed the judgment and denied Ventura-Oliver’s request for judicial notice.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Failure to give a dual-role jury instruction regarding Agent Carter	Agent Carter functioned as an expert witness as well as a summarizer, so the court should have instructed jury on dual-role limits	Agent Carter provided a Rule 1006 summary rather than expert testimony; even if error, no plain-error prejudice shown	No reversible error; Rule 1006 summary and, alternatively, no plain-error showing
Denial of mistrial after juror found "guilty" imprint on recycled notebook	The imprint was an ex parte contact likely to prejudice jurors and required a mistrial	District court cured any risk by questioning exposed jurors and explaining notebooks were recycled; no actual prejudice shown	No abuse of discretion; denial of mistrial affirmed

United States v. Conti, 804 F.3d 977 (9th Cir. 2015) (plain-error review for unpreserved jury-instruction errors)
United States v. Aubrey, 800 F.3d 1115 (9th Cir. 2015) (discussing admissibility of summaries under Federal Rule of Evidence 1006)
United States v. Rosenthal, 454 F.3d 943 (9th Cir. 2006) (defining ex parte contact and review standard for improper outside influences)
United States v. Madrid, 842 F.2d 1090 (9th Cir. 1988) (defendant must show actual prejudice from juror exposure to obtain a new trial)