United States v. JadloweUnited States v. Jadlowe
Kelly Begg Lawrence, Assistant United States Attorney, with whom Michael K. Loucks, Acting United States Attorney, was on brief, for appellee.
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Appellant Marc Jadlowe raises multiple issues of substance in challenging his conviction on drug conspiracy charges. Most significantly, he argues that the district court committed structural error by instructing the jurors that they could discuss the case among themselves during the trial, before formal deliberations commenced. We agree that the instruction was erroneous. We conclude, however, that a showing of prejudice is necessary to justify a new trial based on premature jury discussions and that, before the issue of prejudice can be addressed, the defendant must show that such discussions in fact occurred. As the record here is silent on whether the jurors engaged in discussion of the case during the trial, we do not reach the prejudice question. Hence, Jadlowe is not entitled to a new trial on that basis. We also find no reversible error in the suppression and evidentiary rulings that Jadlowe disputes. We therefore affirm the judgment of conviction.
I.
In November 2005, a federal grand jury charged Jadlowe and fourteen other individuals in an eleven-count indictment alleging various drug-related crimes.1 Jadlowe was named in two counts, one alleging consрiracy to possess and distribute cocaine, in violation of
In late September 2005, the Drug Enforcement Administration (“DEA“) initiated a wiretap on the phone of Brandin Gonsalves, one of Jadlowe‘s co-defendants, as part of an investigation into drug trafficking activities in and around New Bedford, Massachusetts. Within the first week of the wiretap, the DEA intercepted a call between Gonsalves and another defendant, John Ferreira, Jr., in which the men discussed using “Uncle Mar[c]‘s” garage to store a suspected shipment of cocaine.3 Law enforcement agents concluded that “Uncle Marc” was Jadlowe based on, inter alia, pen register data obtained from Gonsalves‘s phone showing that Gonsalves frequently exchanged calls with a phone number the agents linked to Jadlowe.4
On October 5, 2005, DEA agents intercepted a call between Gonsalves and Ferreira at 10:24 p.m., and another call from Gonsalves to Jadlowe a minute later, in which the men discussed how much Jadlowe would be paid for the use of his garage to temporarily store ten to twenty kilograms of cocaine. On October 8, Gonsalves and Jadlowe discussed putting a generator in Jadlowe‘s house and running an extension cord, apparently to provide light for the unloading of the cocaine in the garage.5 Although Gonsalves told Jadlowe the drugs were expected to arrive “in a couple of days,” a call between Gonsalves and Ferreira on October 21 indicated that the delivery had been delayed because the supplier had run into problems with law enforcement authorities.6
On November 3, the DEA intercepted a call between Ferreira and an unidentified male who reported that “[m]y plane got delayed but, yeah my girl be here early in the morning,” prompting agents to set up surveillance for the next day at Jadlowe‘s home at
Shortly before 2 p.m., the multi-faceted surveillance bore fruit. Fallon saw someone enter the garage at 30 Arch Street, at which point she turned on the camera and began videotaping. She then saw the man move items from the garage to the yard. Meanwhile, the wiretap was capturing calls between Gonsalves and Jadlowe revealing that Jadlowe was clearing out his garage to make
At about 3:45 p.m., agents saw a white truck enter Jadlowe‘s garage. At 3:53 p.m., Ferriera called Jadlowe and said that “they” were over at his house, in the garage, “right now” and had been there for ten minutes, but that there were “no lights over there.” Jadlowe instructed Ferreira to tell them to remove paper that was covering the door as a way to allow in more light. At approximately 4:16 p.m., Ferreira reported to Jadlowe that “them cats are putting the truck back together. They‘re out of there.” At about 4:30 p.m., agents saw the truck leave the garage and drive away and, a minute later, Jadlowe called Ferreira to report that he had seen the truck leaving his street. The two men agreed to meet at 30 Arch Street. Jadlowe was seen on the video arriving at his residence a few minutes later, and in a series of three recorded conversations at about 4:40 p.m., Ferreira asked Jadlowe if he could “see them things there . . . [r]ight above the window behind the insulation.”10 The men were still on the phone as Ferreira
Meanwhile, after being alerted by phone, Massachusetts State Trooper Stephen Fortin had stopped the white truck for a license plate violation a short distance from 30 Arch Street. Officers observed Ferreira drive past the truck and patrol car, and Simmons testified that contemporaneous phone calls Ferreira made to Gonsalves and a man named “Snack” revealed that the men were “in somewhat of a panic” about the truck‘s detention and the “need[] to move the stuff” from Jadlowe‘s garage.
At approximately 5:30 p.m., Agent Fallon saw a car pull into the driveway of 30 Arch Street and, with the car‘s headlights shining into the garage, an individual entered the building. Agent Barbuti and his team arrived soon thereafter, and he and another officer encountered Jadlowe coming out a door from the garage. Jadlowe was arrested, pat-frisked and handcuffed, and a cell phone was taken from him.11 Agents then entered the garage, where they saw in plain view ten brick-shaped packages that turned out to be kilogram amounts of cocaine stacked atop a pile of drywall toward
Following his indictment on the two drug trafficking charges, Jadlowe filed a motion to suppress the evidence seized on November 4 and 5. After an evidentiary hearing, the district court denied suppression of the cocaine and the cell phone,12 but granted his motion to suppress the evidence seized from the two houses.13 A five-day jury trial concluded on July 7, 2008, with findings of guilt on both counts. Jadlowe was sentenced to 120-month terms of imprisonment on each count, to run concurrently, followed by five years of supervised release.
On appeal, Jadlowe renews his argument that the cocaine and cell phone should have been suppressed because they were products of the officers’ unlawful entry and overnight stay in his garage, and he argues that the court also should have suppressed
We begin our discussion with the court‘s suppression rulings.
II.
Jadlowe challenges the district court‘s denial of his pretrial motion to suppress the cocaine and cell phone found at 30 Arch Street, as well as the court‘s ruling at trial allowing the government to introduce records that he claims were the tainted
A. The Cocaine
The government concedes on appeal that the law enforcement officers initially saw the ten bricks of cocaine during an unlawful entry into Jadlowe‘s garage. The officеrs did not have a search warrant, and the government accepts the district court‘s implicit finding that the entry was not justified by exigent circumstances. Noting the distinction “between the securing of a premises from its perimeter, which does not require exigent circumstances, and the impounding of a premises by occupying it from the inside, which does,” see United States v. Dessesaure, 429 F.3d 359, 370 (1st Cir. 2005),14 the court pointed out that 30 Arch Street was under “close physical surveillance” on November 4 and that the only realistic risk that the cocaine would be moved or
The court went on to conclude, however, that the cocaine was nonetheless admissible at trial under the principles set out in Segura v. United States, 468 U.S. 796 (1984), and its progeny. In Segura, the Court held that an illegal entry to secure a premises did not preclude admission of evidence found during a later search of the same location pursuant to a warrant drawn from sources “wholly unconnected with the [illegal] entry.” Id. at 814. Although the evidence at issue in Segura had been discovered for the first time during the second, untainted search, the Court in Murray v. United States, 487 U.S. 533 (1988), extended the “independent source” doctrine to “evidence that had been observed in plain view at the time of a prior illegal entry,” id. at 535. The Court stated that the question in such circumstances is “whether the search pursuant to warrant was in fact a genuinely independent source of the information and tangible evidence at issue.” Id. at 542. That would not be so, the Court explained, “if the agents’ decision to seek the warrant was prompted by what they had seen during the initial entry, or if information obtained
In Dessesaure, 429 F.3d at 367-69, we adopted a two-part inquiry to implement Murray‘s holding. In determining whether evidence discovered in a lawful search pursuant to a warrant may be admissible in the aftermath of an unlawful entry, we consider: (1) whether the search warrant affidavit contained sufficient information to support probable cause without any information gleaned from the unlawful search; and (2) whether the decision to seek the warrant was in fact “‘independent of the illegal entry,‘” i.e., “‘whether it would have been sought even if what actually happened had not occurred.‘” Id. (quoting Murray, 487 U.S. at 542 n.3); see also United States v. Siciliano, 578 F.3d 61, 68 (1st Cir. 2009) (noting that, “under the independent source doctrine, ‘evidence acquired by an untainted search which is identical to . . . evidence unlawfully acquired’ is admissible” (quoting Murray, 487 U.S. at 538)).
Jadlowe concedes that the officers had probable cause to search the garage even before they saw the cocaine, and he therefore contests only prong two, i.e., the district court‘s conclusion that the agents’ decision to seek a warrant was independent of the illegal entry. The police officers’ subjective intent to seek a warrant is a factual determination subject to clear error review. Siciliano, 578 F.3d at 69.
Here, there can be no doubt but that a warrant would have been sought even had the agents not observed the packages of cocaine in the garage. Too much evidence had been gathered and too much corroborating conduct on the part of the defendants had been observed for agents to simply take the chance that what was delivered . . . to the garage at 30 Arch Street was some innocent commodity.
Jadlowe argues that the record does not support the court‘s finding. He acknowledges that Agent Simmons, the lead law enforcement officer in the investigation, testified that he would have sought a warrant even had the officers not seen the bricks of cocaine in the garage. Jadlowe claims, however, that Simmons’ assertion is belied by the officer‘s earlier testimony that the operational plan called for seizing the cocaine in a motor vehicle stop after Gonsalves or Ferreira retrieved the drugs from the garage.16 He emphasizes the absence of direct evidence that, at the time they entered the garage, the agents intended to obtain a warrant and cites cases in which such contemporaneous evidence was
As an initial matter, we agree that Simmons‘s statement of his subjective intent is not necessarily dispositive. See Murray, 487 U.S. at 540 n.2; Dessesaure, 429 F.3d at 369. We can also accept Jadlowe‘s assertion that the officers had neither begun the process of securing a warrant nor even formed the intent to obtain one before the quickly developing events of November 4 unfolded contrary to their plans.17 Our cases, however, reject as “too rigid” the requirement that the officers be actively pursuing a warrant at the time of the unlawful entry, United States v. Silvestri, 787 F.2d 736, 746 (1st Cir. 1986), and favor instead a “flexible standard” based on “[t]he specific facts of each case,” Ford, 22 F.3d at 377.18 “[T]here is no necessary requirement that
Here, we discern no clear error in the district court‘s finding that the circumstances as a whole left “no doubt” that the officers would have sought a warrant – as they eventually did – once they realized that they needed to enter the garage to gain possession of the drugs. The record permitted the district court to find that the officers had not applied for a warrant earlier because they expected to arrest one or more of the conspirators and seize the drugs in a vehicle stop. Although the officers’ strategy changed as the events of November 4 unfolded, their testimony reflects an assumption that cocaine would be – and then was – delivered to Jadlowe‘s garage. Simmons testified that when the wiretaps revealed the conspirators’ intent to move the cocaine from the garage to a different, less accessible location, the officers determined that they might need to take action at 30 Arch Street. Barbuti‘s testimony similarly reflects a belief that there was
Jadlowe suggests that excusing the agents’ unlawful entry here would seriously undermine the Fourth Amendment‘s warrant requirement, allowing officers to “always choose first to illegally search the premises” and to forego seeking a warrant when no evidence is found. The Supreme Court in Murray explicitly rejected such an argument:
As petitioners see the incentives, law enforcement officers will routinely enter without a warrant to make sure that what they expect to be on the premises is in fact there. If it is not, they will have spared themselves the time and trouble of getting a warrant; if it is, they can get the warrant and use thе evidence despite the unlawful entry. We see the incentives differently. An officer with probable cause sufficient to obtain a search warrant would be foolish to enter the premises first in an unlawful manner. By doing so, he would risk suppression of all evidence on the premises, both seen and unseen, since his action would add to the normal burden of convincing a magistrate that there is probable cause the much more onerous burden of convincing a trial court that no information gained from the illegal entry affected either the law enforcement officers’ decision to seek a warrant or the magistrate‘s decision to grant it. Nor would the officer without
sufficient probable cause to obtain a search warrant have any added incentive to conduct an unlawful entry, since whatever he finds cannot be used to establish probable cause before a magistrate.
Nor are we persuaded by Jadlowe‘s attempt to depict this as the egregious case where suppression is necessary to vindicate the principles underlying the exclusionary rule. In United States v. Madrid, 152 F.3d 1034 (8th Cir. 1998), the case on which he primarily relies, the evidence indicated that, while awaiting a warrant, “officers went upstairs and downstairs [in a residence] on two or three occasions, detained and searched the occupants, seized wallets and placed them in envelopes marked ‘evidence,’ and leafed through personal mail and a notebook.” Id. at 1040. Here, by contrast, the district court found that the officers left undisturbed the targeted, plain-view evidence, and “[t]he most that agents did that might be said to have compromised the crime scene was to rearrange some furniture to make themselves more comfortable.”19
In sum, while the district court correctly noted that “the more appropriate course would have been to secure the garage from the perimeter,” it properly applied the independent source
B. The Cell Phone
A cell phone linked with phone number (508) 536-1022 (“the 1022 phone“) was seized by the agents sometime during the events surrounding Jadlowe‘s arrest at 30 Arch Street on November 4. Relying on the testimony of Agent Barbuti, the district court found that the phone was “seized from [Jadlowe‘s] person” in a lawful search incident to his arrest. See United States v. Robinson, 414 U.S. 218, 235 (1973) (holding that a search incident to “[a] custodial arrest of a suspect based on probable cause” is reasonable under the Fourth Amendment); United States v. Nascimento, 491 F.3d 25, 49 (1st Cir. 2007) (“Officers effecting an arrest are entitled to make a search incident to that arrest.“). In its written ruling on the suppression motion, the court stated that Barbuti had testified that Lieutenant Robert Andrade, the arresting officer, “took the phone from Jadlowe during the search and handed it to him [Barbuti] for safekeeрing.”
Jadlowe points out that the testimony presented by Barbuti and Andrade differed from the court‘s description and argues that, given the actual record, the court clearly erred in finding that the seizure of the phone was lawful. Barbuti in fact testified that he was uncertain about who had given him the phone
Although the officers’ testimony leaves some ambiguity as to exactly when and how Barbuti acquired the phone, we are comfortable that the district court‘s finding that it was seized from Jadlowe‘s person at the time of his arrest was not clearly erroneous. See United States v. Romain, 393 F.3d 63, 69 (1st Cir. 2004) (describing the relevant inquiry as “whether the evidence presented at the suppression hearing fairly supports the court‘s finding“). As the government points out, Barbuti testified unequivocally that he had been told the phone had been taken from Jadlowe‘s person, and Andrade testified that he knew “there was a cell phone at the location.” Jadlowe himself represented that the
To succeed in challenging the denial of a suppression motion, a defendant “must show that no reasonable view of the evidence supports the district court‘s decision.” United States v. Dunbar, 553 F.3d 48, 55 (1st Cir. 2009) (quotation marks and citation omitted); United States v. Larios, 593 F.3d 82, 92 (1st Cir. 2010). Jadlowe has not made that showing here.
C. The Phone Records
At trial, the government introduced, as Exhibit 12, Sprint Nextel phone records that Jadlowe claims should have been suppressed because they were the fruit of the government‘s illegal
It appears undisputed that the government‘s only information about the 1964 phone derived from the illegal search and, hence, no evidence about that phone number should have been admitted at trial. The information in Exhibit 12 about the 1022 phone, however, derived from a court-authorized pen register of Gonsalves‘s cell phone in August 2005 and, as such, was not a fruit of the illegal search of Jadlowe‘s home.23
Technically, therefore, Exhibit 12 contained both admissible and inadmissible evidence, and Jadlowe may be correct that the court erred in allowing it into evidence. But any such error was certainly harmless. With respect to the 1964 phone,
Jadlowe attempts to sidestep this critical dichotomy between the admissible and inadmissible information in Exhibit 12 by arguing that the document implicitly suggests that the two phone numbers are linked. Even if that were true, it would not matter. The exhibit in effect said nothing about the 1964 number, there was no substantive testimony about it, and the government did not rely on it. We аgree with the government that, even if admission of Exhibit 12 were error, it did not influence the verdict and was
III.
Jadlowe argues that the district court committed reversible error by telling the jurors that they could discuss the evidence as the trial progressed, before they commenced formal deliberations, so long as they did not express an ultimate opinion about the outcome of the case. Preserved claims of instructional error are reviewed under a two-tiered standard: we consider de novo whether “an instruction embodied an error of law,” but “we review for abuse of discretion ‘whether the instructions adequately explained the law or whether they tended to confuse or mislead the jury on the controlling issues.‘” United States v. Silva, 554 F.3d 13, 21 (1st Cir. 2009) (quoting United States v. Ranney, 298 F.3d 74, 79 (1st Cir. 2002)).
Ordinarily, even if we find instructional error, a defendant is entitled to a new trial “only if it had a prejudicial effect.” Bastien v. Goddard, 279 F.3d 10, 16 (1st Cir. 2002); see also
A. Did Instructional Error Occur?
The challenged instruction was delivered before the opening statements as part of the court‘s explanation of how the case would proceed:
I just have a few special instructions about your conduct as jurors. The first one is the hardest. You are not to discuss the case with each other or anyone else until you retire to the jury room at the end of the case to deliberate on your verdict.
This rule is not as strict as it sounds. When I say you are not to discuss the case, I mean it in this sense. You are not to express an ultimate opinion about the outcome of the case.
Personally, even this rule, the way I state it, I don‘t think is a terribly good rule. I understand the reason for it. The thought is that because some of us tend to be more opinionated and assertive than others, jurors who are more assertive will tend to influence the opinions of fellow jurors if jurors are talking about the case before they hear all of the evidence. I think this, in fact, underestimates the intelligence of almost all the jurors that I have worked with over the years, but, nonetheless, this is the federal rule. It‘s been abolished in a number of of states, but it is the federal rule. So we have to respect it. Like I say, whether we agree with the wisdom of a rule or not, it is the rule, the rule we follow.
But, again, don‘t over-interpret what I said. Of course you‘ll talk about interesting things that happened during the course of the trial, idiosyncracies of the judge and the lawyers, interesting things witnesses say, significant pieces of evidence. Just do not express an opinion about the case, again,
until you begin deliberations and each have an opportunity to make your opinions known.
Jadlowe‘s counsel properly objected to the instruction, arguing that “it‘s inappropriate for the jurors tо discuss the case in any way, shape, or form until all of the evidence is in, they‘ve heard closing argument, and they‘[v]e heard your Honor‘s charge.” The court disagreed:
No. Human nature, if you tell them not to discuss the case, defies anything we know about human beings. What‘s important is that they not form any ultimate opinions about the case until they‘ve heard all of the evidence and that they not express opinions about the resolution of the case to one another. And that‘s – if you want me to repeat the thrust of that instruction again, I will, but that‘s what I meant.
Defense counsel then elaborated on his concern:
Your honor, my objection is I don‘t think they should be talking about “interesting things that the witnesses said.” I just think that that‘s not what the jury should be doing. They should be simply – they can talk about the weather or the Red Sox. They should not be talking about the case.
The court concluded the colloquy as follows:
I disagree, and I think that‘s the reason states, at least those who have a progressive view of jury service, have abolished that rule now. In fact, even as to ultimate opinions as to the case, which I restrict them from talking about. I think you will find that the modern trend is against the old-fashion rule.
The court‘s instruction was unmistakably erroneous, including the assumption that the “modern trend” in criminal cases
At least for now, the prevailing view in the federal courts remains that it is improper for jurors to discuss the case other than during their formal deliberations. In December 2009, the Judicial Conference Committee on Court Administration and Case Management reaffirmed the general no-discussion rule in its proposed model jury instruction on the use of electronic technology. See Judicial Conference of the United States, Comm. on Court Admin. and Case Mgmt., Proposed Model Jury Instructions: The Use of Electronic Technology to Conduct Research on or Communicate about a Case (Dec. 2009), available at www.uscourts.gov/News/Viewer.aspx?doc=/uscourts/News/2010/docs/DI
The traditional view that jury discussion of the case during the trial is improper arises from concerns that jurors will prematurely form judgments that will be difficult to dislodge later in the proceedings. See Resko, 3 F.3d at 689; Winebrenner, 147 F.2d at 328-29. The court in Resko cogently summarized these concerns in a criminal case:
First, since the prosecution presents its evidence first, any premature discussions are likely to occur before the defendant has a chance to present all of his or her evidence, and it is likely that any initial opinions formed by the jurors, which will likely influence other jurors, will be unfavorable to the defendant for this reason. Second, once a juror expresses his or her views in the presence of other jurors, he or she is likely to continue to adhere to that opinion and to pay greater attention to evidence presented that comports with that opinion. Consequently, the mere act of openly expressing his or her views may tend to cause the juror to approach the case with less than a fully open mind and to adhere to the publicly expressed viewpoint.
Third, the jury system is meant to involve decisionmaking as a collective, deliberative process and premature discussions among individual jurors may thwart that goal. Fourth, because the court provides the jury
with legal instructions only after all the evidence has been presented, jurors who engage in premature deliberations do so without the benefit of the court‘s instructions on the reasonable doubt standard. Fifth, if premature deliberations occur before the defendant has had an opportunity to present all of his or her evidence . . . and jurors form premature conclusions about the case, the burden of proof will have been, in effect, shifted from the government to the defendant, who has “the burden of changing by evidence the opinion thus formed.” [Winebrenner, 147 F.2d] at 328.30 Finally, requiring the jury to refrain from prematurely discussing the case with fellow jurors in a criminal case helps protect a defendant‘s Sixth Amendment right to a fair trial as well as his or her due process right to place the burden on the government to prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt.
3 F.3d at 689-90 (citations omitted).
To be sure, not all of these reasons have force when the jurors are expressly told – as they are, for example, in Arizona – that they may discuss the evidence only in the presence of all jurors and that they must “reserve judgment about the outcome of the case until deliberations commence.”
Of course, not all premature jury discussion about a case will compromise a defendant‘s fair trial rights, particularly where the conversation does not reflect a point of view about the evidence оr the outcome. See, e.g., United States v. Diaz, 597 F.3d 56, 63 (1st Cir. 2010) (noting that jurors apparently discussed only “a legal principle” and not “the merits of the case against the defendant“). Discussion such as that endorsed by the court in this case, however – about “interesting things witnesses say, significant pieces of evidence” – is inappropriate, even if the conversation was not what we ordinarily would consider premature “deliberations.” Cf. State v. Washington, 438 A.2d 1144, 1148 (Conn. 1980) (noting that “[d]iscussion is an integral part of deliberations” and that, “[i]n a constitutional sense, the distinction between discussion and deliberation is more apparent than real“). Moreover, while jury discussion that does not involve expressions of ultimate opinions may be found harmless in retrospect, it is a different question whether district courts may give the jury permission at the outset of the trial to talk about the case before formal deliberations begin. We now hold expressly that they may not. We thus conclude that the court erred by giving
B. Does the Error Require a New Trial?
1. Was the Instruction Structural Error?
Jadlowe argues that the court‘s instruction resulted in the denial of his due process rights and his right to a fair trial, and that it should be considered structural error requiring reversal without a showing of prejudice. See, e.g., United States v. Marcus, 130 S. Ct. 2159, 2164 (2010) (describing structural errors as “a very limited class of errors that affect the framework within which the trial proceeds” (internal quotation marks and citations omitted)); Neder, 527 U.S. at 8. He further contends that, even if the error is not deemed structural, a new trial is necessary because the government is unable to prove the absence of prejudice from the instruction. See Neder, 527 U.S. at 7 (noting that most constitutional errors may be disregarded where they are “harmless ‘beyond a reasonable doubt‘” (quoting Chapman v. California, 386 U.S. 18, 24 (1967)); United States v. Carpenter, 403 F.3d 9, 11-12 (1st Cir. 2005).
The question in identifying structural error is whether the error affects the “‘framework‘” of the trial, “‘rather than
In the Supreme Court cases finding structural error, the errors themselves effected a deprivation of rights, so that “[n]o additional showing of prejudice is required to make the violation ‘complete.‘” Gonzalez-Lopez, 548 U.S. at 146. The Court explained that characteristic of structural error in Gonzalez-Lopez, where it contrasted denial of a criminal defendant‘s choice of counsel – which it held to be structural error – from denial of the Sixth Amendment right to effective representation of сounsel – which requires an additional showing of prejudice. Id. at 147-48.
The type of error at issue here has “framework” implications. If the court‘s faulty instruction results in early discussion of the evidence or witnesses by the jurors, their later deliberations may be prejudiced in ways that would be difficult to identify or quantify. The jury‘s deliberative process – the collective, objective review of the evidence of record, evaluated as a whole, and guided by the court‘s closing instructions – may be compromised as a result of prematurely formed impressions. That potential harm is unlike the erroneous introduction of a piece of evidence or a flawed instruction that misstates or omits an element of the crime. Such errors are discrete trial events whose effect on the outcome of the trial may be evaluated in light of the properly admitted evidence or the instruction as a whole. By contrast, premature discussion raises the possibility that the jurors will view all of the evidence through a distorted lеns, much like what occurs when the jury is improperly instructed on reasonable doubt. See Neder, 527 U.S. at 10-11 (noting that a flawed reasonable doubt instruction is “not subject to harmless-
Yet, the error here differs in a significant way from those the Supreme Court has labeled structural. Although the instruction opens the door to discussion “taint[ing] the process by which guilt [is] determined,” Curbelo, 343 F.3d at 285, the defendant will not necessarily be denied a fair trial as a result of the error. Despite the instruction, juror discussion may not take place at all and, even if some preliminary conversation about the case occurs, it may be tangential to the jurors’ determination of guilt or innocence. Unlike the complete denial of counsel or a public trial, for example, the harm triggered by the flawed instruction does not occur – i.e., the constitutional violation is not “complete” – until prejudicial discussion occurs. It is not necessarily the case, therefore, that “all or almost all such errors always ‘affec[t] the framework within which the trial proceeds,’ or ‘necessarily render a criminal trial fundamentally unfair.‘” Marcus, 130 S. Ct. at 2166 (quoting Fulminante, 499 U.S. at 310, and Neder, 527 U.S. at 9).
We thus conclude that Supreme Court precedent “insist[s] upon a showing of individual prejudice” when a court improperly instructs jurors in a criminal case that they may discuss the evidence before formal deliberations commence. Marcus, 130 S. Ct. at 2166. Indeed, although the practice remains rare,
2. Prejudice
When a defendant properly preserves an objection to a trial error, the government bears the burden of proving that the error was harmless. United States v. Olano, 507 U.S. 725, 734 (1993); Curbelo, 343 F.3d at 278; United States v. Colón-Muñoz, 192 F.3d 210, 222 (1st Cir. 1999). For most constitutional errors, the government must show that the error was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt, Chapman, 386 U.S. at 24, and for most non-constitutional errors, the government must show that the error “did not have a ‘substantial and injurious effect or influence in determining the jury‘s verdict,‘” Curbelo, 343 F.3d at 278 (quoting
Neither the government nor the defendant asked the court to question the jurors before they commenced formal deliberations about whether they had discussed any aspect of the case during the five days of trial proceedings. The record is therefore silent on that question. If we were to conclude that the defendant preserved his objection to the erroneous instruction simрly by objecting to it, we could conclude that the government failed to meet its burden to show harmless error based simply on the absence of evidence that the jurors did not discuss the case.
We decline, however, to adopt that approach and to take the serious step of ordering a new trial without any evidence in the record that the jurors engaged in improper discussions. The court gave the jurors permission to talk about the case, but it did not tell them to do so.32 In our view, to justify a new trial based
In effect, we conclude that a standard analogous to plain error applies when a defendant claims he was denied a fair trial based on an instruction allowing improper jury discussion, but has failed to show that any discussion took place. This approach does not diminish the importance of objecting in the first instance to the instruction that made such conduct “permissible.” The objection ensures that the burden will be on the government to defend the integrity of the jury‘s deliberative process when the defendant also shows, or makes an effort to show, that premature discussion in fact occurred. In our view, “this approach reaches an appropriate balance between ‘society‘s interest in punishing the guilty [and] the method by which decisions of guilt are to be
Here, the defendant has shown only that the court erred in telling the jurors that they could discuss the case among themselves before formal deliberations began. Because the defendant did not also show that any such discussions took place, he cannot show that prejudicial predeliberations discussion occurred. He is therefore not entitled to a new trial on that basis.
IV.
Jadlowe asserts that the district court erred in admitting four types of evidence at trial: (1) a summary chart of wiretapped phone calls, (2) Agent Fallon‘s testimony identifying him on the surveillance video she recorded at 30 Arch Street on November 4, 2005, (3) Agent Simmons‘s testimony identifying Jadlowe‘s voice in wiretapped calls, and (4) transcripts of
We review the district court‘s decisions to admit or excludе evidence for abuse of discretion. Diaz, 597 F.3d at 64.
A. The Summary Chart
Jadlowe argues that Government Exhibit 10, a six-column chart listing details for twenty-two of the intercepted phone calls, contained testimonial hearsay that should have been ruled inadmissible at trial. Specifically, he objects to the final column on the chart, which identifies the other phone number involved in each of the listed wiretapped conversations.34 Eleven of the twenty-two calls were made to or from a number associated with the 1022 phone seized from Jadlowe. There is no dispute about the admissibility of the first five columns, which report, inter alia, the date and time of each call and which targeted phone number, Ferreira‘s or Gonzalves‘s, was involved. That information also was listed on a computerized printout labeled as Exhibit 9, which Jadlowe concedes was properly admitted.
The information in Column 6 did not appear in written form on any other document admitted into evidence, and Jadlowe correctly points out that there is no evidence in the record about the creation of Column 6. The government argues that Column 6 was
Given the government‘s concession, we think there is force to the argument that Column 6 did not qualify as a summary of evidence already in the record. We nonetheless decline to probe other theories in support of its admission. Column 6 provided only one link between Jadlowe and the conspiracy by identifying the 1022 number as the other phone number in some of the intercepted calls. As we describe below in Section B, the audio and video surveillance produced much more direct evidence of Jadlowe‘s participation in
B. The Remaining Evidentiary Issues
Jadlowe‘s three remaining contentions all concern the ways in which he was identified at trial as the individual who made the arrangements with Gonsalves and Ferreira for the cocaine delivery at 30 Arch Street. Agent Fallon identified him in the surveillance videotape shown at trial by comparing a photograph of him to the video image. Agent Simmons identified a voice on the tapes of the wiretapped phone calls as Jadlowe‘s, even though he had never spoken with Jadlowe in person; the transcripts of the wiretapped conversations given to the jury reflected Simmons‘s identification of Jadlowe аs one of the speakers.
Jadlowe argues that the visual and voice identifications constituted improper lay opinion testimony because neither officer‘s identification was based on prior personal experience with Jadlowe and “[t]he jury was perfectly capable of drawing its own independent conclusion[s] based on the evidence presented.” United States v. Garcia-Ortiz, 528 F.3d 74, 80 (1st Cir. 2008); see
We agree that the officers’ identifications should not have been allowed as lay opinion testimony because neither Fallon nor Simmons was in a better position than the jurors to make the identity judgments. Indeed, Fallon testified that she made the identification by comparing his image on the screen with a driver‘s license photo that was in evidence. We are at a loss to understand the government‘s argument that Fallon was better situated than the jurors simply because she was watching the events as they were occurring. At the time, she was looking at the same video image seen by the jurors at trial; the Registry of Motor Vehicle‘s photograph also was in evidеnce.37 In addition, although the government is correct that “identification of a telephone caller may be [established] by circumstantial evidence,” United States v. DiMuro, 540 F.2d 503, 514 (1st Cir. 1976) (quotation marks and
Nonetheless, any error in allowing the officers’ identifications or the related transcripts was unquestionably harmless. An abundance of circumstantial evidence pointed to Jadlowe as the individual whom Fallon saw clearing the garage at 30 Arch Street and whom Simmons heard in the phone conversations with Ferreira and Gonsalves.
In a phone conversation on October 8, for example, the caller whose voice Simmons identified as Jadlowe‘s reported to Gonsalves that he would be getting his hair braided and that he had been home all day on his birthday. Both items of information in the call were linked to Jadlowe. According to motor vehicle records, Jadlowe‘s birthday was the day before, October 7, and Simmons, who had seen Jadlowe multiple times before, testified that he saw Jadlowe with newly braided hair shortly after this conversation. In a call with Gonsalves on November 4, the speaker Simmons identified as Jadlowe was addressed as “Uncle Marc,” and in another call the same day, just before 2 p.m., that speaker told Gonsalves that he was “[t]aking care of the garage” and that he was “[d]oin’ it right now.” According to Agent Fallon‘s testimony, it
Simmons‘s ability to identify Jadlowe in each instance in which Jadlowe was designated on the transcript as the speaker was supported by the agent‘s admissible testimony that he had listened to 25 to 50 calls involving the number associated with the phone seized from Jadlowe at 30 Arch Street on November 4, 2005, and that over time he was able to recognize the callers in those wiretapped conversations after “hearing the same voices every day.” He testified that he had heard no one on that phone other than the speaker Gonsalves referred to as “Uncle Marc” in the November 4 call. Each of the calls attributed to Jadlowe was thus identified by Simmons as involving the same voice, including the other calls described above whose content was linked to Jadlowe.
Hence, even if it were improper for Simmons and Fallon to have offered their opinions that Jadlowe was the speaker in the wiretapped calls and the individual in the videotape, we are confident that any such error did not influence the verdict. This is equally true of the jury‘s exposure to the transcripts. Not only was there compelling circumstantial evidence that Jadlowe was properly identified as the speaker in the calls, but the district court also instructed the jurors at the time they received the transcripts that it was up to them “to make a determination as to
On this record, there was no reversible error stemming from the challenged evidentiary rulings.
V.
Jadlowe has pressed serious concerns about the admission of evidence and the jury instructions, and on some of those issues we agree that the district court erred. On the record before us, however, we cannot agree that those errors require a new trial. The judgment of conviction is therefore affirmed.
So ordered.
Notes
The plan at that time was, if the cocaine was unloaded at that address, it was anticipated that either Mr. Gonsalves or Mr. Ferreira would go to that address to retrieve the cocaine. At that point, once they retrieved the cocaine to move it to another location, we were going to do a motor vehicle stop of their vehicle in order to obtain the cocaine.
See also, e.g., Colo. Jury Instr., Civil 1:4 (4th ed.) (allowing discussion of evidence “only among yourselves and only in the jury room when all of you are present“); N.D.R.Ct. 6.11 (permitting court, without objection, to allow predeliberation discussion in civil cases).If the jurors are permitted to separate during the trial, they shall be admonished by the court that it is their duty not to converse with or permit themselves to be addressed by any person on any subject connected with the trial; except that the jurors shall be instructed that they will be permitted to discuss the evidence among themselves in the jury room during recesses from trial when all are present, as long as they reserve judgment about the outcome of the case until deliberations commence. Notwithstanding the foregoing, the jurors’ discussion of the evidence among themselves during recesses may be limited or prohibited by the court for good cause.