United States v. Jones

278 F. App'x 12
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Second Circuit
DecidedMay 6, 2008
DocketNo. 06-2098-cr
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 278 F. App'x 12 (United States v. Jones) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
United States v. Jones, 278 F. App'x 12 (2d Cir. 2008).

Opinion

SUMMARY ORDER

Defendant-Appellant Beulah Jones appeals from an order of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York (Thomas P. Griesa, Judge ), entered on April 26, 2006, following a five-day jury trial after which Jones was found [14]*14guilty of one count of theft of United States property, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 641. We assume the parties’ familiarity with the relevant procedural history, facts, and issues on appeal.

First, Jones argues that her conviction should be overturned for insufficiency of evidence of (1) her intent to commit a crime; and (2) the value of the bonds she was found guilty of stealing. “[A] defendant seeking to overturn a conviction based upon insufficiency of the evidence bears a heavy burden.” United States v. Morgan, 385 F.3d 196, 204 (2d Cir.2004). The evidence must “be viewed in the light most favorable to the government and all permissible inferences drawn in its favor” and “the conviction must be affirmed if any rational trier of fact could have found the essential elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt.” Id.

Jones contends that the government failed to prove that she acted with the specific intent that the statute requires. See 18 U.S.C. § 641; Morissette v. United States, 342 U.S. 246, 271, 72 S.Ct. 240, 96 L.Ed. 288 (1952) (construing 18 U.S.C. § 641 to require “knowledge of the facts, though not necessarily the law, that made the taking a conversion”). She asserts that no one would knowingly send a bad check to the Federal Reserve; that because she gave her real name and address, she must not have been trying to deceive the government; and that her protracted fight to retain the bonds corroborates her belief in her entitlement to them. However, at trial Jones offered contradictory testimony on whether she believed she had access to the Citibank account from which she wrote the check for the bonds. For example, Jones also testified that she had previously received at least twenty returned checks from the account, and that she remembered receiving at least ten letters from Citibank stating that the account had been closed. Jones also acknowledged that she failed to include proof of available funds in her correspondence with the Federal Reserve regarding payment for the bonds. Additionally, Jones testified that when listing her assets on her Criminal Justice Act (“CJA”) application for appointment of counsel, she did not include most of her alleged assets, including the Citibank account, because she did not have access to them and could not write a check from them. Thus, a rational trier of fact could have found that Jones acted with specific intent by rejecting the credibility of Jones’s claim that she believed she had sufficient funds to pay for the bonds. See United States v. Downing, 297 F.3d 52, 56 (2d Cir.2002) (explaining that we “resolve all issues of credibility in the government’s favor”).

Jones also argues that the government failed to prove that the bonds had any value during the charged period (“from on or about February 27, 2004, through and including on or about April 19, 2004”), and thus she cannot be guilty of a felony violation of 18 U.S.C. § 641, which criminalizes conversion of property valued at more than $1,000. Jones claims that because (1) the bonds were not redeemable during the charged period; and (2) the Federal Reserve had placed a caveat on them by then, the bonds were worth less than $1,000. This argument is unavailing because under the statute, the word “value” means “face, par, or market value, or cost price, either wholesale or retail, whichever is greater.” 18 U.S.C. § 641 (emphasis added). The government established that the bonds had a total purchase price of $31,500. Thus, the bonds’ face value clearly exceeds $1,000. Additionally, the government offered evidence that despite the caveat, Jones might have successfully redeemed the bonds at a private bank. Thus, the evidence on the record is [15]*15sufficient such that “any rational trier of fact could have found the essential elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt.” Downing, 297 F.3d at 56.

Second, Jones argues that the evidence presented at trial amounted to a constructive amendment or variance of the indictment, because the government offered evidence of Jones’s conduct before and after the charged period, and because the jury charge did not clarify that the jury could not convict Jones if it found that the conversion took place after the charged period. A constructive amendment of an indictment occurs when “ ‘either the proof at trial or the trial court’s jury instructions so altered an essential element of the charge that, upon review, it is uncertain whether the defendant was convicted of conduct that was the subject of the grand jury’s indictment.’ ” United States v. Salmonese, 352 F.3d 608, 620 (2d Cir.2003) (quoting United States v. Frank, 156 F.3d 332, 337 (2d Cir.1998)); see also United States v. Ford, 435 F.3d 204, 215-16 (2d Cir.2006); United States v. Patino, 962 F.2d 263, 265 (2d Cir.1992) (“An indictment is constructively amended when the proof at trial broadens the basis of conviction beyond that charged in the indictment.”). By contrast, “ ‘[a] variance occurs when the charging terms of the indictment are left unaltered, but the evidence at trial proves facts materially different from those alleged in the indictment.’ ” Salmonese, 352 F.3d at 621 (quoting Frank, 156 F.3d at 337 n. 5). A constructive amendment of an indictment constitutes a per se violation of the Grand Jury Clause of the Fifth Amendment. Id. A defendant demonstrating a variance, however, must prove prejudice to prevail on her claim. Id. We decide whether a variance between an indictment and the proof at trial is prejudicial, and thus “fatal to the prosecution,” by determining whether the variance infringes on the “substantial rights” that indictments exist to protect— “to inform an accused of the charges against h[er] so that [s]he may prepare h[er] defense and to avoid double jeopardy.” United States v. D’Anna, 450 F.2d 1201, 1204 (2d Cir.1971) (internal quotation marks omitted); see also United States v. Resendiz-Ponce, 549 U.S. 102, 127 S.Ct.

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Bluebook (online)
278 F. App'x 12, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-jones-ca2-2008.