United States v. O'Garro

700 F. App'x 52
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Second Circuit
DecidedNovember 2, 2017
Docket16-1193-cr
StatusUnpublished

This text of 700 F. App'x 52 (United States v. O'Garro) 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. O'Garro, 700 F. App'x 52 (2d Cir. 2017).

Opinion

SUMMARY ORDER

Defendant-appellant Earl O’Garro, Jr. (“O’Garro”) appeals the District Court’s judgment convicting him of. one charge of mail fraud (18 U.S.C. § 1341 (2012)) and two charges of wire fraud (18 U.S.C. § 1343 (2012)). O’Garro argues that the District Court committed plain error in instructing the jury that one can commit mail or wire fraud by “depriving another of information necessary to make a discretionary economic decision.” He also asserts violations of his right to effective assistance of counsel under the Sixth Amendment of the United States Constitution and requests that we remand to the District Court for fact finding on that claim while retaining jurisdiction of this appeal. We assume the parties’ familiarity with' the underlying facts, the procedural history of the case, and the issues on appeal.

The wire and mail fraud statutes prohibit “any scheme or artifice to defraud, or for obtaining money or property by means of false or fraudulent pretenses, representations, or promises” through mail or interstate wire transmission. 18 U.S.C. §§ 1341, 1343 (2012). According to the “right to control” theory of the fraud statutes, the conduct prohibited by the statutes includes “the withholding or inaccurate reporting of information that could impact on economic decisions.” United States v. Wallach, 935 F.2d 445, 463 (2d Cir. 1991). The District Court relied on this theory when it instructed the jury that a “deprivation of money or property can include depriving another of information necessary to make a discretionary economic decision.”

If the defendant has merely failed to challenge a jury instruction at trial, we review the correctness of the instruction for plain error. United States v. Binday, 804 F.3d 558, 581 (2d Cir. 2015). Plain error exists when “(1) there is an error; (2) the error is clear or obvious, rather than subject to reasonable dispute; (3) the error affected the appellant’s substantial rights, which in the ordinary case means it affected the outcome of the district court proceedings; and (4) the error seriously affects the fairness, integrity or public reputation of judicial proceedings.” United States v. Marcus, 560 U.S. 258, 262, 130 S.Ct. 2159, 176 L.Ed.2d 1012 (2010) (internal quotation marks and brackets omitted). However, the defendant is deemed to have waived the right to appeal any jury instruction that he or she “invited” at trial. United States v. Giovanelli, 464 F.3d 346, 351 (2d Cir. 2006) (per curiam).

Waiver is the “‘intentional relinquishment or abandonment of a known right.’ ” United States v. Olano, 507 U.S. 725, 733, 113 S.Ct. 1770, 123 L.Ed.2d 508 (1993) (quoting Johnson v. Zerbst, 304 U.S. 458, 464, 58 S.Ct. 1019, 82 L.Ed. 1461 (1938)). “Deviation from a legal rule is ‘error’ unless the rule has been waived.” Olano, 507 U.S. at 732-33, 113 S.Ct. 1770 (emphasis added). If “a particular right is waivable,” and if the defendant has “knowingly and voluntarily” made the choice to forgo that right, a decision made in accordance with that choice “is not error.” Id. at 733, 113 S.Ct. 1770 (internal quotation marks omitted) (emphasis ours). “A finding of true waiver” is particularly appropriate “when ... defendants not only failed to object to what they now describe as error, but they actively solicited it.” United States v. Quinones, 511 F.3d 289, 321 (2d Cir. 2007), cert. denied, 555 U.S. 910, 129 S.Ct. 252, 172 L.Ed.2d 190 (2008); see also, e.g., City of Monterey v. Del Monte Dunes at Monterey, Ltd., 526 U.S. 687, 704, 119 S.Ct. 1624, 143 L.Ed.2d 882 (1999) (“As the city itself proposed the essence of the instructions given to the jury, it cannot now contend that the instructions did not provide an accurate statement of the law.”); Binday, 804 F.3d at 581 (“[W]here a defendant has ‘invited’ the instruction he seeks to challenge, he ‘has waived any right to appellate review of the charge.’ ” (quoting Giovanelli, 464 F.3d at 351)). Where a defendant “has waived—that is, intentionally relinquished or abandoned, Olano, 507 U.S. at 733, 113 S.Ct. 1770—[his] right to” avoid the ruling challenged on appeal, “there [was] no error at all and plain-error analysis would add nothing.” Puckett v. United States, 556 U.S. 129, 138, 129 S.Ct. 1423, 173 L.Ed.2d 266 (2009) (first emphasis in original; second emphasis added).

In the present case O’Garro requested a jury instruction concerning the right-to-control theory that was identical in every material respect to the now-challenged instruction actually given by the District Court. Thus, O’Garro waived his right to review of the District Court’s jury instruction by “inviting” the language at issue in this appeal.

To the extent that O’Garro contends on appeal that the deprivation-of-information theory established by “Wallach and its progeny should be overruled,” Brief of Defendant-Appellant Earl O’Garro, Jr. at 16, an argument that he apparently did not make in the District Court but did not expressly eschew, we reject that contention on the ground that there is no plain error. The Supreme Court cases cited by O’Garro for that argument are inapplicable to the circumstances of his case, and the right-to-control theory remains the law of this Circuit. See, e.g., Binday, 804 F.3d at 570. An instruction incorporating that theory is therefore not error. Nor are the other elements of the plain-error standard satisfied, as the government proved that O’Garro’s fraudulent conduct in fact deprived his fraud victims not just of information but of millions of dollars.

O’Garro argues in the alternative that, even if the right-to-control theory is correct, the District Court plainly erred in omitting to instruct the jury that, in order to convict O’Garro on count three of the indictment, it had to find that the victim “suffered or would have suffered some economic harm had [O’Garro’s] scheme succeeded.” It is true that, under the right-to-control theory of the fraud statutes, “[t]he fraudulent scheme must implicate tangible economic harm.” United States v. Finazzo, 850 F.3d 94, 111 (2d Cir. 2017).

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Related

United States v. Quinones
511 F.3d 289 (Second Circuit, 2007)
United States v. Shellef and Rubenstein
507 F.3d 82 (Second Circuit, 2007)
Johnson v. Zerbst
304 U.S. 458 (Supreme Court, 1938)
United States v. Olano
507 U.S. 725 (Supreme Court, 1993)
Massaro v. United States
538 U.S. 500 (Supreme Court, 2003)
Puckett v. United States
556 U.S. 129 (Supreme Court, 2009)
United States v. Federico Giovanelli
464 F.3d 346 (Second Circuit, 2006)
United States v. DeLaura
858 F.3d 738 (Second Circuit, 2017)
United States v. Binday
804 F.3d 558 (Second Circuit, 2015)
United States v. Finazzo
850 F.3d 94 (Second Circuit, 2017)

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Bluebook (online)
700 F. App'x 52, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-ogarro-ca2-2017.