United States v. Richard Dean Miller

111 F.3d 747, 1997 U.S. App. LEXIS 7139, 1997 WL 178918

• Court: Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit
• Decided: April 15, 1997
• Docket: 94-8079
• Status: Published

Opinions

SEYMOUR, Chief Judge.

Richard Dean Miller was indicted in the District of Wyoming, tried before a jury, and convicted of conspiracy to possess methamphetamine with intent to distribute in violation of 21 U.S.C. §§ 841, 846. On appeal, Mr. Miller asserts as error the trial court’s failure to instruct the jury on the element of venue.¹ For the reasons set out below, we reverse.

I.

The indictment charged Mr. Miller with participation in a drug distribution conspiracy “within the District of Wyoming and elsewhere.” Rec., vol. I at 1. Mr. Miller lived in Montana. At trial, no evidence was offered that Mr. Miller had ever traveled to or committed overt acts in Wyoming in furtherance of the conspiracy. Instead, the evidence showed that Mr. Miller acquired methamphetamine from other conspirators in Montana. The only overt acts alleged in Wyoming were acts by Mike Davis, an alleged eoeonspirator who had pled guilty. Mr. Davis, who resided near Cody, Wyoming, testified that on several occasions he traveled to Montana to purchase ounce quantities of methamphetamine from Mr. Miller. Mr. Davis also testified that he made telephone calls to Mr. Miller to arrange these purchases. On each occasion, Mr. Davis returned to Wyoming and resold the methamphetamine in that jurisdiction.

After presentation of the government’s case, Mr. Miller moved for acquittal due, in part, to lack of venue. The trial court denied the motion, finding the evidence of venue sufficient to go to the jury. In the jury instruction conference, Mr. Miller’s counsel objected to the failure to instruct the jury specifically on the element of venue. The trial court denied the objection. Mr. Miller’s counsel also sought to include in each instruction on the substantive elements of the conspiracy an instruction that the jury must find the conspiracy in “the district of Wyoming.” Ree., vol. X at 80. This request was also denied. The jury instructions did contain the statement: “You are instructed that a conspiracy may be prosecuted in any district where the conspiracy began, continued, or the conspiracy ended.” Rec., vol. X at 104. However, the jury was not told that the government must prove venue, nor was the jury required to make a finding on this issue.

II.

Venue is not a mere technicality. The defendant’s right to proper venue has explicit constitutional roots in Article III, § 2, cl. 3, which “requires that the trial of any crime be held in the state in which the crime was committed,” and in the Sixth Amendment, which guarantees trial by “a jury of the state and district in which the crime was committed.” United States v. Medina-Ramos, 834 F.2d 874, 875-76 (10th Cir.1987). These requirements are codified in Fed. R.Crim. P. 18, which states “[ejxcept as otherwise permitted by statute or by these rules, the prosecution shall be had in a district in which the offense was committed.” The Supreme Court has pointed out that failure to treat venue rights seriously not only may impose unfairness and hardship on the accused, but might also encourage forum-shopping by federal prosecutors. United States v. Johnson, 323 U.S. 273, 275, 65 S.Ct. 249, 250, 89 L.Ed. 236 (1944). “Questions of venue in criminal cases, therefore, are not merely matters of formal legal procedure. They raise deep issues of public policy____” Id. at 276, 65 S.Ct. at 250-51.

Venue is “a question of fact,” United States v. Rinke, 778 F.2d 581, 584 (10th Cir.1985) (quoting Wilkett v. United States, 655 F.2d 1007, 1011 (10th Cir.1981)), which ordinarily must be decided by the jury.² United States v. Record, 873 F.2d 1363, 1370 (10th Cir.1989); United States v. Winship, 724 F.2d 1116, 1124 (5th Cir.1984); United States v. Black Cloud, 590 F.2d 270, 272 (8th Cir.1979); Green v. United States, 309 F.2d 852, 856 (5th Cir.1962); United States v. Gillette, 189 F.2d 449, 452 (2d Cir.1951).³ One commentator has described the division of labor between judge and jury with respect to venue: ‘Whether venue has been properly proved is a question of fact for the jury, but the jury must have been properly instructed to make this finding. Whether there has been sufficient evidence to justify a finding on venue is a question of law for the court.” 2 Charles Alan Wright, Federal Practice and Procedure § 307, at 225 (2d ed. 1982) (footnotes omitted).

Although venue is a right of constitutional dimension, and has been characterized as “an element of every crime,” Winship, 724 F.2d at 1124, this court and others have consistently treated venue differently from other, “substantive” elements of a charged offense. See, e.g., Wilkett, 655 F.2d at 1011-12 (dismissal for want of venue, unlike a failure to prove an essential element of the offense charged, does not raise double jeopardy barrier). We have held that venue need not. be proved beyond a reasonable doubt. “Venue in federal criminal cases is an element of the prosecution’s case which must be proved, unlike the other elements, by a preponderance of the evidence.” Record, 873 F.2d at 1366; accord Winship, 724 F.2d at 1124. We have also applied a more relaxed standard for finding waiver of venue rights than for finding waivers of other constitutional rights in criminal trials. A defendant can waive venue rights by his inaction. See Wright, Federal Practice and Procedure § 306, at 219-220 (2d ed. 1982); United States v. Jackson, 482 F.2d 1167, 1179 (10th Cir.1973) (finding waiver if defendant fails to object before trial where lack of proper venue is apparent on the face of the indictment); United States v. Bohle, 445 F.2d 54, 58-59 (7th Cir.1971) (same), overruled on other grounds by United States v. Lawson, 653 F.2d 299, 301-02 (7th Cir.1981); United States v. Jones, 162 F.2d 72, 73 (2d Cir.1947) (same); Jenkins v. United States, 392 F.2d 303, 306 (10th Cir.1968) (defendant may raise venue issue in a motion for acquittal if indictment alleges proper venue); United States v. Sandini, 803 F.2d 123, 127 (3d Cir.1986) (same); Black Cloud, 590 F.2d at 272 (same).⁴

Finally, perhaps for reasons related to the relaxed standard for waiver, courts seem to disfavor the application of plain error to failure to instruct on venue. See United States v. Massa, 686 F.2d 526, 530 (7th Cir.1982); United States v. White, 611 F.2d 531, 536-37 (5th Cir.1980); United States v. Honneus, 508 F.2d 566, 571 (1st Cir.1974). We have held that failure to instruct on other essential elements of the crime, even when not requested by the defendant, is structural error and per se reversible. United States v. Wiles, 102 F.3d 1043, 1059-60 (10th Cir.1996) (en banc as to part II.A); Winship, 724 F.2d at 1124. “By contrast, the particular circumstances of a case determine whether failure to instruct on venue is plain error.” Winship, 724 F.2d at 1124.

III.

We have said that failure to instruct the jury on venue when requested to do so is error. Record, 873 F.2d at 1370; see also United States v. Grammatikos, 633 F.2d 1013, 1022 (2d Cir.1980). We must determine whether the district court failed after a request by Mr. Miller to submit the issue of venue to the jury and, if so, whether Mr. Miller’s conviction must be reversed.

The record indicates that the district court failed to give the jury a specific instruction on venue, despite defendant’s objections. The government concedes the district court erred in failing to submit to the jury a specific venue instruction but seeks refuge in the fact that the court did submit an instruction which stated, “You are instructed that a conspiracy may be prosecuted in any district where the conspiracy began, continued, or the conspiracy ended.” Ree., vol. X at 104. Although the government characterizes this declaration as a general instruction on venue, Aplee. Br. at 29, the instruction did not inform the jury that it was required to make findings on the issue of venue, or that to enter a guilty verdict it must find either an agreement or some overt act by a conspirator in Wyoming. Rather, after instructing the jury on finding a conspiracy, the court simply declared that the conspiracy, if found, could be prosecuted where it began, continued, or ended. As a consequence, the jury was never required to make a determination that venue existed in the ease.

The question we must resolve is whether failure to instruct the jury on venue, under the circumstances of this case, constitutes reversible error. This is an issue of first impression for this court. After noting in Record that “it is ‘fundamental error’ to fail to instruct the jury as to the necessary elements of the offense charged,” 873 F.2d at 1370, we observed that “[ojther courts have developed rules examining the particular circumstances of a case rather than requiring automatic reversal for the failure to instruct the jury on venue,” id. at 1370-71 (citing United States v. Moeckly, 769 F.2d 453 (8th Cir.1985), and Winship, 724 F.2d 1116 (5th Cir.1984)). We did not have occasion to develop such a rule in Record because the parties there had agreed to submit the venue issue to the court, and thus had waived any objection.

In this ease, Mr. Miller preserved his objection below and we therefore review under the standards of harmless error. Fed. R.Crim.P. 52(a). The burden is on the government to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that an error is harmless. Sullivan v. Louisiana, 508 U.S. 275, 279, 113 S.Ct. 2078, 2081-82, 124 L.Ed.2d 182 (1993); Carella v. California, 491 U.S. 263, 271-72, 109 S.Ct. 2419, 2423-24, 105 L.Ed.2d 218 (1989) (Scalia, J., concurring); Chapman v. California, 386 U.S. 18, 24, 87 S.Ct. 824, 828, 17 L.Ed.2d 705 (1967). Several circuits have adopted the “in issue” test for determining if failure to instruct on venue is reversible error, or is harmless. The rule in the Fifth Circuit is that “failure to instruct on venue is reversible error when trial testimony puts venue in issue and the defendant requests the instruction.” Winship, 724 F.2d at 1125. The Seventh Circuit has concluded that

where venue is in issue, an instruction should be given. This is particularly true when an instruction is proffered or the defendant objects to the lack of an instruction, thereby calling the issue to the attention of the district court. But where venue is not in issue, no court has ever held that a venue instruction must be given.

Massa, 686 F.2d at 530.

Both of these circuits have implied that to place venue “in issue,” a defendant must proffer trial testimony or otherwise create a factual dispute with respect to the location of the crime. The Eighth Circuit has articulated a broader view, holding that venue is in issue not only when there is a question about where the crime occurred, “but also ... when defendants can be convicted of the offenses charged without an implicit finding that the acts used to establish venue have been proven.” Moeckly, 769 F.2d at 461. We believe this is the better view.

The burden of proof on venue always remains with the government. The defendant is entitled to have a jury test the weight of the evidence even if he can adduce none of his own. Where the entirety of the defendant’s illegal activity is alleged to have taken place within the trial jurisdiction, and no trial evidence is proffered that the illegal act was committed in some other place or that the place alleged is not within the jurisdiction, any defect in failing to specifically instruct on venue would be cured by the guilty verdict. See, e.g., United States v. Jenkins, 510 F.2d 495, 498 (2d Cir.1975) (failure to instruct is harmless where all evidence of commission of the crime is situated in the trial jurisdiction).⁵ This is so because in convicting of the offense charged, a jury of necessity finds an illegal act within the trial jurisdiction. However, in a multidistrict indictment, such as we have in this case, the jury could find the elements of the charged offense without finding the factual predicate for proper venue in the trial jurisdiction. See Green, 309 F.2d at 856-57. We therefore adopt the rule that failure to instruct on venue, when requested, is reversible error unless it is beyond a reasonable doubt that the jury’s guilty verdict on the charged offense necessarily incorporates a finding of proper venue.⁶

We note that the Supreme Court has engaged in a similar analysis in considering whether the use of an unconstitutional evi-dentiary presumption in jury instructions may be harmless. See Carella v. California, 491 U.S. 263, 266, 109 S.Ct. 2419, 2421, 105 L.Ed.2d 218 (1989). The Court focused on whether, despite a flawed instruction, the jury had nonetheless been required to find the predicate facts to establish the element which was subject to the erroneous presumption:

‘When a jury is instructed to presume malice from predicate facts, it still must find the existence of those facts beyond a reasonable doubt.... In many cases, the predicate facts conclusively establish intent, so that no rational jury could find that the defendant committed the relevant criminal act but did not intend to cause injury____ In that event the erroneous instruction is simply superfluous.”

Id., (quoting Rose v. Clark, 478 U.S. 570, 580-81, 106 S.Ct. 3101, 3107, 92 L.Ed.2d 460 (1986)) (citation omitted). As Justice Sealia observed in Carella, harmless-error analysis in this context is “unlike the typical form of such analysis” because we are not concerned with whether the verdict rendered on the element is supported by other properly admitted evidence, but rather with whether a verdict was in fact rendered on the element in spite of the erroneous instruction. Id. at 267, 109 S.Ct. at 2421-22 (Sealia, J., concurring).⁷

We find additional support for this rule in our recent en banc pronouncement regarding the consequences of failure to instruct on a substantive element of a charged offense. We held en banc that we must reverse if the jury did not render a verdict on an essential element of the charged offense as a result of a failure to instruct. Wiles, 102 F.3d at 1053-62 (10th Cir.1996) (en banc as to part II.A). We focused on whether “the element-specific error, i.e. the instructional omission, prevents the jury from rendering a verdict on an element entirely.” Id. at 1059. Thus, a failure to instruct the jury on an element of the crime is reversible error “[bjecause the ... jur[y] in the case[ ] ... did not render a verdict, formal or otherwise” on the contested element. Id. at 1060. Although we have outlined the significant differences between venue and substantive elements of the crime such as that at issue in Wiles, particularly in the plain error context, Wiles is instructive in its focus on the verdict actually rendered by the jury.

In the present case, there was no specific instruction to the jury on the element of venue, and the jury was therefore not specifically required to render a verdict on that element. Our opinion in Wiles left open the possibility that in some circumstances a failure to instruct, even on a substantive element, will not lead to error where the jury was nonetheless otherwise required to render a verdict on the element. In Wiles, we quoted with approval Justice Sealia’s observation that the failure to instruct on an element may be harmless “ ‘if the jury verdict on other points effectively embraces [the contested element] or if it is impossible, upon the evidence, to have found what the verdict did find without finding [the contested element] as well.’” Id. (quoting California v. Roy, — U.S. -, ---, 117 S.Ct. 337, 339-40, 136 L.Ed.2d 266 (1996) (Scalia, J., concurring)).

In making the inquiry suggested by Moeckly, Wiles, and Roy, we do not examine the evidence to determine what the jury would have found if properly instructed. To do so would impermissibly substitute the judgment of this court for that of the jury. See Wiles, 102 F.3d at 1058-59 (en banc as to part II.A). The district court found, and Mr. Miller does not dispute, that the evidence of venue was sufficient to survive Mr. Miller’s motion to acquit.⁸ The question for us is not whether the evidence, if believed by the jury, is sufficient to establish venue, but whether the jury as a matter of logical necessity made a finding on the omitted element in order to reach the verdict actually rendered. Id. at 1059.

The government here contends that by finding Mr. Miller guilty of the particular conspiracy charged in the indictment, the jury necessarily must have found the factual predicates for venue in Wyoming to be satisfied. In some cases, courts have indeed found failure to instruct on venue to be harmless where the defendant was convicted on a conspiracy indictment alleging the formation of the agreement within a single jurisdiction. See, e.g., United States v. Boswell, 372 F.2d 781, 783 (4th Cir.1967) (‘Where the indictment itself locates the place of formation of the conspiracy, we think a general- instruction is sufficient with respect to the venue question.”) In such eases, to render a guilty .verdict the jury necéssarily found the formation of the agreement in the trial jurisdiction, and a separate venue instruction would be redundant. The results in these cases comport with our recognition that a failure to instruct does not lead to reversible error where the jury by necessity renders a verdict on the substance of the element.

Reliance on the wording of the indictment and the jury’s general verdict cannot save the government’s case here, however. The jury was instructed that it must find Mr. Miller guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of the single conspiracy alleged in the indictment. The indictment alleged a conspiracy in more than one jurisdiction: “within the District of Wyoming and elsewhere.” Rec., vol. I at 1. The jury was never instructed that to find this single conspiracy it must find either an agreement or an overt act in furtherance of the conspiracy in Wyoming. Although the indictment alleged overt acts by Mr. Davis in Wyoming, it is impossible to determine if the jury, in entering a verdict of. guilty, found that any of the overt acts alleged in the Wyoming jurisdiction did in fact take place. “This is not a case where proof of the charges necessarily resulted in a finding of proper venue.” Moeckly, 769 F.2d at 462. Thus, we cannot say that a verdict on the venue element was in fact subsumed by the general guilty verdict.⁹

Finally, the government asserts there is substantial evidence in the record to establish venue in Wyoming by a preponderance of the evidence. Even if this contention is accurate, it is irrelevant to the question of whether there has been a jury verdict on the element of venue. No matter how overwhelming the evidence, our speculation as to the verdict a jury might reach may not substitute for an actual jury verdict. Wiles, 102 F.3d at 1058 (en banc as to part II.A); see also Sullivan v. Louisiana, 508 U.S. 275, 280, 113 S.Ct. 2078, 2082, 124 L.Ed.2d 182 (1993). The right to a trial by jury does not depend on the magnitude of the evidence arrayed against the defendant. “Although this record contains sufficient evidence on which a jury could find [venue], there is no indication in the record that this essential finding was actually made.” Black Cloud, 590 F.2d at 273. “Findings made by a judge cannot cure deficiencies in the jury’s finding as to the guilt or innocence of a defendant resulting from the court’s failure to instruct it to find an element of the crime.” Cabana v. Bullock, 474 U.S. 376, 384-85, 106 S.Ct. 689, 696, 88 L.Ed.2d 704 (1986).¹⁰

Due to the peculiar characteristics of venue — the fact that in the usual case there will be complete overlap between the factual predicates of venue and the factual predicates of the charged offense — failure to instruct will often be harmless.¹¹ However, we must not let this general state of affairs blind us to those instances, as with a multidistrict conspiracy, where the guilty verdict will not by necessity incorporate a finding on venue. Faced with a situation very similar to this ease, the Fifth Circuit observed, “The dangers of abuse are manifold if the Government can obtain an indictment for conspiracy in a district other than the district where the offense was actually committed merely by alleging that one act, which need never be proved, was committed in that district.” Green, 309 F.2d at 856 (emphasis in the original).

The judgment of the district court is REVERSED, and we REMAND this case for further proceedings.

1 . Mr Miller also asserts that the court impermis-sibly considered his off-the-record statements in admitting his prior confession, and that at sentencing the court improperly assessed the quantity of drugs in determining relevant conduct. Because we hold for Mr. Miller on the venue issue, we do not reach the other issues raised on appeal.

2 . In United States v. Rinke, 778 F.2d 581 (10th Cir.1985), the case was tried to the court. The judge was the factfinder and sat in place of the jury on venue, as on the other issues. In affirming the ruling of the court, we stated that the proper standard of review for sufficiency of the evidence is whether, “making all reasonable inferences and credibility choices in favor of the finder of fact," the government has proved venue by a preponderance of the evidence. 778 F.2d at 584 (emphasis added). Similarly, in United States v. Record, 873 F.2d 1363 (10th Cir.1989), the parties apparently agreed to submit the issue of venue to the judge, and the only question to be resolved was the sufficiency of the evidence, id. at 1371.

3 . The Supreme Court has recently confirmed that the right to a criminal jury trial includes the right to have a jury decide every element of the crime charged. See United States v. Gaudin, - U.S. -, -, 115 S.Ct. 2310, 2313, 132 L.Ed.2d 444 (1995). However, the Court in Gau-din did not have occasion to address the proper treatment of a nonsubstantive element like venue Id. at -- n. 1, 115 S.Ct. at 2313 n. 1.

4 . The district court found that Mr. Miller had properly raised the venue issue in his motion to acquit, and thus had not waived his venue rights.

5 . Several decisions in other jurisdictions have purported, where venue was not factually disputed, to determine that venue had been properly established "as a matter of law.” See, e.g., United States v. Netz, 758 F.2d 1308, 1312 (8th Cir.1985); United States v. Massa, 686 F.2d 526, 531 (7th Cir.1982). To the extent these decisions suggest that denial of a request to instruct on venue would not be error, we cannot agree. However, this language was used in the context of cases where the only evidence of criminal activity was located within the trial jurisdiction, and such evidence was undisputed. Thus, any error in the failure to instruct would have been harmless.

6 . Contrary to the assertion of the dissent, Dissenting Op. at 755 n. 4, the test we apply is harmless error analysis, not structural error analysis. Typically, harmless error analysis eval- ( uates a verdict actually rendered by the jury, and seeks to determine if the same verdict would have been rendered absent a trial error in the presentation of evidence to the jury. Here, the error does not concern the evidence of venue presented to the jury, but whether the jury was instructed to render a verdict on that evidence. Thus, we would find the error harmless if the jury actually rendered a verdict on venue.

7 . The dissent applies the more typical form of harmless error analysis, examining the record as a whole to determine if there was sufficient evidence of venue. The dissent apparently relies on the fact that the jury rendered a guilty verdict in this case. As we discuss below, we are unable to conclude beyond a reasonable doubt that the verdict on the substantive crimes encompassed a verdict on the issue of venue. The dissent's canvass of the evidence of venue does not merely evaluate the evidentiary support for a verdict already rendered by the jury, but instead substitutes the evaluation of the court for a verdict never rendered by the jury.

8 . In a drag conspiracy case, venue for a defendant " ‘lies either in the jurisdiction in which the conspiratorial agreement was formed or in any jurisdiction in which an overt act in furtherance of the conspiracy was committed by any of the conspirators.' ” Rinke, 778 F.2d at 584—85 (quoting United States v. Smith, 692 F.2d 693, 697 (10th Cir.1982)). For purposes of venue, the acts of any conspirator are imputed to the other conspirators. Thus, for example, we have upheld venue for a conspiracy charge even though the defendant had neither been to the jurisdiction nor committed any acts there. It was sufficient that the. defendant’s coconspirator had sold drags in the jurisdiction and had made telephone calls to the defendant from there. Smith, 692 F.2d at 697.

9 . Our conclusion is bolstered by the fact that the prosecutor implied in closing argument that the jury could find the existence of the conspiracy without believing Mr. Davis, rec., vol. XI at 27, or without finding an agreement between Mr. Miller and Mr. Davis, but merely by finding an agreement between Mr. Miller and other Montana-based conspirators, rec., vol. XI at 5. Davis was the only conspirator alleged in the indictment to have committed overt acts in Wyoming. Rec., vol. I at 5-7.

10 . Although we agree with its view of the “in issue” test, we cannot agree with the Eighth Circuit's conclusion in Moeckly that where venue is in issue and a finding of guilt on the offense does not encompass a finding of proper venue, a failure to instruct on venue can nevertheless be harmless merely because the evidence on venue was "substantial.” 769 F.2d at 462.

11 . We caution trial judges that, although the factual predicates of venue may usually be congruent with the factual predicates for a guilty verdict on the charged offense, this congruence may not always be clear. The better practice is to instruct the jury on venue whenever the issue is brought to the attention of the court, so the jury can make an explicit factual finding. See United States v. Winship, 724 F.2d 1116, 1126 n. 13 (5th Cir.1984).