Appeal - Spillover Effect

Wolfe v. Clarke, 691 F.3d 410 (4th Cir. 2012)

The defendant was convicted of murder and given the death penalty. A principal witness at trial was a man named Barber, who was hired by Wolfe to kill the victim. When Barber was first arrested and before he implicated Wolfe in the murder, he was told by a police officer that if he implicated Wolfe, he (Barber) could avoid the death penalty. This conversation was memorialized in a police report that was never produced to the defense. This was a Brady violation that required granting the writ as to the conviction and sentence. The Fourth Circuit also held that the conviction for being involved in a drug conspiracy would also be vacated, because had the Brady information been disclosed, the defendant would likely not have testified at the trial and would not have been in the position of having to deny guilt of the murder, while admitting his role in the drug conspiracy.

United States v. Wright, 665 F.3d 560 (3rd Cir. 2012)

The jury was instructed on different theories under which the defendant oculd be convicted of honest services mail fraud, including bribery and conflict of interest. The latter, post-Skilling was invalid. Not only were the honest services mail fraud counts reversed, but the traditional mail fraud counts were also reversed because of the prejudicial spillover effect caused by the admission of evidence relating to the honest services counts that would not have been admitted in a traditional mail fraud trial. The Third Circuit explains at some length the procedure for analyzing prejudicial spillover where certain counts of conviction are defective and others are not.

United States v. Bruno, 383 F.3d 65 (2d Cir. 2004)

Reversal of the defendants’ convictions on charges of Violence in Aid of Racketeering, RICO, and obstruction of justice required vacating a false statement conviction, as well, though there was no legal impediment to the conviction on that count.

United States v. Keating, 147 F.3d 895 (9th Cir. 1998)

The defendant was tried in federal court for bank fraud, securities fraud and related charges. He was previously convicted in state court for the same conduct. Following his conviction in federal court, it was determined that at least one juror, and perhaps more, knew about his state conviction (learning about it during the federal trial), and discussed it with other jurors during deliberations. The trial court properly set aside the verdict and granted a new trial. Moreover, this evidence supported vacating the co-defendant’s conviction, as well. “When a finding of guilt is dependent upon a connection between defendants, collateral information clearly prejudicial to one defendant is not harmless to the other defendant.”

United States v. Wilkins, 139 F.3d 603 (8th Cir. 1998)

After the government rested its case-in-chief, the trial court granted a judgment of acquittal on several counts. Thereafter, the jury acquitted the defendant on some counts and convicted him on one count. The trial court granted defendant's Motion for New Trial, on the grounds that the spillover effect of the evidence heard on the counts that the judge threw outprejudiced the defendant on the remaining count. The Court of Appeals concluded that this was not an abuse of discretion.

United States v. Richardson, 161 F.3d 728 (D.C. Cir. 1998)

The improper joinder of DC local threat charges with a federal firearms charge was improper. The improper joinder tainted the firearms charge, as well.

United States v. Adkinson, 135 F.3d 1363 (11th Cir. 1998)

The indictment included charges that, at the time, did not amount to an offense. Nevertheless, the trial court allowed the government to proceed through trial with those counts in place, and permitted the government to introduce considerable evidence on those counts. When the case was submitted to the jury after several months of trial, the indictment was redacted and those counts were excised. The Eleventh Circuit reversed the entire conviction. The inclusion of those counts in the indictment rendered the trial fundamentally unfair.

United States v. Tellier, 83 F.3d 578 (2d Cir. 1996)

The defendant’s RICO conspiracy and substantive RICO conviction was reversed because the government introduced improper hearsay evidence (a co-conspirator statement that did not qualify under Rule 801(d)(2)(E)). Because of the insufficiency of evidence of the defendant’s participation in this massive RICO conspiracy, the conviction on the other substantive count, a Hobbs Act count, would also be reversed. Once the RICO count fell, the prejudice on the remaining count was undeniable.

United States v. Rooney, 37 F.3d 847 (2d Cir. 1994)

The defendant’s conviction on an 18 U.S.C. §666 count was reversed based on insufficient evidence. Unrelated counts under 18 U.S.C. §1001 were supported by sufficient evidence, but were tainted by the erroneous conviction of the §666 count. The evidence on the §666 count would not have been admissible if the §1001 counts had been tried alone and the evidence and argument relating to the §666 count was “pejorative.”

United States v. Eason, 920 F.2d 731 (11th Cir. 1990)

The government committed reversible error in introducing evidence of a co-conspirator’s conviction. The co-conspirator did not testify, and thus, there was no need to impeach him. The court reviews the government’s various arguments why the evidence should have been admissible, and also that it was harmless error and rejects each of these arguments. The error was harmful and tainted not only the conviction with regard to counts where the co-conspirator was involved, but also all other counts of the indictment. The court characterized the government’s efforts to introduce this evidence as governmental misconduct.