United States v. Anthony Williams ( 2022 )

NOT FOR PUBLICATION FILED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS MAR 16 2022
MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK
U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, No. 20-10354
Plaintiff-Appellee, D.C. No.
1:17-cr-00101-LEK-1
v.
ANTHONY TROY WILLIAMS, MEMORANDUM*
Defendant-Appellant.
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the District of Hawaii
Leslie E. Kobayashi, District Judge, Presiding
Argued and Submitted February 18, 2022
Honolulu, Hawaii
Before: HAWKINS, R. NELSON, and FORREST, Circuit Judges.
Anthony Williams appeals his conviction for fifteen counts of wire fraud in
violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1343 and seventeen counts of mail fraud in violation of 18
U.S.C. § 1341, all stemming from his operation of a fraudulent mortgage scheme.
We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291, and we affirm.
*
This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent
except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3.
1. There was no abuse of discretion or manifest error in the district court’s
decision not to excuse Juror No. 5 for actual bias. See United States v. Kechedzian,
902 F.3d 1023, 1027 (9th Cir. 2018) (noting a deferential standard of review for
actual bias because it “may be based on the district court’s evaluation of a
prospective juror’s demeanor”). After a brochure for Williams’s law office was
entered into evidence, the juror informed the court that she might have seen the same
brochure in the room of her college-age daughter, who was seeking a summer
internship. During the colloquy that followed, the district court asked Juror No. 5
whether she would be able to put aside any concerns about her daughter’s internship
search and serve as a fair and impartial juror. Although Juror No. 5 initially
answered with statements like “I think I can,” she later stated unequivocally “I can”
and “Yes, I will” when asked whether she could be fair and whether she would
promise to keep an open mind. The district court was not obligated to excuse her
based on her initial responses in light of the definitive statement of impartiality that
followed. See United States v. Alexander, 48 F.3d 1477, 1484 (9th Cir. 1995), as
amended on denial of reh’g (Apr. 11, 1995).
2. Nor did Juror No. 5’s circumstances rise to the level of the
“extraordinary cases” in which we presume bias. See Kechedzian, 902 F.3d at 1027
(quoting Dyer v. Calderon, 151 F.3d 970, 981 (9th Cir. 1998) (en banc)) (noting that
implied bias is subject to de novo review “because [it] present[s] mixed questions of
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law and fact”). Juror No. 5 was not certain the brochures were the same, and
Williams indicated that his law office did not offer internships or part-time work to
college students. Further, the daughter’s internship application process was not to
begin in earnest until after the trial was likely to conclude. We ordinarily do not
presume bias based on the employment relationship of a juror’s family member. See
United States v. Olano, 62 F.3d 1180, 1192 (9th Cir. 1995) (daughter-in-law). The
circumstances of this case are far from the “extreme” sort that give rise to a finding
of implied bias. See Kechedzian, 902 F.3d at 1028; United States v. Gonzalez, 214
F.3d 1109, 1110–11, 1114 (9th Cir. 2000) (reversing for implied bias where the
defendant’s alleged conduct closely mirrored a juror’s “painful” and “traumatic”
experience).
3. Williams has not made out a prima facie case that his jury violated the
Sixth Amendment’s fair-cross-section requirement based on the asserted absence of
African Americans from his venire.1 See Duren v. Missouri, 439 U.S. 357, 364
(1979). He fails to provide data sufficient to show that the jury pool in the District
of Hawaii “does not adequately represent [African Americans] in relation to the
number of such persons in the community,” see United States v. Esquivel, 88 F.3d
722, 726 (9th Cir. 1996), nor does he tie the asserted underrepresentation to the
1
Although the government argues that the record is unclear as to whether or not
there were African Americans in the venire, we reject Williams’s challenge for other
reasons.
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district’s procedures to establish that it is “inherent in the particular jury-selection
process utilized,” see Duren, 439 U.S. at 366–67. His challenge thus fails.
AFFIRMED.
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