United States v. Adams

United States Court of Appeals
For the First Circuit
No. 12-2276
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Appellee,
v.
CHARLES ADAMS,
Defendant, Appellant.
APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF MASSACHUSETTS
[Hon. F. Dennis Saylor, IV, U.S. District Judge]
Before
Howard, Selya and Stahl,
Circuit Judges.
Beverly B. Chorbajian for appellant.
Damon William Taaffe, Attorney, Tax Division, U.S. Dep't of
Justice, with whom Kathryn Keneally, Assistant Attorney General,
Frank P. Cihlar, Chief, Criminal Appeals & Tax Enforcement Policy
Section, Gregory Victor Davis, Attorney, Tax Division, and Carmen
M. Ortiz, United States Attorney, were on brief, for appellee.
January 13, 2014
SELYA, Circuit Judge. Defendant-appellant Charles Adams,
an unabashed opponent of the tax laws, advances two discrete claims
of error regarding his convictions on charges of conspiracy and tax
evasion. One claim, which raises a question of first impression at
the federal appellate level, implicates the lawfulness of a
premises search conducted by armed agents of the Internal Revenue
Service (IRS). The other claim challenges the district court's
jury instructions. After careful consideration, we reject his
claims and affirm the judgment below.
This appeal arises out of the same indictment and trial
discussed in United States v. Floyd, ___ F.3d ___ (1st Cir. 2014)
[Nos. 12-2229, 12-2231], and we assume the reader's familiarity
with that opinion. Against this backdrop, we offer only a sketch
of the relevant proceedings.
The defendant, along with several other persons, was
indicted in 2009. The charges with which we are concerned include
one count of conspiracy to defraud the United States by obstructing
the collection of payroll taxes and two counts of tax evasion.1
See 18 U.S.C. § 371; 26 U.S.C. § 7201. During the pretrial
proceedings, the defendant moved unsuccessfully to suppress
evidence obtained in a search of his home.
1
A third tax evasion count was dismissed at trial and need
not concern us.
-2-
Before the jury, the defendant's principal defense
centered on his claim of a subjective good-faith belief that he was
not liable for any of the taxes implicated in his case. See Cheek
v. United States, 498 U.S. 192, 203 (1991). The jury rejected that
defense and found the defendant guilty on all three counts. The
district court imposed a 48-month term of immurement. This timely
appeal followed.
In this venue, the defendant assigns error to the
district court's denial of his motion to suppress and to its
handling of his good-faith defense. We address these assignments
of error sequentially.
We start with an explication of the material needed to
place the suppression issue into perspective. On March 19, 2004,
a magistrate judge issued a warrant that authorized the search of
the defendant's home in Wrentham, Massachusetts. Four days later,
armed IRS agents executed the warrant and seized evidence that the
government later used against the defendant.
During pretrial skirmishing, the defendant moved to
suppress this evidence. Pertinently, he asserted that the search
was unlawful because the manner of its execution was not authorized
by statute. The defendant based this assertion on 26 U.S.C.
§ 7608, which deals with the "[a]uthority of internal revenue
enforcement officers."
-3-
The defendant's argument takes the following shape.
Subsection (a) of the statute, which deals with IRS enforcement of
laws pertaining to alcohol, tobacco, and firearms, explicitly
allows agents enforcing those laws to carry guns. See 26 U.S.C.
§ 7608(a)(1). Subsection (b), which deals with IRS enforcement of
other tax laws, contains no similar grant of explicit permission to
carry guns. The defendant posits that the absence of any such
explicit permission in subsection (b) indicates Congress's intent
to prohibit IRS agents enforcing those laws from carrying firearms.
See United States v. Hernández-Ferrer, 599 F.3d 63, 67-68 (1st Cir.
2010) (discussing principle of expressio unius est exclusio
alterius). And because the agents who searched his home were armed
and not investigating any offense involving alcohol, tobacco, or
firearms, the defendant argues that the search was unlawful and the
evidence seized should therefore be suppressed.
The defendant's theory is a novel one, and the district
court was skeptical of it. In the end, the court elected to detour
around the statutory construction question. Instead, the court
assumed a statutory violation but held that suppression was not an
appropriate remedy. This prudential approach makes eminently good
sense: as we recently wrote, "[d]iscretion is often the better part
of valor, and courts should not rush to decide unsettled legal
issues that can easily be avoided." United States v. Gonzalez, 736
F.3d 40, 40 (1st Cir. 2013). Thus, we too assume without deciding
-4-
that the agents who executed the search of the defendant's home
violated 26 U.S.C. § 7608 because they were armed.
Suppression of evidence is strong medicine, not to be
dispensed casually. The question of whether exclusion of evidence
is an available remedy for a particular violation is a question of
law and, therefore, is subject to de novo review. See United
States v. Garcia-Hernandez, 659 F.3d 108, 111 (1st Cir. 2011);
United States v. Leahey, 434 F.2d 7, 10 (1st Cir. 1970). In
conducting this inquiry, we remain mindful that "[t]he exclusionary
rule was not fashioned to vindicate a broad, general right to be
free of agency action not 'authorized' by law, but rather to
protect certain specific, constitutionally protected rights of
individuals." United States v. Hensel, 699 F.2d 18, 29 (1st Cir.
1983); accord United States v. Henry, 482 F.3d 27, 32 (1st Cir.
2007). The cases in which the Supreme Court has approved a
suppression remedy for statutory violations are hen's-teeth rare,
and "[i]n those cases, the excluded evidence arose directly out of
statutory violations that implicated important Fourth and Fifth
Amendment interests." Sanchez-Llamas v. Oregon, 548 U.S. 331, 348
(2006). We conclude, therefore, that statutory violations,
untethered to the abridgment of constitutional rights, are not
sufficiently egregious to justify suppression.2 See United States
2
There is an exception to this principle for instances in
which the statute itself mandates suppression as a remedy. See,
e.g., United States v. Abdi, 463 F.3d 547, 556 (6th Cir. 2006).
-5-
v. Thompson, 936 F.2d 1249, 1251 (11th Cir. 1991) (collecting
cases).
The defendant resists this conclusion. He contends that
the performance of the search by armed agents constituted an
unreasonable intrusion into his dwelling. This contention lacks
force.
Whatever intrusion may have occurred was not of
constitutional dimension. While the defendant assuredly had a
constitutionally protected privacy interest in his home, see, e.g.,
Georgia v. Randolph, 547 U.S. 103, 115 (2006); Payton v. New York,
445 U.S. 573, 585-86 (1980), that interest is protected in the
first instance by the warrant requirement of the Fourth Amendment
— a requirement that was fully satisfied in this case. The
defendant has not challenged the validity of the warrant, and the
warrant authorized the agents to enter the home and conduct the
search.
We add, moreover, that the fact that the agents were
armed had no impact either on the scope of the search or on the
extent of the evidence collected. Indeed, the record here does not
show the slightest connection between the alleged statutory
violation and the avails of the search. So viewed, the supposed
violation was not a but-for cause of procuring the evidence. The
Constitution was not implicated and suppression was, therefore,
The statute at issue here contains no such mandate.
-6-
unwarranted. See Hudson v. Michigan, 547 U.S. 586, 592 (2006);
United States v. Thomas, 736 F.3d 54, 59 (1st Cir. 2013).
The defendant seeks to reboot his argument in two ways.
Both maneuvers are futile.
To begin, the defendant draws an analogy between a
violation of section 7608 and a violation of the knock-and-announce
rule. The knock-and-announce rule generally requires law
enforcement officers "acting under a warrant . . . to announce
their presence and purpose, including by knocking, before
attempting forcible entry." United States v. Sargent, 319 F.3d 4,
8 (1st Cir. 2003). However, the Supreme Court has held that
because a violation of the knock-and-announce rule has "nothing to
do with the seizure of the evidence, the exclusionary rule is
inapplicable." Hudson, 547 U.S. at 594. Seen in this light, the
analogy does nothing to aid the defendant's cause.
The defendant's second maneuver — his reliance on our
decision in United States v. Leahey — is equally unavailing. There,
agents violated a publicly announced IRS procedure by eliciting
evidence from the defendant without warning her that they were
conducting an investigation into possible criminal tax fraud. See
Leahey, 434 F.2d at 11. We determined that the IRS had promulgated
the procedure for the purpose of promoting uniform conduct among
its agents and protecting taxpayers' rights in the wake of the
Supreme Court's decision in Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436
-7-
(1966). See Leahey, 434 F.2d at 8, 10. Because the agency had
purposefully announced the procedure to the public, it could be
reasonably expected that taxpayers would rely on the agents'
compliance with the procedure in their dealings with the IRS. The
agents' failure to comply thus implicated the defendant's due
process rights. See id. at 10-11. We emphasize, moreover, that
there was a strong connection between the violation of the
procedure and the gathering of the disputed evidence.
Consequently, suppression of the evidence was an appropriate
anodyne. See id. at 11. The situation at hand is at a
considerable remove from the situation in Leahey. Here, there is
no inkling that the statute was enacted to protect taxpayers'
constitutional rights;3 and in addition, the defendant's
constitutional rights were in no way offended by the manner in
which the search warrant was executed. For these reasons, Leahey
is inapposite.
To say more about this claim of error would serve no
useful purpose. We conclude, without serious question, that the
3
Representative Mills, one of the floor managers of the bill,
described the amendment that was codified as section 7608(b) as
"entirely a procedural or administrative amendment. It would
extend to criminal investigators of the Intelligence and Internal
Security Divisions of the [IRS] the same authority under present
law for Alcohol and Tobacco Tax Division employees relating to the
power to execute and serve search and arrest warrants." 108 Cong.
Rec. 23,367 (1962).
-8-
district court did not blunder in refusing to grant the defendant's
motion to suppress.
This brings us to the defendant's complaint about the
jury instructions. As said, the defendant's principal defense
posited that his subjective good-faith belief that he was not
liable for taxes absolved him of the intent required to convict.
In support, he testified at trial about his thinking (including his
belief that "citizens, living and working in the 50 states, are not
liable for [taxes] on . . . compensation for [their] labor").
Periodically — and usually in response to the
government's objections — the district court interjected to tell
the jury that the defendant's statements were not to be taken as
correct statements of law but, rather, were only to be taken as
evidence of the defendant's beliefs. These admonitions
complemented instructions that the court had given earlier in the
trial.
In its end-of-case charge, the court instructed the
jurors that a good-faith belief in the inapplicability of the tax
laws was a complete defense to the charges lodged against the
defendant. The jury nonetheless found the defendant guilty.
On appeal, the defendant argues that the district court's
failure to give the more expansive good-faith instructions that he
had requested, combined with the periodic instructions given during
the trial, undermined his theory of defense. Our review of
-9-
preserved jury instructions depends on the nature of the error
asserted. Generally speaking, we review a district court's
construction of law de novo and its choice of language and emphasis
for abuse of discretion. See United States v. Sasso, 695 F.3d 25,
29 (1st Cir. 2012). Of course, "[e]ven an incorrect instruction to
which an objection has been preserved will not require us to set
aside a verdict if the error is harmless." Id. Thus, a district
court's "refusal to give a particular instruction constitutes
reversible error only if the requested instruction was (1) correct
as a matter of substantive law, (2) not substantially incorporated
into the charge as rendered, and (3) integral to an important point
in the case." United States v. McGill, 953 F.2d 10, 13 (1st Cir.
1992).
In this instance, there is a substantial question as to
whether the defendant preserved his objections to the district
court's actions. But the government has not pressed this point
and, in the end, the defendant's objections fail even if we assume,
for argument's sake, that they are preserved. Accordingly, we
bypass the question of procedural default and proceed directly to
the merits of the claim.
The main bearing wall of this claim of error is what the
district court did not do: the defendant laments that the court did
not give in haec verba the specific instructions that he requested.
-10-
These proffered instructions included repeated elaborations of the
good-faith defense.
This claim of error crumples when we shift the lens of
our inquiry to what the district court actually did. We have never
required district courts to embellish good-faith instructions with
an array of bells and whistles. To the contrary, we have on
several occasions approved simple and straightforward statements of
the underlying legal principle. See, e.g., United States v. Allen,
670 F.3d 12, 17-18 (1st Cir. 2012); United States v. Anthony, 545
F.3d 60, 66 (1st Cir. 2008); McGill, 953 F.2d at 12-13. Here, the
court gave an accurate instruction on good faith and its relation
to intent before launching into the specifics of each count
charged. Critically, as part of a lengthy instruction on intent,
the court told the jurors that the "defendant's intent must be
determined by a subjective standard . . . . A good-faith but
mistaken belief as to what the tax laws require is not enough to
have the required knowledge and intent." The court reminded the
jurors of this general instruction on intent as it limned the
specific elements of each count.4
4
In his reply brief, the defendant adds a refinement: he
argues specifically that "it was reversible error not to instruct
the jury that the [defendant's] beliefs need not be reasonable if
they are actually held in good faith." The district court covered
this point in substance. Among other things, the court instructed
the jurors that they "must decide what a particular defendant
actually knew and believed, not what a reasonable person in his
position should have known or believed"; and that "[a] good-faith
belief is one that is honestly held." No more was exigible. See,
-11-
To be sure, the defendant obviously would have preferred
to have the court parrot his own language. But the defendant was
not entitled to put his words into the judge's mouth. Here, as in
McGill, 953 F.2d at 12, the court "spurn[ed] the exact phraseology
which the appellant sought," but it "accurately communicated the
meat of the defense's theory" to the jury. Because the defendant's
proffered instructions were "substantially incorporated into the
charge as rendered," they do not support his claim of error. Id.
at 13.
The defendant's attempt to base his claim of error on the
district court's periodic cautionary instructions fares no better.
To begin, the claim of error is counterintuitive. Cautionary
instructions, sometimes called limiting instructions, are important
weapons in a trial court's armamentarium. The use of such
instructions is to be encouraged. When properly deployed, they can
prevent (or, at least, ameliorate) harm from potentially
prejudicial evidence. See, e.g., United States v. Ofray-Campos,
534 F.3d 1, 35 (1st Cir. 2008). Criminal tax cases in which a
defendant mounts a good-faith defense are fertile soil for the
judicious use of such instructions. In such cases, "the district
court must be permitted to prevent the defendant's alleged view of
e.g., United States v. Rosario-Peralta, 199 F.3d 552, 568 (1st Cir.
1999) ("Because the district court's instructions adequately
covered defendants' theory of defense, there was no error in
declining to give their proposed instruction.").
-12-
the law from confusing the jury as to the actual state of the law."
United States v. Simkanin, 420 F.3d 397, 404 (5th Cir. 2005).
In this case, the district court's use of cautionary
instructions appears to have been carefully considered. Moreover,
the content of the cautionary instructions was impeccable. The
court stated the law correctly and the language used was fair and
balanced.5 Last — but far from least — the court's admonitions
were couched in language consistent with the defendant's theory of
the case.
We have often recommended the use of limiting
instructions in order to avoid prejudice. See, e.g., United States
v. Collins, 60 F.3d 4, 7-8 (1st Cir. 1995); United States v. Gomez-
Pabon, 911 F.2d 847, 860 (1st Cir. 1990); Gutierrez-Rodriguez v.
Cartagena, 882 F.2d 553, 573-74 (1st Cir. 1989). Although we can
conceive of instances in which a court might repeat limiting
instructions so many times and in such improvident language that
prejudice might result, that is not what happened here. Our
5
Endeavoring to convince us otherwise, the defendant
spotlights language that the district court used to explain the
relationship between the reasonableness of a belief and the jury's
evaluation of whether the belief was held in good faith. On the
fifth day of the trial, the court told the jury that a belief that
"the moon is made of green cheese" might be considered unreasonable
and therefore probative of the belief-holder's insincerity. But
the defendant neglects to mention that the district court both
prefaced and concluded the reference by warning that it was an
"extreme example" that had "nothing to do with" the case. We see
neither error nor abuse of discretion in the court's use of a
colorful example as part of a careful attempt, throughout the
trial, to explain a sophisticated concept.
-13-
painstaking review of the record convinces us that the district
court, far from removing the defendant's theory of the case from
the jurors, put that theory squarely before them.
We need go no further. For the reasons elucidated above,
the district court's judgment is
Affirmed.
-14-