United States v. De La Cruz

United States Court of Appeals
For the First Circuit
No. 14-2132
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Appellee,
v.
RENATO DE LA CRUZ,
Defendant, Appellant.
APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF MASSACHUSETTS
[Hon. Richard G. Stearns, U.S. District Judge]
Before
Torruella, Selya and Thompson,
Circuit Judges.
Eduardo Masferrer, with whom Masferrer & Associates, PC was
on brief, for appellant.
Robert E. Richardson, Assistant United States Attorney, with
whom Carmen M. Ortiz, United States Attorney, was on brief, for
appellee.
August 19, 2016
SELYA, Circuit Judge. In this criminal appeal, the
appellant strives to convince us that we ought to overturn his
convictions for theft of public money, use of a falsely obtained
social security number, and aggravated identity theft. We are not
persuaded: neither the appellant's quest for suppression of
evidence nor his challenge to the district court's jury
instructions has merit, and the record reveals that the
government's case rests on a durable foundation. Accordingly, we
affirm the judgment below.
I. BACKGROUND
We start with a sketch of the facts and the travel of
the case. To the extent that we rehearse the facts, whether here
or in greater detail in connection with our discussion of
particular issues, we take them in the light most favorable to the
jury's verdict, consistent with record support. See United States
v. Maldonado-García, 446 F.3d 227, 229 (1st Cir. 2006).
The appellant's true name is Renato De La Cruz. The
appellant is a citizen of the Dominican Republic who entered the
United States illegally sometime in 1993. Not long after, he went
to New York City, where he paid a man $1,500 for identity documents
in the name of "Alberto Pena." These documents matched the
identity of a real Alberto Pena (also a native of the Dominican
Republic, who became a lawful permanent resident of the United
States).
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Once the appellant had procured Pena's identity
documents, he was able to obtain a Dominican passport from the
Dominican embassy and a "green card" from the Immigration and
Naturalization Service. In December of 1994 — four days before
the real Pena applied for a social security number — the appellant
used Pena's name, date of birth, parentage, and alien number to
apply for and receive a social security number. Shortly
thereafter, the appellant — apparently nervous about his physical
proximity to the real Pena (who was residing in New York) — moved
away, eventually relocating to Massachusetts.
While in Massachusetts, the appellant worked
intermittently for a general contractor. At various times from
December of 2010 through October of 2012, the appellant received
unemployment benefits, including 21 weeks of federally-funded
extension benefits. Because an alien is eligible for such
unemployment benefits only if he is authorized to work in the
United States, the appellant had to use his social security number
to secure his benefits. The federally-funded benefits that the
appellant received amounted to $11,340, and the appellant does not
dispute that these benefits comprised public funds within the
purview of 18 U.S.C. § 641.
On December 18, 2012, U.S. Immigration and Customs
Enforcement (ICE) officers arrested the appellant. A federal grand
jury subsequently returned a three-count indictment charging him
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with theft of public money, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 641 (count
1); use of a falsely obtained social security number to obtain
benefits, in violation of 42 U.S.C. § 408(a)(7)(A) (count 2); and
aggravated identity theft, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1028A (count
3). A superseding indictment tracked this three-count structure.
In due course, the appellant moved to suppress
statements made on the date of his arrest. Through a supplemental
motion, he also sought suppression of any physical evidence
gathered at that time. The government opposed these motions.
After an evidentiary hearing, the district court denied the
motions. See United States v. De La Cruz, No. 13-10022, 2014 WL
1515410 (D. Mass. Apr. 18, 2014). The appellant moved for
reconsideration, but to no avail. See United States v. De La Cruz,
No. 13-10022, 2014 WL 1796654 (D. Mass. May 5, 2014).
On June 25, 2014 — following a three-day trial — a jury
found the appellant guilty on all three counts. The appellant
filed a post-trial motion for judgment of acquittal under Federal
Rule of Criminal Procedure 29(c) as to counts 1 and 3, which the
district court rejected. See United States v. De La Cruz (De La
Cruz III), No. 13-10022, 2014 WL 3925497 (D. Mass. Aug. 12, 2014).
The court sentenced the appellant to concurrent one-month terms of
immurement on the first two counts and a consecutive 24-month term
of immurement on count 3. This timely appeal followed.
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II. ANALYSIS
We divide our discussion of the issues into three
segments, corresponding to the components of the appellant's
asseverational array.
A. Suppression.
To place the suppression issues into perspective, we
think it useful to embellish the barebones account provided above.
In the process, we accept the facts as supportably found by the
district court. See United States v. Romain, 393 F.3d 63, 66 (1st
Cir. 2004).
On December 18, 2012, a supervisory ICE officer, Andrew
Graham, accompanied by fellow ICE officers, sought to arrest the
appellant as a person unlawfully present in the United States.
Because the appellant was the subject of an ongoing Department of
Labor (DOL) criminal investigation, a DOL agent and a
representative of the Social Security Administration also went
along.
The cadre of officers and agents proceeded to an
apartment building in Salem, Massachusetts, believing that the
appellant resided there with a girlfriend (Mayra Espinal). Graham
and another ICE officer went to the front door of Espinal's
apartment. When the appellant came to the door, Graham — speaking
across the threshold — employed a ruse and told him (falsely) that
the officers were concerned that he might have a gun. The
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appellant consented to a frisk and told officers that they could
enter the apartment. Once inside, Graham arrested the appellant.
After retrieving additional clothing for the appellant,
the officers escorted the appellant into a hallway outside the
apartment. They were joined by Christina Rosen, the DOL agent.
Graham asked the appellant whether he preferred his Miranda
warnings, see Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 479 (1966), to be
read to him in English or in Spanish. The appellant elected to
hear them in English. Graham then read the appellant his Miranda
rights from a preprinted card. Standing in the hallway, the
appellant made a number of admissions: he related his true name,
acknowledged that he had no lawful right to be in the United
States, and disclosed his purchase of Pena's identity information.
Roughly 20 minutes after being given his Miranda
warnings, the appellant was transported to the ICE office in
Burlington, Massachusetts. Upon his arrival, he was processed
administratively, and an ICE officer explained that he was under
arrest for immigration violations and that he would have to appear
before an immigration judge to determine his status. To that end,
he was given a notice to appear in the immigration court, which
explained, inter alia, his right to be represented by an attorney
at no expense to the government. The officer made it clear,
however, that he was only serving the appellant with paperwork
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anent the immigration matter and that other officers would process
him with respect to criminal charges.
After his administrative processing concluded, the
appellant was taken to a different interview room.1 Agent Rosen
introduced herself and explained that a criminal investigation was
being conducted into the appellant's suspected theft of identity
and misuse of public funds. She further explained that the agents
in attendance were criminal investigators, not immigration
officers. The appellant received his Miranda rights once again,
and he signed a form acknowledging that he understood those rights
and was willing to waive them.
The appellant proceeded to make a number of admissions.
He recounted how he had obtained the Pena identity documents;
admitted that he used these documents to get a passport, green
card, and social security number; and described how, as Pena, he
had collected unemployment benefits in Massachusetts. Those
admissions were memorialized in a statement transcribed by Agent
Rosen and signed by the appellant.
Against this factual backdrop, the appellant musters
three arguments in support of his assertion that the district court
erred in denying suppression. First, he submits that the ICE
1The immigration officer who processed the appellant
administratively was not present in this room, nor did he
participate in the interview that ensued.
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officers acted outside their authority when they arrested him
without an administrative arrest warrant and, thus, his subsequent
statements should be suppressed as the fruit of an illegal arrest.
Second, he submits that the officers' warrantless entry into the
apartment offended the Fourth Amendment because he did not validly
consent to their entry. Finally, he submits that his Miranda
waiver at the ICE office should be disregarded because he was
provided with intervening and conflicting administrative warnings.
We address these arguments sequentially, pausing first, however,
to frame the standard of review.
In reviewing the denial of a suppression motion, we assay
the district court's conclusions of law de novo and its factual
findings, including its credibility determinations, for clear
error. See United States v. Feliz, 794 F.3d 123, 130 (1st Cir.
2015). The fact-based aspect of this review is "highly
deferential." United States v. Floyd, 740 F.3d 22, 33 (1st Cir.
2014). "If any reasonable view of the evidence supports the denial
of a motion to suppress, we will affirm the denial." United States
v. Boskic, 545 F.3d 69, 77 (1st Cir. 2008).
The appellant's first argument, which centers on the
lack of an administrative arrest warrant, emanates from 8 U.S.C.
§ 1357(a)(2). That statute authorizes an immigration officer to
effect a warrantless arrest only in two situations: when an alien
"in [the officer's] presence or view is entering or attempting to
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enter the United States in violation of any law or regulation made
in pursuance of law regulating the admission, exclusion,
expulsion, or removal of aliens"; or when the officer "has reason
to believe that the alien . . . is in the United States in violation
of any such law or regulation and is likely to escape before a
warrant can be obtained for his arrest."2 The appellant asserts
that the ICE officers who arrested him violated these strictures,
and that the remedy for that violation is suppression of all the
statements that he subsequently made.
We assume, albeit without deciding, that the ICE
officers who effected the arrest exceeded their federal statutory
mandate. Even so, the appellant's argument is foreclosed by a
solid phalanx of case law.
"Suppression of evidence is strong medicine, not to be
dispensed casually." United States v. Adams, 740 F.3d 40, 43 (1st
Cir.), cert. denied, 134 S. Ct. 2739 (2014). Normally, a violation
of federal or state law triggers the exclusionary rule only if the
evidence sought to be excluded "ar[ises] directly out of statutory
violations that implicate[] important Fourth and Fifth Amendment
2Along the same lines, 8 C.F.R. § 287.8(c)(2)(ii) provides
that "[a] warrant of arrest shall be obtained except when the
designated immigration officer has reason to believe that the
person is likely to escape before a warrant can be obtained." For
present purposes, the regulation adds nothing to the statutory
proviso and, thus, we make no further reference to it.
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interests." Sanchez-Llamas v. Oregon, 548 U.S. 331, 348 (2006);
see United States v. Caceres, 440 U.S. 741, 751-55 (1979).3 As a
result, "[t]he cases in which the Supreme Court has approved a
suppression remedy for statutory violations are hen's-teeth rare."
Adams, 740 F.3d at 43.
We have said before, and today reaffirm, that a statutory
violation "untethered to the abridgment of constitutional rights"
is insufficient to justify suppression. Id. The case at hand
falls squarely within the contours of that premise: the failure to
obtain an administrative arrest warrant as contemplated by 8 U.S.C.
§ 1357, without more, does not justify the suppression of evidence.
See United States v. Abdi, 463 F.3d 547, 556-57 (6th Cir. 2006).4
This brings us to the appellant's second argument: that
suppression was warranted because he never validly consented to
the ICE officers' entry into the apartment. That argument is dead
3 We say "normally" because a statutory violation would also
animate the exclusionary rule when the statute itself mandates
suppression as a remedy. See, e.g., United States v. Giordano,
416 U.S. 505, 524-29 (1974). Because the statute at issue here —
8 U.S.C. § 1357 — does not provide for an independent suppression
remedy, this exception to the usual rule is inaccessible to the
appellant.
4 Because the appellant does not argue that his arrest
independently violated his constitutional rights apart from the
statutory violation, we need not address whether his arrest was
reasonable under the Fourth Amendment. See Ortiz v. Gaston Cty.
Dyeing Mach. Co., 277 F.3d 594, 598 (1st Cir. 2002). In all
events, as we discuss infra, the officers had probable cause to
effect the arrest.
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on arrival: the appellant has failed to specify what evidence he
seeks to suppress as a result of the ICE officers' allegedly
invalid entry into the apartment. Nor does this seem to be an
oversight: at trial, the government introduced no physical
evidence derived from within the apartment. The appellant must be
arguing, then, for suppression of the statements that he made in
the outside hallway of the apartment building and at the ICE
office. But he is whistling past the graveyard: regardless of the
validity vel non of the appellant's consent to the ICE officers'
entry into the apartment, that entry has no bearing on the
admissibility of statements that the appellant later made outside
the apartment. We explain briefly.
In New York v. Harris, the Supreme Court declined to
apply the exclusionary rule to statements made by a defendant at
a police station after the police had effected an unconstitutional
arrest in the defendant's home (which the police had entered
without either a warrant or the defendant's consent). See 495
U.S. 14, 16, 21 (1990). The Court's reasoning started with a frank
recognition of the rule prescribed in Payton v. New York, 445 U.S.
573 (1980): "that the Fourth Amendment prohibits the police from
effecting a warrantless and nonconsensual entry into a suspect's
home in order to make a routine felony arrest." 495 U.S. at 16.
After acknowledging that the defendant's arrest transgressed both
the Payton rule and the Fourth Amendment, however, the Harris Court
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held that suppression of the defendant's statements was not
compelled. The Court explained that "the rule in Payton was
designed to protect the physical integrity of the home; it was not
intended to grant criminal suspects . . . protection for statements
made outside their premises where the police have probable cause
to arrest the suspect for committing a crime." Id. at 17. Fairly
viewed, the defendant's statements at the police station were
neither "the product of being in unlawful custody" nor "the fruit
of having been arrested in the home rather than someplace else."
Id. at 19.
So it is here. The ICE officers indisputably had
probable cause to arrest the appellant both administratively (for
being an alien unlawfully present in the United States) and
criminally (for aggravated identity theft and related offenses).
Indeed, the appellant, who has fought tooth and nail on a variety
of other points, has not contested the existence of probable cause.
It follows inexorably — as night follows day — that the appellant
was lawfully in the officers' custody when he made the inculpatory
statements outside the confines of his home.
Moreover, those statements bore no relation to the
underlying illegality that he alleges (that is, the ostensibly
nonconsensual entry into his home). After all, the appellant was
neither questioned about anything observed in the apartment nor
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confronted with any evidence found there.5 In a nutshell, then,
the appellant's inculpatory statements were not the product of
unlawful custody, nor were they the fruit of the appellant having
been arrested in his home (rather than somewhere else). Neither
the absence of an administrative arrest warrant nor the lack of
valid consent could change that equation.6
We turn next to the appellant's third suppression
argument, which seeks exclusion of the statements that he made at
the ICE office in Burlington. He contends that his Miranda waiver
at Burlington was neither knowing nor intelligent since he was
given an earlier administrative warning that differed in an
important respect from the standard Miranda warning. The district
court rejected this contention, and so do we.
Specifically, the appellant points to the portion of the
administrative warning in which he was advised that he might have
to pay for legal representation should he desire the services of
5 The appellant's subsequent statements at the ICE office were
even further removed — temporally, spatially, and in every other
arguably relevant sense — from the warrantless arrest.
6 Laboring to blunt the force of this reasoning, the appellant
relies on the Supreme Court's decision in Brown v. Illinois, 422
U.S. 590, 602-03 (1975). This reliance is mislaid. In Brown, the
arrest was effected without either a warrant or probable cause.
See id. at 591. By contrast, probable cause unarguably supported
the warrantless arrest here. Brown, therefore, offers no succor
to the appellant.
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an attorney.7 This advice conflicted with his broader right to
appointed counsel under Miranda and, in his view, "[r]equiring
someone to sort out such [conflicting warnings] is an unfair burden
to impose on an individual already placed in a position that is
inherently stressful." United States v. San Juan-Cruz, 314 F.3d
384, 388 (9th Cir. 2002).
San Juan-Cruz is not in point.8 There, the defendant,
following his arrest by Border Patrol agents, was advised of his
rights in connection with the administrative arrest. See id. at
386. Pertinently, an agent told the defendant that he had the
right to have counsel present during questioning, but not at the
government's expense; and that any statements he made could be
used against him for purposes of removal. See id. Shortly
thereafter and in the same location, the same agent read the
defendant his Miranda rights. See id. The defendant then
proceeded to make a series of incriminating statements. See id.
7
The notice to appear provided to the appellant advised him
that "[i]f you so choose, you may be represented in this
[immigration] proceeding, at no expense to the Government, by an
attorney or other individual authorized and qualified to represent
persons before the Executive Office for Immigration Review
. . . . A list of qualified attorneys and organizations who may be
available to represent you at no cost will be provided with this
notice." A notice of rights provided contemporaneously contained
similar language.
8
The present case does not require us to determine whether
San Juan-Cruz was correctly decided, and we leave that issue for
another day.
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at 387. The Ninth Circuit held that, under these circumstances,
the Miranda warnings were insufficiently clear. See id. at 389.
The court explained that:
When a warning, not consistent with Miranda, is given
prior to, after, or simultaneously with a Miranda
warning, the risk of confusion is substantial, such that
the onus is on the Government to clarify to the arrested
party the nature of his or her rights under the Fifth
Amendment. The Government should not presume after
having read two sets of contradictory warnings to an
individual that he or she possesses sufficient legal or
constitutional expertise to understand what are his or
her rights under the Constitution.
Id.
This case is a horse of a different hue. Here, law
enforcement personnel read the appellant his Miranda rights in his
preferred language even before he received any administrative
warnings. Later, the appellant was given both administrative
warnings and Miranda warnings, but under circumstances that
differed materially from those in San Juan-Cruz. First — unlike
in San Juan-Cruz — the appellant already had received Miranda
warnings (while at the apartment building) and made what amounted
to a full confession before any administrative warnings were given.
Second — unlike in San Juan-Cruz — different officials administered
the different warnings. Third — unlike in San Juan-Cruz — the
agent who administered the subsequent set of Miranda warnings took
care to explain to the appellant that she was a criminal
investigator and that she and her colleagues were distinct from
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the ICE officers handling the administrative case. Fourth — unlike
in San Juan-Cruz — there were both spatial and temporal gaps
between the administrative warnings and the Miranda warnings (that
is, they were administered in different rooms at different times).
On this record, the government handily carried its
burden of distinguishing the appellant's administrative rights
from his criminal rights and clarified to him the nature and extent
of his Fifth Amendment rights before he confessed to the DOL
criminal investigator. Simply put, the risk of confusion that
troubled the San Juan-Cruz court did not exist here. We hold,
therefore, that the district court did not clearly err in finding
that the appellant was not confused or otherwise unfairly
prejudiced by the presentation of the conflicting warnings.
To say more about the matter of suppression would be
pointless. Based on what we already have said, it is pellucid
that the district court did not err in turning aside the
appellant's attempts to suppress evidence.
B. Sufficiency of the Evidence.
The appellant contends that the government failed to
prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he was guilty either of theft
of public funds (count 1) or aggravated identity theft (count 3).
After glancing at the legal landscape, we address these contentions
separately.
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Where, as here, a defendant files a timely post-verdict
motion for judgment of acquittal under Federal Rule of Criminal
Procedure 29(c), his rights are fully preserved. See United States
v. Castro-Lara, 970 F.2d 976, 980 (1st Cir. 1992). Thus, we review
the denial of his motion for judgment of acquittal de novo. See
United States v. Kuc, 737 F.3d 129, 134 (1st Cir. 2013). In the
course of that review, we take the evidence, both direct and
circumstantial, in the light most hospitable to the government and
draw all reasonable inferences in the government's favor. See id.
In this endeavor, "we must ask whether 'a rational factfinder could
find, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the prosecution successfully
proved the essential elements of the crime.'" Id. (quoting United
States v. Valerio, 676 F.3d 237, 244 (1st Cir. 2012)). We do not
"weigh the evidence or make credibility judgments; these tasks are
solely within the jury's province." United States v. Hernández,
218 F.3d 58, 64 (1st Cir. 2000).
It is against this backdrop that we evaluate the
appellant's sufficiency challenges to counts 1 and 3 (taking those
counts in reverse order).
1. Aggravated Identity Theft (Count 3). Under the
statute of conviction, 18 U.S.C. § 1028A(a)(1), a person is guilty
of aggravated identity theft if, "during and in relation to any
felony violation enumerated in subsection (c)," that person
"knowingly transfers, possesses, or uses, without lawful
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authority, a means of identification of another person." Here,
the government charged theft of public money (unemployment
benefits), in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 641, as the underlying
felony. The parties agree that such an offense is one of the
crimes enumerated in section 1028A(c).
The superseding indictment charged the appellant with
using two "means of identification" in committing theft of public
funds: Pena's name and date of birth. The appellant asseverates
that the evidence was insufficient to show that these "means of
identification" appropriated the specific identity of the real
Pena. We disagree.
"Means of identification" is a term of art. Congress
has defined that term to mean, in relevant part,
any name or number that may be used, alone or in
conjunction with any other information, to identify a
specific individual, including any—
(A) name, social security number, date of
birth, official State or government issued
driver's license or identification number,
alien registration number, government
passport number, employer or taxpayer
identification number.
18 U.S.C. § 1028(d)(7). Given this definition, the record here is
ample to ground a finding that the appellant committed aggravated
identity theft.
The evidence introduced at trial established that
unemployment benefits are public funds and that an individual
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seeking such benefits must provide biographical information —
including his name and date of birth — in his application. So,
too, the evidence established that the appellant used both Pena's
name and date of birth in applying for (and receiving) unemployment
benefits. Based on this evidence, a rational jury could have found
beyond a reasonable doubt — as this jury did — that the appellant
committed aggravated identity theft.
Our decision in Kuc is instructive. There, the defendant
used the full name of the victim and the name of the victim's
company to ship stolen computer parts to multiple addresses. See
Kuc, 737 F.3d at 134-35. We held that these two "means of
identification" were sufficient "to identify a specific
individual" — the victim — within the meaning of 18 U.S.C.
§ 1028(d)(7). See id. at 135. On that basis, we upheld the
defendant's conviction for aggravated identity theft. See id.
In an effort to put the genie back into the bottle, the
appellant, ably represented, spins an argument that is too clever
by half: though acknowledging that he used Pena's purloined name
and date of birth in applying for unemployment benefits, he
suggests that those items, singly or in the ensemble, did not
constitute a "means of identification" within the meaning of 18
U.S.C. § 1028A(a)(1). To support this suggestion, he baldly
asserts that "the evidence produced at trial established that the
name and date of birth were part of a fictional identity that
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included an address, an employer and a social security number that,
taken together, did not identify the true Alberto Pena of New York
for purposes of obtaining unemployment benefits."
This approach gets the appellant high marks for
creativity, but a failing grade on the merits. To begin, the
appellant's own admissions undermine his present assertion. In
the statement that he dictated and signed at the ICE office in
Burlington (which was introduced at trial), the appellant
confessed that he knew he was wrongly appropriating Pena's
identity. In his own words, "I was scared that Alberto Pena would
find out I was using his identity" and "I know using someone else's
identity is wrong and illegal. I used Alberto Pena's identity to
stay in the country & to work & help my family."
We add, moreover, that the case law gives no sustenance
to the appellant's construct. In United States v. Savarese, we
rejected the premise that "[a] name . . ., without more, cannot
constitute a 'means of identification' for purposes of aggravated
identity theft." 686 F.3d 1, 7 (1st Cir. 2012). To the contrary,
"[t]he language of § 1028 . . . plainly contradicts this theory,
defining a 'means of identification' as 'any name or number that
may be used, alone or in conjunction with any other information,
to identify a specific individual, including any . . . name, social
security number, date of birth, [or] official State or government
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issued driver's license or identification number . . . .'" Id.
(quoting 18 U.S.C. § 1028(d)(7)(A)).
The appellant tries to wriggle out from under Savarese.
He makes much of the fact that he was using a social security
number different from the number assigned to the real Pena. This
distinction, however, does not make a dispositive difference: the
appellant cannot avoid responsibility under section 1028A(a)(1)
simply by attaching a different social security number to the true
Pena's name and date of birth.9 In the last analysis, the statutory
term "means of identification" does not require that the
information used to identify the specific individual whose
identity has been stolen must match that individual in every
detail. Any other construction of the statute would be fatuous:
it would enable a defendant to avoid responsibility under section
1028A(a)(1) by the simple expedient of using a single piece of
information that does not coincide with the victim.
9
The genesis of the appellant's social security number
furnishes further evidence that the appellant misappropriated
Pena's identity. The jury had available to it the appellant's
application for a social security number, in which the appellant
used Pena's name, date of birth, place of birth, and parentage.
In addition, the appellant used his own green card (obtained under
false pretenses), which contained Pena's alien number. As the
district court perspicaciously noted: "any lingering doubt as to
the association of the name with the true Alberto Pena's identity
would have been dispelled by tracing the social security number
used by [the appellant] to the original application for the
number." De La Cruz III, 2014 WL 3925497, at *1.
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The appellant makes no headway by hawking the Fourth
Circuit's decision in United States v. Mitchell, 518 F.3d 230 (4th
Cir. 2008), for the proposition that "non-unique identifiers" are
"insufficient to identify a single, unique individual." In that
case, the evidence, taken in the light most favorable to the
government, showed only that the defendant had taken the name
"Marcus Jackson" from a telephone book. See Mitchell, 518 F.3d at
233. Noting that the defendant had used "a hopeless muddle of
non-matching and matching information," the court held that the
defendant's mere use of the name "Marcus Jackson" was insufficient
to identify a specific individual. Id. at 236. It was careful to
explain, however, that when "a non-unique identifier is coupled
with other information to identify a specific individual, 'a means
of identification of another person' is created." Id. at 234.
That is exactly what happened here: the appellant used Pena's name
and date of birth in applying for unemployment benefits, and those
two pieces of information (taken in conjunction with one another)
were sufficient to identify a specific individual — the real Pena.
See 18 U.S.C. § 1028(d)(7).
2. Theft of Public Funds (Count 1). The appellant
argues that the government's proof was insufficient to establish
that he stole money with the intent of depriving the United States
of the use of that money and, therefore, that the district court
erred in denying his motion for judgment of acquittal as to count
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1. In support, he asserts that he "incorrectly, but genuinely,
believed that because he worked and paid into the unemployment
system under the Social Security number he was issued, he was
therefore entitled to receive unemployment benefits until he could
resume working to support himself and his family."
This argument lacks force. The appellant never
testified, and the record is utterly devoid of any evidence as to
the appellant's innocent state of mind. The evidence before the
jury pointed in the opposite direction: the DOL agent who
interviewed the appellant in Burlington testified that the
appellant admitted that he knew "100 percent" that his receipt of
unemployment benefits was a crime and that he "didn't earn" those
benefits. These admissions were enough to enable the jury to
conclude that the appellant acted with the necessary criminal
intent.10
The appellant makes little progress by pointing out that
he paid income tax on the unemployment benefits that he received.
Paying taxes on ill-gotten gains is as consistent with a desire
that a crime go undetected as it is with a lack of criminal intent.
10
The appellant suggests that he made these admissions in
reference to his unlawful presence in the United States. That
suggestion is fanciful: the statements were made in the course of
an interview by an agent who had made pellucid that she was a DOL
criminal investigator, not an immigration officer; and the context
gave the jury ample reason to think that the statements referred
to the appellant's collection of unemployment benefits.
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C. Jury Instructions.
The last leg of our journey takes us to the appellant's
claim that the district court's jury instructions were faulty.
The standard of review for claims of instructional error is not
monolithic: such claims, if preserved, are reviewed either de novo
or for abuse of discretion, depending on the nature of a particular
claim. When the claim of error involves a question as to the legal
sufficiency of a trial court's charge to the jury, such as a claim
that the court omitted a legally required instruction or gave an
instruction that materially misstated the law, our review is de
novo. See, e.g., United States v. Nascimento, 491 F.3d 25, 33
(1st Cir. 2007); Sanchez-Lopez v. Fuentes-Pujols, 375 F.3d 121,
133 (1st Cir. 2004). When the claim of error focuses on the trial
court's word choices, however, our review is for abuse of
discretion. See, e.g., United States v. Hall, 434 F.3d 42, 56
(1st Cir. 2006); Zimmerman v. Direct Fed. Credit Union, 262 F.3d
70, 78-79 (1st Cir. 2001).
We summed up these varying standards of review in Elliott
v. S.D. Warren Co., 134 F.3d 1 (1st Cir. 1998), in which we stated
that "[a] trial court is obliged to inform the jury about the
applicable law, but, within wide limits, the method and manner in
which the judge carries out this obligation is left to his or her
discretion." Id. at 6. Sometimes, a reviewing court may have to
employ these varying standards of review sequentially to resolve
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a single claim of instructional error (for example, reviewing de
novo to determine that a challenged instruction is legally correct
and then reviewing for abuse of discretion to weigh the court's
choices about how best to communicate that legal principle). See,
e.g., United States v. DeStefano, 59 F.3d 1, 2 (1st Cir. 1995).
With these standards in mind, we turn to the appellant's
claim of instructional error. That claim, which was preserved
below, zeros in on the district court's charge with respect to the
second element of aggravated identity theft. The court told the
jury that it had to find that "in committing the offense, the
defendant used a means of identification of another." It added
that the jury had to "find that the means of identification played
a role in committing the offense of theft of money."
The appellant posits that the phrase "played a role"
impermissibly diluted the government's burden of proving this
element of aggravated identity theft. In his view, the district
court "was required . . . to state that the 'means of
identification' used must cause or be essential to the commission
of the offense."
This view is meritless. 18 U.S.C. § 1028A(a)(1) imposes
criminal liability on a person who "during and in relation to [an
enumerated crime], knowingly . . . uses, without lawful authority,
a means of identification of another person." The statute nowhere
says that the means of identification must cause or be essential
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to the enumerated crime — nor is there any valid reason for us to
read such a requirement into the statute.
In all events, a district court is entitled to some
latitude in deciding how best to communicate legal principles to
jurors. See United States v. Paniagua-Ramos, 251 F.3d 242, 245
(1st Cir. 2001). The court below did not exceed that latitude.
Its "plays a role" language closely mirrors the statutory language
("during and in relation to"), at least in practical effect, and
the court neither erred nor abused its discretion in employing
this phraseology.
III. CONCLUSION
We need go no further. For the reasons elucidated above,
the judgment is
Affirmed.
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