United States v. Eric Tollefson

USCA11 Case: 22-10378 Document: 28-1 Date Filed: 02/10/2023 Page: 1 of 9
[DO NOT PUBLISH]
In the
United States Court of Appeals
For the Eleventh Circuit
____________________
No. 22-10378
Non-Argument Calendar
____________________
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff-Appellee,
versus
ERIC TOLLEFSON,
Defendant-Appellant.
____________________
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Middle District of Georgia
D.C. Docket No. 1:19-cr-00025-LAG-TQL-1
____________________
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2 Opinion of the Court 22-10378
Before JORDAN, NEWSOM, and GRANT, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM:
Eric Tollefson, a federal prisoner, is serving a 33-month sen-
tence for possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. See 18 U.S.C.
§§ 922(g)(1), 924(a)(2). He argues that the district court abused its
discretion in denying his motion for a new trial because it violated
Rule 30(b) when it provided the jury with a supplemental instruc-
tion on constructive possession following his closing argument. Af-
ter careful review, we affirm.1
I
We review for abuse of discretion the denial of a motion for
a new trial. See United States v. Anderson, 326 F.3d 1319, 1326
(11th Cir. 2003). In order to enable counsel to intelligently argue
the case to the jury, Rule 30 generally requires the trial court to
inform counsel of its proposed action upon any requests concern-
ing the jury charge prior to closing argument. See Fed. R. Crim. P.
30(b); United States v. Clark, 732 F.2d 1536, 1541 (11th Cir. 1984).
We require substantial compliance with Rule 30, and a violation
1 Mr. Tollefson also argues that the district court’s supplemental instruction
violated his Sixth Amendment right to a jury trial. See Appellant’s Gray Brief
at 26-27. However, he did not raise a Sixth Amendment challenge below and
does so here for this first time in his reply brief. Consequently, he abandoned
any such argument. See United States v. Moran, 778 F.3d 942, 985 (11th Cir.
2015).
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22-10378 Opinion of the Court 3
will require reversal only where the defendant establishes preju-
dice. See Clark, 732 F.2d at 1541. Reversal may be warranted
“when the change in the instructions is substantial, when the
judge’s instructions repudiate counsel’s argument, or when the
judge’s instructions impair the effectiveness of the attorney’s argu-
ment.” See id at 1541-42 (footnotes omitted).
“At the same time, the court retains power [under Rule 30]
to remedy omissions in pre-argument instructions or to add in-
structions necessitated by the arguments.” United States v. Ander-
son, 1 F.4th 1244, 1264 (11th Cir. 2021) (citing United States v.
Pena, 897 F.2d 1075, 1084 (11th Cir. 1990) (quoting from Rule 30
advisory committee’s notes to 1987 amendments)), abrogated on
other grounds by Coleman v. Singletary, 30 F.3d 1420 (11th Cir.
1994)). The extent and character of supplemental instructions are
within the sound discretion of the trial court. See United States v.
Walther, 867 F.2d 1334, 1341 (11th Cir. 1989). That discretion is
commensurate with the trial court’s “duty to guide the jury.”
United States v. Joyner, 882 F.3d 1369, 1375 (11th Cir. 2018) (citing
United States v. Anderson, 629 F.2d 1044, 1048 (5th Cir. 1980)). See
also United States v. Graham, 484 F.3d 413, 420-21 (6th Cir. 2007)
(recognizing that “it is sometimes necessary and proper for the trial
court to re-charge a jury to correct possible misunderstandings
based on the original instruction given” and that the court has a
duty “to instruct the jury on the law of the case”).
To illustrate, in Pena, the defendant argued on appeal that
the district court committed reversible error when it violated Rule
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4 Opinion of the Court 22-10378
30 by supplementing the parties’ agreed-upon instructions with a
charge stating the correct legal meaning of a “place outside the
United States.” Pena, 897 F.2d at 1084. We held that the supple-
mental instruction was not erroneous because it was necessitated
by defense counsel’s incorrect statement of law during closing ar-
gument. See id. We reasoned that the supplemental instruction
also did not substantially change the jury instructions and, to the
extent that it repudiated or diminished the effectiveness of defense
counsel’s argument, ignoring the misstatement “would have re-
sulted in a verdict reached in contravention to the law.” See id. at
1084-85. To that end, we recited our understanding that Rule 30
does not “function as a limitation on the district court’s obligation
to inform the jury of the law which properly governs the case,” or
“empower counsel, through the mechanics of closing argument,
either to dictate the law by which a verdict is reached or create a
mistrial by erroneously stating the legal principles applicable to a
given situation.” Id. at 1085.
II
At trial, the government presented evidence of firearms and
ammunition found around Mr. Tollefson’s shared home and intro-
duced a recorded phone call between Mr. Tollefson and his
mother. On that call, Mr. Tollefson told his mother he had lost
$50,000 when the government confiscated the firearms, which he
was trying to “place . . . in the right hands” for his roommate and
“other interested parties.”
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22-10378 Opinion of the Court 5
During closing argument, the government’s theory of con-
structive possession was based in part on this phone conversation,
arguing that it evinced his ability and intent to exercise control over
the firearms. Defense counsel argued the following in response:
If I’ve got a buddy with a nice car and he says, hey,
Michael do you know somebody that wants to buy
this Camaro, and I say, sure, I know a guy that will
buy this Camaro. Can I get a cut of it maybe? Sure,
yeah, I’ll give you, you know, $500 if you find some-
body to buy it. All right. And I call up Joe-Bob and
tell Joe, hey, my buddy’s got this Camaro. Do you
want to buy it. Sure, I’ll come over and take a look at
it. I’ve never exercised physical control over my
buddy’s Camaro. I acted as a middleman.
See D.E. 93 at 17-18. Defense counsel continued that, at best, the
government’s evidence showed that Mr. Tollefson was a mere
middleman without the intention to exercise physical control over
the firearms. This argument ultimately prompted the district court
to provide a supplemental instruction on constructive possession
over Mr. Tollefson’s objection. He takes issue with the final sen-
tence of that instruction: “A person may be found to have had the
intent to exercise control over an item where the person orches-
trated and participated in the sale of the item even if the person
never intended to have physical possession of the item.” D.E. 93 at
43.
Mr. Tollefson couches the issue on appeal as a violation of
Rule 30. Viewed through that lens, the district court’s action was
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6 Opinion of the Court 22-10378
proper if the supplemental instruction was necessitated by closing
argument. See Anderson, 1 F.4th at 1264. That is, if Mr. Tollefson
misstated the law of constructive possession during his closing ar-
gument, then the district court did not err in providing a supple-
mental instruction on constructive possession.
As an initial matter, Mr. Tollefson insists that because his
closing argument was a mere factual hypothetical in response to
the government’s theory, he could not have misstated the law. But
the superficial distinction he makes between facts and law is of no
consequence. To the jury, the likely implication of Mr. Tollefson’s
hypothetical scenario was that under those or analogous facts a de-
fendant’s conduct would not qualify as constructive possession as
a matter of law. An argument based in fact necessarily draws the
mind to the law, whereas an argument based in law necessarily
draws the mind to the facts. The two are intertwined. Therefore,
if the jury could improperly take from his argument a course of
conduct that would not constitute constructive possession as a
matter of law when in fact it could, he misstated the law. The dis-
trict court determined that was the case here. See D.E. 93 at 32-33.
We see no abuse of discretion by the district court. The
problem with Mr. Tollefson’s hypothetical was that it posited as
non-culpable a scenario that could result in criminal liability. For
example, in United States v. Virciglio, 441 F.2d 1295, 1297-98 (5th
Cir. 1971), we concluded that the defendant was in constructive
possession of a firearm where he negotiated and “planned the sale,”
“[t]here would have been no sale without him[,]” and he “accepted
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22-10378 Opinion of the Court 7
and retained part of the purchase price.” Based on Virciglio, a felon
who, instead of a car, orchestrated a firearm deal under the facts of
Mr. Tollefson’s hypothetical—by discussing the sale with the seller,
finding a buyer, and taking a cut of the deal—could be found by a
jury to be in construction possession of a firearm. See id. at 1298.
See also United States v. Badali, 670 F. App’x 677, 679 (11th Cir.
2016) (unpublished) (sufficient evidence of constructive possession
where a defendant merely “organized and arranged for the sale of
the firearm”). Other circuits are in accord. See, e.g., United States
v. Nungaray, 697 F.3d 1114, 1116-19 (9th Cir. 2012) (sufficient evi-
dence supported constructive possession where the defendant set
up the deal, assured delivery of the guns, and received payment,
such that “he was no mere intermediary . . . but rather an active
participant . . . in the sale and delivery”) (citation omitted); United
States v. Miller, 560 F.3d 751, 753 (8th Cir. 2009) (district court did
not err in finding defendant constructively possessed firearms that
were held, and transferred to third parties, by her brothers at her
direction).
Mr. Tollefson’s reliance on Henderson v. United States, 575
U.S. 622 (2015) is misplaced. In Henderson, the Supreme Court
held that a court-supervised transfer of firearms that prevents a
felon from later exercising control over those weapons cannot sup-
port a conviction under § 922(g). See 575 U.S. at 630-31. It rea-
soned that such a transfer, which involves a felon’s request to trans-
fer guns in the possession of the government to an uninterested
third party, does not implicate the felon’s right of possession
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8 Opinion of the Court 22-10378
“before, during, or after the disposition,’ but rather, only the felon’s
“right merely to sell or otherwise dispose of [firearms].” See id. at
628 n.3, 630-31. Henderson absolves a felon who takes a wholly
passive role in a firearms transaction but does not absolve a felon
who, for example, “negotiated and arranged a sale of guns while
using a third party to make the physical handoff to the buyer.” Id.
at 628 n.3 (“The felon’s management of the sale thus exemplified,
and served as evidence of, his broader command over the guns’ lo-
cation and use—the very hallmark of possession.”). And the indi-
vidual in Mr. Tollefson’s hypothetical scenario was far from pas-
sively involved in the transaction. Henderson, therefore, does not
preclude a finding of constructive possession where a felon orches-
trates a sale by endeavoring to pair a buyer and a seller and taking
a cut of the sale.
In sum, the law provides that a middleman can in fact satisfy
the element of constructive possession. Accordingly, Mr.
Tollefson’s hypothetical scenario did in fact present a factual cir-
cumstance that could result in a finding of constructive possession,
and he therefore misstated the law. That misstatement permitted
a supplemental instruction. See Anderson, 1 F.4th at 1264. To the
extent that any such instruction repudiated or impaired the effec-
tiveness of Mr. Tollefson’s closing argument, defense counsel does
not have free reign “to dictate the law by which a verdict is
reached,” particularly when that law is incorrect. See Pena, 897
F.2d at 1084. Nor can it be said that providing additional clarifica-
tion on the boundaries of constructive possession is a substantial
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22-10378 Opinion of the Court 9
change. See id. Consequently, the district court did not err in
providing the jury a supplemental instruction on constructive pos-
session and in turn, did not abuse its discretion in denying Mr.
Tollefson’s motion for a new trial.
To the extent that Mr. Tollefson independently challenges
the substance of the district court’s supplemental instruction, we
reject that contention. See Virciglio, 441 F.2d at 1297-98. We also
note that it did not matter whether Mr. Tollefson’s hypothetical
scenario was consistent with the original jury instruction because,
as that hypothetical exposed, the original instruction contained
gaps in the law that a defendant could exploit to secure an acquittal.
See Pena, 897 F.2d at 1085. The district court therefore had the
authority to provide the jury with a correct statement of the law,
and it did just that by providing the supplemental instruction at is-
sue. See Graham, 484 F.3d at 420-21. Nor does our decision re-
strain a party’s ability to make fact-based arguments. A party may
do so freely so long as its arguments comport with the boundaries
of the law.
III
The district court’s denial of Mr. Tollefson’s motion for a
new trial is affirmed.
AFFIRMED.