United States v. Picardi, No. 13-2041 (8th Cir. 2014)
Annotate this CaseDefendant appealed his conviction for thirteen counts of federal tax related offenses. The court concluded that defendant failed to demonstrate that the district court committed error in dismissing two jurors because the record sufficiently disclosed the district court's reason for replacing each juror; defendant's Sixth Amendment rights have not been implicated as no witness or evidence against defendant was presented when the district court dismissed the jurors; the replacement of the jurors occurred before the case was sent to the jury for deliberations, and there was no indication that the remaining jurors were adversely influenced by the district court's decision to replace each juror; and there was no prejudice where counsel was informed. The district court did abuse its discretion by excluding Exhibit 621 under Federal Rule of Evidence 403; the district court did not err in limiting the scope of defendant's witness's testimony where the testimony was inadmissible hearsay; and the district court did not abuse its discretion by refusing to give defendant's proposed theory-of-defense instruction. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court.
Court Description: Criminal case - Criminal law. District court did not abuse its discretion by replacing two jurors with alternates; dismissal of the jurors outside of defendant's presence did not implicate his Sixth Amendment rights as no witness or evidence against him was presented when the court dismissed the jurors, and there was no evidence that the replacement of the jurors prejudiced defendant; no error in excluding defendant's exhibit, an email from the attorney who set up the tax scheme in question, as the exhibit was likely to confuse the jury and was cumulative of other evidence; no error in limiting the scope of defendant's examination of a defense witness as the proposed line of testimony was inadmissible hearsay; the district court did not err in rejecting defendant's proposed theory-of-defense instruction to the effect that a defendant could not form the requisite intent to violate a vague or highly debatable tax law as this instruction presented an issue - whether a tax law is void for vagueness - reserved for the court.
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