United States v. Golliher, No. 15-1586 (8th Cir. 2016)
Annotate this CaseDefendant appealed his conviction of attempted commercial sex trafficking of a minor. Before trial, the government sought to prohibit defendant from introducing at trial e-mails that he had previously exchanged with purported prostitutes in which he rebuffed their services upon learning that they were underage. The court declined to consider defendant's ineffective assistance of counsel claim on direct appeal; the emails were inadmissible under the residual exception to the hearsay rule, Rule 807 of the Federal Rules of Evidence, because he has failed to provide the court with any information with which to evaluate the probative quality of the e-mails pursuant to Rule 28(a)(8)(A) of the Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure; defendant failed to make the required showing that the district court's supplemental instruction regarding the victim's age constituted an error; the prosecutor's improper statement of the law was harmless because the evidence indicates that defendant needed no persuasion; the prosecutor's statement's regarding the substantial step required to find attempt were not plainly improper; and the prosecutor did not improperly vouch for defendant's guilt. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment.
Court Description: Smith, Author, with Bye and Benton, Circuit Judges] Criminal case - Criminal law. Claim of ineffective assistance of counsel was not developed and would not be considered on direct appeal; defendant failed to comply with the requirements of FRAP 28(a)(8)(A) with respect to his claim that the district court erred in excluding certain emails by failing to supply any citation to the record to show that the emails were more probative than other evidence under the third prong of Rule 807, and the court would not reverse on this issue; the district court did not clearly err in answering the jury's question concerning the victim's age; claims of prosecutorial misconduct (misstatements of law and improper vouching) during closing argument rejected.
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