United States v. Lussier, No. 16-1260 (8th Cir. 2017)
Annotate this CaseDefendant was convicted of three counts of kidnapping, and three counts of assault resulting in serious bodily injury. The court concluded that the district court did not err by instructing the jury on assault resulting in a serious bodily injury; even if the instruction was erroneous, it was not plain error because it did not affect defendant's substantial rights; the district court did not err by ruling that it would admit impeachment evidence of his prior conviction for assault resulting in serious bodily injury if defendant testified because, by not testifying, defendant failed to preserve his claim in light of the Supreme Court's holding in Luce v. United States; and the evidence was sufficient to convict defendant of kidnapping where he beat the three victims and locked them in a crawl space. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment.
Court Description: Wollman, Author, with Riley, Chief Judge, and Benton, Circuit Judge] Criminal case - Criminal law. No error in the court's jury instructions on the offense of assault resulting in serious bodily injury; because defendant did not testify, he failed to preserve his claim that the court erred in ruling it would admit impeachment evidence of his prior conviction for assault resulting in serious bodily injury; evidence was sufficient to support defendant's kidnapping convictions, where it showed defendant beat the three victims and then confined them in a crawl space where they could not be readily found.
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