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Date: 10-23-2021
Case Style:
United States of America v. RANDLE CURTIS DANIELS
Case Number: 00-10672
Judge: Patrick Higginbotham
Court: IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT
Plaintiff's Attorney: United States Attorney’s Office
Defendant's Attorney:
Description:
New Orleans, LA - Criminal defense lawyer represented defendant with bank theft and money laundering charges.
Colonial Savings held the mortgage on Daniels’s home. A hail
storm damaged its roof. His insurance company sent him a check for
$46,000 to cover the cost of repairs.
2
Aware of the mortgage, the insurance company made the check
payable to Randle Daniels and Colonial Savings jointly. Daniels
took the check to Colonial Savings and asked them to endorse it to
him. The bank refused, preferring to hold the money in a trust
account, disbursing it as actual repairs were made. Daniels and
the bank resolved their differences, agreeing that the bank would
pay Daniels $16,000 immediately, and place the remaining $30,000
into a trust account, to be disbursed as Daniels presented receipts
for repairs.
While the $16,000 check was being prepared, Daniels stole a
blank, signed bank check from the desk of a bank employee. He made
that check out for $29,800, and directed his girlfriend, Marsha
Veach, to deposit it in her account. She did so and later wrote
him a check for $29,500.
The check was traced to Daniels, and he was charged with bank
theft and money laundering. His defense at trial was that a bank
representative gave him the blank check. A jury convicted him of
both charges and he now appeals.
II
Daniels argues that, as a matter of law, he lacked specific
intent to steal as required by 18 U.S.C. § 2113. Since Daniels
believed the proceeds from the insurance check to be his, his
argument goes, he cannot have had the required scienter.
The relevant portion of section 2113 provides that a defendant
who “takes and carries away, with intent to steal or purloin, any
1 18 U.S.C. § 2113(b) (West 2000).
2 530 U.S. 255 (2000).
3 Id. at 269.
3
property or money or any other thing of value exceeding $1,000
belonging to, or in the care, custody, control, management, or
possession of any bank” shall be punished.1 In Carter v. United
States,2 albeit in dictum, the Supreme Court stated that 18 U.S.C.
§ 2113(b) required a specific intent to steal or purloin because
without such an intent requirement, the “statute would run the risk
of punishing seemingly innocent conduct in the case of a defendant
who peaceably takes money believing it to be his.”3
Daniels’s argument is essentially an insufficiency of the
evidence contention. As such, it is unpersuasive. A rational jury
could have concluded that Daniels did not believe he was entitled
to take the money. The check was payable to both Daniels and
Colonial Savings. With Daniels’s debt to Colonial Savings secured
by his home, Daniels had to be aware of the bank’s interest in the
insurance proceeds. At least a rational juror could have so found.
Daniels acknowledged as much in his agreement with the bank. His
awareness of the bank’s interest and his intent to unlawfully
defeat it is further evidenced by his covert conduct – waiting
until the bank representative had left his presence before taking
the bank check from a desk drawer.
III
4 United States v. Chandler, 858 F.2d 254, 256 (5th Cir.
1988).
5 See id.
4
Daniels contends that the jury charge on money laundering
constructively amended the indictment. The indictment charged
Daniels with causing the withdrawal of $29,500 from Veach’s bank
account. The trial judge instructed the jury that it must find
that Daniels “knowingly engaged or attempted to engage in a
monetary transaction in criminally derived property that is of
value greater than $10,000.” At trial, there was evidence that
Daniels ordered both the deposit of the check and also the
withdrawal of the money. Veach initially testified as a government
witness that Daniels directed her to make the deposit and
withdrawal. On cross examination, she stated that it was her idea
to make the withdrawal. The argument is that the jury instruction
permitted the jury to convict Daniels for causing the deposit of
the illicit funds under an indictment charging only their
withdrawal.
A criminal defendant has a Fifth Amendment right to be “tried
only on charges presented in a grand jury indictment,”4 and
therefore only the grand jury may amend an indictment once it has
been issued.5 A jury charge constructively amends an indictment,
in violation of the Fifth Amendment, if it permits the jury “to
convict the defendant upon a factual basis that effectively
6 Id. at 257.
7 United States v. Robles-Vertiz, 155 F.3d 725, 728 (5th Cir.
1998).
8 See Fed. R. Crim. P. 52(b). It is now clear that this
circuit applies plain error review to forfeited constructive
amendment arguments. Although United States v. Mize, 756 F.2d 353,
355-57 (5th Cir. 1985), held that constructive amendment required
automatic reversal, later cases in this circuit have clarified the
interaction between the automatic reversal rule and plain error
review. In United States v. Reyes, 102 F.3d 1361, 1364-66 (5th
Cir. 1996), we held that under United States v. Olano, 507 U.S. 725
(1993), we have discretion to correct a constructive amendment if
the defendant failed to object at trial. Further, in United States
v. Fletcher, 121 F.3d 187, 192-93 (5th Cir. 1997), we expressly
recognized the tension between plain error review and the
“automatic reversal” rule of Mize, and reconciled it in favor of
plain error review, following the Supreme Court’s guidance in
Olano.
9 See Olano, 507 U.S. at 731-34; Fletcher, 121 F.3d at 192.
5
modifies an essential element of the crime charged.”6 That is,
constructive amendment occurs if the jury is permitted to convict
on “an alternative basis permitted by the statute but not charged
in the indictment.”7
Daniels did not object at trial to the jury instructions. We
therefore review only for plain error.8 A jury charge is plain
error if: (1) it was erroneous; (2) the error was plain; and (3)
the plain error affected the substantial rights of the defendant.9
If those conditions are met, we have discretion to correct the
error; discretion we will exercise if the error “seriously
10 See Olano, 507 U.S. at 736; Fletcher, 121 F.3d at 192.
11 See Reyes, 102 F.3d at 1365 (declining to exercise
discretion to correct a constructive amendment, under plain error
review, in part because the offense upon which the jury was charged
could have been charged in the indictment).
6
affect[s] the fairness, integrity or public reputation of judicial
proceedings.”10
Assuming without deciding that the first three requirements
are met, in this case we decline to exercise our discretion to
correct any error. The unindicted act of causing the deposit of
illicit funds could have properly been charged in the indictment
and is prohibited by statute.11 The two acts – deposit and
withdrawal – are so closely linked here that we are convinced that
the “fairness, integrity or public reputation of judicial
proceedings” is not implicated. There is no evidence of bad faith
on the part of the prosecutor. It was obvious that evidence of the
deposit and other transactions would be relevant to prove that
Daniels controlled the funds and to impeach any testimony that the
withdrawal was Veach’s own idea. The jury may have credited her
testimony and convicted Daniels for the unindicted act of
depositing illicit funds; but it is equally possible that the jury
disbelieved her testimony and properly convicted Daniels for the
indicted act of withdrawing illicit funds. After all, under
Daniels’s claim of entitlement, a withdrawal at his direction would
have been inevitable – unless he intended to make the funds a gift
12 See United States v. Moreno, 185 F.3d 465, 471 (5th Cir.
1999).
7
to Veach. This claimed constructive amendment did not render the
proceedings fundamentally unfair.
IV
The remainder of Daniels’s arguments are equally meritless.
Daniels argues that the evidence was insufficient to support his
conviction because “Colonial Savings Mortgage,” the entity from
which he claims to have taken the check, is not a bank. When
reviewing challenges to the sufficiency of evidence, we view the
evidence and all inferences that can be drawn therefrom in the
light most favorable to the verdict.12 At trial, Judy Monroe
testified that she worked for Colonial Savings Bank, that it was a
banking institution insured by the FDIC, and that the stolen check
bore her signature. While her testimony, and the testimony of
others, sometimes distinguished between Capital Savings Mortgage
and Capital Savings Bank, nothing in the record establishes that
Capital Savings Mortgage was a legal entity distinct from Capital
Savings Bank. While identifying the source of the check, she
stated that she worked for Colonial Savings Bank and confirmed its
FDIC insurance. She differentiated between the mortgage company
and the bank only in explaining specific procedures. The
government offered sufficient evidence to support the jury’s
finding that Daniels took the check from an insured bank.
13 Daniels objected to any supplemental instruction, on the
grounds that the jury’s note did not make clear what they were
confused about. Daniels also objected to the wording of the trial
judge’s proposed instruction, but it was modified to address the
objection, a modification he accepted.
14 See United States v. Cabral-Castillo, 35 F.3d 182, 188-89
(5th Cir. 1994) (holding that where defendant objected to a
sentencing adjustment, but on grounds different from those raised
on appeal, the new arguments raised on appeal would be reviewed for
plain error only).
8
Daniels also argues that when computing the value of the check
he stole, we should deduct the $30,000 he was entitled to receive.
Daniels accepts the premise that the check can be valued by the
amount he filled in. Since the check was made out for less than
$30,000, however, Daniels argues that he stole nothing worth $1,000
or more. As we have explained, Colonial Savings held the mortgage
on the insured property, and by its terms had an interest in the
insurance proceeds. Daniels acknowledged that interest in his
agreement with the bank, an agreement reached before he took the
check and deposited it.
Daniels complains of the trial court’s answer to a question by
the jury. The jury asked for clarification of the phrase “intent
to steal.” The judge responded that it “means with a purpose to
steal and that the taking or carrying away was not by accident [or]
mistake.” While Daniels objected to the supplemental instruction,
he did not do so on the grounds urged here,13 thus our review is for
plain error.14 Daniels essentially repeats his scienter argument,
9
and it is no more compelling here. We reject it for the reasons
stated previously.
Outcome: The judgment of conviction is AFFIRMED
Plaintiff's Experts:
Defendant's Experts:
Comments: