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United States v. McGill, 10th Cir. (2010)
United States v. McGill, 10th Cir. (2010)
United States v. McGill, 10th Cir. (2010)
January 4, 2010
Elisabeth A. Shumaker
Clerk of Court
No. 08-8075
(D.C. No. 2:07-CR-00193-WFD-1)
(D. Wyo.)
TRAVIS J. MCGILL,
Defendant-Appellant.
After examining the appellate record and the materials submitted by the
defendant-appellant and his counsel, this panel has determined unanimously that
oral argument would not materially assist the determination of this appeal. See
Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2); 10th Cir. R. 34.1(G). The case is therefore ordered
submitted without oral argument. This order and judgment is not binding
precedent, except under the doctrines of law of the case, res judicata, and
collateral estoppel. It may be cited, however, for its persuasive value consistent
with Fed. R. App. P. 32.1 and 10th Cir. R. 32.1.
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The trial court took pains to conceal the victims real name. However,
counsels brief mentioned the victim by name without redaction, and counsel
failed to alert the court to this fact. This error appears inadvertent, and we have
ensured that the brief is not publicly accessible. But maintaining victim
confidentiality is of the utmost importance in child sexual abuse cases, and we
remind counsel that they should employ due diligence to maintain that
confidentiality in such cases at all times.
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sexually inappropriate conduct by defendant with the victim that presaged the
offenses later carried out with greater caution and deception. Finally, evidence of
sexual predation directed by defendant toward two other childrenincluding
another victim identified in five counts of the instant indictment that were
ultimately dismissed for reasons not relevant herefurther bolstered the
governments case.
As for the child pornography count, the governments proof may at times
have been technologically complicated, but it was straightforward as a legal
matter. Evidence of defendants knowing possession, on his cell phone, of an
image meeting the statutory definition of child pornography sufficed to support
his conviction.
The defendant did not testify (as was his right). The defense put on no
witnesses, relying solely on cross-examination of witnesses in the course of the
governments case in chief. The material points of the governments proof were
neither undermined nor opposed in any significant way.
In short, the substantive basis for defendants conviction is not open to any
reasonable objection. If there is any error requiring reversal, it must relate to the
procedural aspects of the prosecution, to which we turn next.
III. Indictment and Instructions
The one potential objection discussed in counsels Anders brief concerns
the use of a formalistic bare-bones indictment to prosecute six particularized
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For example, compare count eight: On or about between August 20, 2000,
and August 19, 2004, in the District of Wyoming and within Indian Country, the
Defendant, TRAVIS J. McGILL, an Indian, did knowingly engage in a sexual act,
to-wit, contact between the penis and the vulva, with ____, a person who at the
time had not yet attained the age of twelve (12) years; with count nine: On or
about between August 20, 2001, and August 19, 2004, in the District of Wyoming
and within Indian Country, the Defendant, TRAVIS J. McGILL, an Indian, did
knowingly engage in a sexual act, to-wit, contact between the penis and vulva,
with ____, a person who at that time had not yet attained the age of twelve (12)
years. R. Vol. 1 at 57.
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Where, as here, the new facts shown at trial do not so deviate from the
charged offense as to constructively amend the indictment by establishing a
different crime, a factual variance does not undermine the conviction unless
substantial rights of the defendant were otherwise prejudiced. United States v.
Sells, 477 F.3d 1226, 1237 (10th Cir. 2007); United States v. Hamilton, 992 F.2d
1126, 1129-30 (10th Cir. 1993). Such prejudice can occur either because [the
defendant] cannot anticipate from the indictment what evidence will be presented
against him, or because the defendant is exposed to the risk of double
jeopardy. [3] United States v. Caballero, 277 F.3d 1235, 1243 (10th Cir. 2002).
The first type of prejudice is negated here for the same reason pretrial
notice concerns were allayed: as counsel readily admitted, the governments
cooperation in discovery left the defense fully able to anticipate and prepare for
the evidence presented in support of the charged offenses at trial. Nor is there a
risk of double jeopardy exposure: defendant cannot be mistakenly retried for the
conduct actually underlying his conviction here, given the explicit one-to-one
linkage of the charged counts with the particular incidents proven at trial (the
implementation of this linkage, through jury instructions, is discussed below).
We have repeatedly stressed that it is the judgment and not the indictment alone
which acts as a bar, and the entire record may be considered in evaluating a
subsequent claim of double jeopardy. Hamilton, 992 F.2d at 1130 (quoting
United States v. Whitman, 665 F.2d 313, 318 (10th Cir. 1981) (further quotations
omitted)). Given the careful framing of the jury instructions here, [t]he record in
this case eliminates any possibility that [defendant] could be reprosecuted for the
acts supporting his conviction. Accordingly, no fatal variance occurred.
Whitman, 665 F.2d at 318.
The use of generic, facially indistinguishable counts with broad
overlapping time frames could potentially raise additional double-jeopardy and
jury-unanimity concerns. As for double jeopardy, the jury could be misled into
convicting the defendant on more than one count for the same conduct; as for
jury-unanimity, different jurors might vote to convict on the same count on the
basis of different conduct. Both of these concerns, however, were obviated by
instructions, approved by the prosecution and defense alike, that linked specific
counts with particular incidents identified by unique factual circumstances. For
some counts, the unique identifier was a particular type of sexual act (already
specified in the indictment) that the evidence showed had occurred only once; for
others, the identifier was the particular location of the offense, which had been
associated with just one of the incidents described (in additional detail) by the
victim in her testimony. See generally R. Vol. 3 at 1515-28. And the government
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The court followed circuit precedent applying the one book principle in
U.S.S.G. 1B1.11(b)(2) and (3) to reject defendants argument for sentencing
under the guideline manual in force at the time of his earliest sex offense. See
United States v. Sullivan, 255 F.3d 1256, 1259-60 (10th Cir. 2001). Defendants
perfunctory effort to circumvent our precedent by invoking a later Supreme Court
case applying the rule of lenity to accept a defendants construction of an
ambiguous criminal statute, United States v. Santos, 128 S. Ct. 2020, 2025 (2008)
(Scalia, J., plurality opinion), was patently meritless. Santos concerned an
entirely different question of statutory interpretation; and the rule of lenity itself
was clearly a part of the legal landscape when Sullivan was decided, see Santos,
128 S. Ct. at 2050 (citing line of authority dating back to 1917), so that it cannot
be invoked as a newly-minted legal principle permitting reconsideration of our
precedent. In any event, the rule applies only when, after consulting traditional
canons of statutory construction, we are left with an ambiguous criminal statute,
United States v. Hayes, 129 S. Ct. 1079, 1089 (2009) (quotation omitted), and, as
Sullivan reflects, the guideline provisions involved here are easily construed
without any unresolved ambiguity.
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Jerome A. Holmes
Circuit Judge
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