U.S. v. Shannon

• Decision Date: 02 March 1998
• Docket Number: No. 97-10057,97-10057
• Citation: 137 F.3d 1112
• Parties: 48 Fed. R. Evid. Serv. 1352, 98 Cal. Daily Op. Serv. 1444, 98 Daily Journal D.A.R. 1993 UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Angela Dawn SHANNON, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Ninth Circuit

Page 1112

137 F.3d 1112

48 Fed. R. Evid. Serv. 1352, 98 Cal. Daily Op.

Serv. 1444,

98 Daily Journal D.A.R. 1993

UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Angela Dawn SHANNON, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 97-10057.

United States Court of Appeals Ninth Circuit.

Argued and Submitted Dec. 8, 1997.

Decided March 2, 1998.

Sandra Gillies, Woodland, California, for defendant-appellant.

Paul L. Seave, United States Attorney and Benjamin B. Wagner, Assistant United States Attorney, Sacramento, California, for plaintiff-appellee.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of California; Milton L. Schwartz, District Judge, Presiding. D.C. No. CR-95-00542-MLS.

Before: BRIGHT, ^* FLETCHER, and T.G. NELSON, Circuit Judges.

PER CURIAM:

Angela Dawn Shannon appeals her conviction and 46-month sentence the district court imposed after a jury found her guilty of one felony count of interfering with commerce by threatened physical violence, 18 U.S.C. § 1951, and one felony count of mailing a threatening communication, 18 U.S.C. § 876, 18 U.S.C. § 2. These counts and felony convictions relate to a death threat Shannon mailed to a doctor who performs abortions. On appeal, Shannon argues the district court erred in giving a "deliberate ignorance" instruction under United States v. Jewell, 532 F.2d 697 (9th Cir.1976) (en banc), in admitting a letter that Shannon received from a friend, and also erred in imposing a two-level enhancement at sentencing for Shannon's perjury during her trial testimony. We affirm Shannon's conviction and sentence.

I. FACTS

Appellant Angela Shannon, age 23, and her mother, Rachelle Shannon, have a history of activism in the anti-abortion movement. In August 1993, about five months after the mailing of the threat letter that is the subject of this appeal, Rachelle Shannon shot an abortion doctor in Wichita, Kansas. A Kansas state court convicted Rachelle Shannon in March 1994 of attempted murder in connection with that shooting.

In February 1993, the Shannons together with other activists from California and elsewhere traveled to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, to participate in demonstrations at abortion clinics. The Shannons protested at several clinics and Angela participated in a blockade of two clinics. The Shannons also infiltrated other clinics, taking pictures and recording information about the facilities.

While in Milwaukee, the Shannons met and befriended David Eck, a young anti-abortion protester who was active in the Milwaukee area. Angela and Eck, who was romantically interested in Angela, spent considerable time together in Milwaukee. After Angela returned to Oregon, Eck wrote her, telephoned her, and visited her.

Angela Shannon arranged to meet with her friend, Eric Armstrong, at the Sacramento airport at the time the Shannons flew back from Milwaukee. Armstrong lived in Stockton, California and had met Angela at an abortion protest in 1988. During the course of their visit in Sacramento, Angela handed Armstrong a sealed, stamped envelope, asked him to mail the envelope when he returned home, and told him she did not want the letter traced to her. Armstrong accepted the envelope and mailed it from Stockton a few days later.

Dr. George Woodward performed abortions as a physician/employee at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. On about March 3, 1993, Dr. Woodward's wife, Susan, retrieved the mail from the mailbox at the Woodwards' home. She found a letter postmarked Stockton, California. The letter addressed to Dr. Woodward was threatening in nature, warning the doctor if he had not "stopped killing" by March 16, 1993, the writer would "stalk" him down and harm him and his family. The letter included specific information that enhanced the credibility of the threat, such as a description of the doctor's car, a description of the building in which he worked, his home address, the fact that he sang in his church choir, and the fact that he had a "habit of stopping at McDonalds on Wisconsin Ave." before going to work.

The letter concluded with the following threat: "If I hear you are still killing when I get to town I will haunt you and your wife day and night and give you no peace. If you continue, I will hunt you down like any other wild beast and kill you. You have until the 16th." The threat letter was typed on unusual stationery that featured a cloudburst with lightning.

In the threat letter, the name of the city of Milwaukee was misspelled "Milwalkie." In addition, the Woodwards' address on the outside of the envelope contained three small errors: the zip code was incorrect, the suffix "East" had been left off of the street name, and the two words in the name of the town in which the Woodwards lived, Elm Grove, had been condensed into "Elmgrove." Newspapers in Milwaukee published accounts of the threat letter, including the text of the letter and that the letter had been mailed from Stockton, California.

In September 1993, police executed a search warrant at Angela Shannon's apartment after Oregon State Police Officers found material implicating her during a search of Rachelle Shannon's home. The officers had found in Rachelle Shannon's home a one-page typed document titled "Profile of a Death Camp" describing the Planned Parenthood clinic where Dr. Woodward worked. The officers also found a one-page typed document titled "Profile of a Killer" describing Dr. Woodward. The above two documents contained similar information contained in the threat letter and envelope, including two of the address errors.

At Rachelle Shannon's home, the officers also found a letter from David Eck to Angela Shannon. At the end of the letter, Eck wrote the following: "Talking about incriminating, don't rescue in a certain city in Cal. they are running fingerprints found on a particular peice [sic] of mail sent from their [sic]. No problems around here...."

Based on this material, Angela Shannon became a suspect in mailing the threat letter to Dr. Woodward. The FBI subsequently identified Angela Shannon's fingerprints on the threat letter and the envelope. Eric Armstrong later told the FBI that he had met Angela Shannon in late February 1993, that she had given him a letter to mail for her, and that he mailed it from Stockton, California. Eric Armstrong also testified at trial about mailing the letter for Angela Shannon.

In addition, Armstrong testified that he received three letters from Angela Shannon. Armstrong testified that Angela Shannon used the word Milwaukee four times in the three letters, misspelling it each time as "Milwalkie." Armstrong also testified to reading an article in a Stockton newspaper describing the threat letter mailed from Stockton. Armstrong stated he called Angela asking her why she would have him mail the letter without telling him what it contained. Armstrong testified that Angela responded that she did not want to get him in trouble.

Rachelle Shannon testified as a witness for the defense and claimed responsibility for the letter. She said that she had written the threat letter to Dr. Woodward on a whim at someone's house in Milwaukee, but did not remember the owner or location of the house. She also stated that the lightning bolt stationery happened to be just sitting by the computer. Rachelle Shannon further testified that after typing the letter, she tried to show it to other people who were there, including Angela Shannon and David Eck, but that "nobody was interested in it," so she put it in an envelope and placed it in her purse. She testified inconsistently that she did not recall if Angela had handled the letter, that Angela must have handled the letter, that she did not remember if Angela had read it, and that Angela definitely did not read it.

Rachelle Shannon testified she purposely misspelled Milwaukee in the threat letter. She testified she gave the sealed envelope to Angela to mail when they were in the Sacramento airport, at the time Angela left with Eric Armstrong. After Rachelle Shannon became aware Angela was a suspect, she wrote her daughter from prison about the threat letter and contacted the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, describing the letter and claiming credit for it. On cross-examination, Rachelle Shannon admitted to lying to government investigators in the past and taking credit for other violent anti-abortion crimes in an effort to exculpate others. Rachelle Shannon also acknowledged that she had spelled Milwaukee correctly five times in various letters presented to her.

Angela Shannon also testified in her own defense. She testified she had no knowledge of the contents of the threat letter. She testified her mother typed the letter at a house whose location and owner she could not recall. Angela Shannon further testified she did not knowingly handle the threat letter and could not explain how the letter contained her fingerprints. She denied telling Armstrong that she did not want the letter traced to her, or that she subsequently told him that she did not want to get him in trouble.

The government offered the letter Eck had written to Angela, found in the September 1993 search, as impeachment during Angela's cross-examination. The government contended this letter indicated that Angela had lied in denying knowledge of the threat letter. The district court admitted the letter and gave a limiting instruction telling the jury that the court admitted the letter not for the truth of anything Eck said in the letter, but only to show that statements in the letter had been directed to the defendant, and that to that extent they were relevant to the defendant's knowledge.

The government and Shannon each submitted proposed jury instructions. The government proposed a deliberate ignorance or Jewell instruction, which the court accepted over Shannon's objection. The instruction precisely followed the Ninth Circuit Model Jury Instruction on deliberate ignorance. ¹ The jury convicted Shannon....