United States v. Lane Lane v. United States

• Citation: 88 L.Ed.2d 814,474 U.S. 438,106 S.Ct. 725
• Decision Date: 27 January 1986
• Docket Number: Nos. 84-744,84-963,s. 84-744
• Parties: UNITED STATES, Petitioner v. James C. LANE and Dennis R. Lane. James C. LANE and Dennis R. Lane, Petitioner v. UNITED STATES
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

474 U.S. 438

106 S.Ct. 725

88 L.Ed.2d 814

UNITED STATES, Petitioner

v James C. LANE and Dennis R. Lane.

James C. LANE and Dennis R. Lane, Petitioner

v. UNITED STATES.

Nos. 84-744, 84-963.

Argued Oct. 9, 1985.

Decided Jan. 27, 1986.

Rehearing Denied March 31, 1986.

See 475 U.S. 1104, 106 S.Ct. 1507.

Syllabus

James Lane and his son Dennis, respondents in No. 84-744, were indicted on counts for, inter alia, mail fraud in connection with insurance claims that were made and that insurers paid for fire damage to a restaurant and duplex that James had hired a professional arsonist to burn. The restaurant was operated by James in partnership with others. Count 1 charged James with mail fraud with regard to that fire. The duplex was owned by a different partnership, of which Dennis was one of the partners. Counts 2 through 4 charged both respondents with mail fraud related to the duplex fire. Count 5 charged both respondents with conspiracy to commit mail fraud in connection with a third arson scheme, and Count 6 charged Dennis with perjury before the grand jury. The Federal District Court denied respondents' pretrial motions for severance on the alleged ground that the charged offenses were misjoined in violation of Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 8(b), which provides that two or more defendants may be charged in the same indictment if they are alleged to have participated "in the same act or transaction or in the same series of acts or transactions constituting an offense or offenses." The trial then proceeded jointly before a jury. When evidence relating to the restaurant fire was admitted, the court instructed the jury not to consider that evidence against Dennis, and repeated this instruction in the final charge and admonished the jury to consider each count and defendant separately. The jury returned convictions on all counts. The Court of Appeals reversed and remanded for new trials, holding that the joinder of Count 1 with the other five counts violated Rule 8(b) and that such misjoinder was prejudicial per se. The court, however, rejected respondents' contention that there was insufficient evidence to support convictions under Counts 2 through 4 because each charged mailing occurred after each related insurance payment had been received and thus after each scheme to defraud had reached fruition.

Held:

1. Misjoinder under Rule 8(b) is subject to harmless-error analysis and is not reversible error per se. An error involving misjoinder "af- fects substantial rights" and requires retrial only if the misjoinder results in actual prejudice because it "had substantial and injurious effect or influence in determining the jury's verdict." Kotteakos v. United States, 328 U.S. 750, 776, 66 S.Ct. 1239, 1253, 90 L.Ed. 1557 (1946). It is only by such a holding that Rule 8(b) and Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 52(a)—which provides that any error "which does not affect substantial rights shall be disregarded"—can be brought into substantial harmony. Here, in the face of overwhelming evidence of guilt, the claimed error was harmless. The District Court provided proper limiting jury instructions, and, moreover, the same evidence on Count 1 would likely have been admissible on joint retrial of the other counts to show James' intent under Federal Rule of Evidence 404(b). Any error therefore failed to have any "substantial influence" on the verdict. Pp. 444-450.

2. There was sufficient evidence to support the convictions on Counts 2 through 4. On the evidence and under proper instructions, the jury could properly find that the mailings charged in Counts 2 and 3 took place while the overall scheme charged in the indictment was still continuing and that the scheme was not completed until after the mailing charged in Count 4, because that mailing, as were the others, was intended to "lull" the insurer into a false sense of security. Pp. 451-453.

735 F.2d 799 (CA5 1984), reversed and remanded.

BURGER, C.J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which WHITE, POWELL, REHNQUIST, and O'CONNOR, JJ., joined, and in Part III of which BRENNAN, MARSHALL, BLACKMUN, and STEVENS, JJ., joined. BRENNAN, J., filed an opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part, in which BLACKMUN, J., joined, post, p. 453. STEVENS, J., filed an opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part, in which MARSHALL, J., joined, post, p. 465.

Bruce Neil Kuhlik, Washington, D.C., for the U.S.

Clifford W. Brown, Lubbock, Tex., for James C. Lane and Dennis R. Lane.

Chief Justice BURGER delivered the opinion of the Court.

We granted certiorari to resolve a conflict among the Circuits as to whether a misjoinder under Rule 8 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure is subject to the harmless-error rule,¹ and to determine whether there is sufficient evidence in this case to support convictions for mail fraud under 18 U.S.C. § 1341.

I

A.

James Lane and three partners opened the El Toro Restaurant in Amarillo, Texas, in the summer of 1978. The business never operated at a profit, however, and sales began to decline that fall. In November, Lane purchased fire insurance covering the building's contents and improvements and any related business losses. Simultaneously, he hired Sidney Heard, a professional arsonist, to burn the building in order to escape the lease and partnership. On February 27, 1979, Heard set a fire that caused smoke damage to the building's contents. Lane first settled with the insurer on the contents and improvements. He then submitted an income statement that falsely indicated the restaurant had operated at a profit. After the insurance adjuster mailed the statement to the insurer's headquarters, Lane settled his business interruption claim.

In early 1980, Lane again hired Heard to set fire to a duplex that Lane was moving to a vacant lot in Amarillo. Lane obtained a fire insurance policy on the building, listing the owner as L & L Properties, a partnership between his son Dennis Lane and Andrew Lawson. An accomplice of Heard's burned the duplex on May 1, 1980.

Thereafter, on three occasions Dennis Lane signed proof-of-loss claims for repairs and submitted them to an insurance adjuster, who issued drafts in return totaling $12,000.² Each time, the adjuster later mailed the proof-of-loss to the insurer's headquarters. The adjuster issued a final settlement draft for $12,250 on September 16, 1980. Two days later, he mailed a memorandum to headquarters explaining why repairs had exceeded previous estimates by some $10,000. He enclosed invoices supplied by Dennis Lane listing various materials and furniture purportedly purchased to repair and refurbish the duplex. In fact, these invoices had been fabricated by James Lane, Heard, and Heard's secretary.

The Lanes and Lawson met with Heard several weeks after the duplex fire to discuss a proposal to establish and burn a flower shop in Lubbock, Texas. Heard and Dennis Lane picked out a suitable building in July 1980, and an accomplice of Heard's, William Lankford, prepared fictitious invoices for merchandise and delivered some artificial flowers to the building later in August. In November, James Lane insured the contents for $50,000. Heard, however, was later arrested for an unrelated crime, and the planned arson never took place.

In March 1981, an Amarillo newspaper article connected Dennis Lane with a scheme to burn the flower shop with Heard; that same day, James Lane canceled the insurance policy. On May 12, 1981, Dennis Lane appeared before a federal grand jury investigating Heard. He testified that Heard had nothing to do with the flower shop or with his own dealings with Lankford.

B

James Lane and Dennis Lane were indicted in multiple counts for mail fraud in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1341, conspiracy in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 371, and perjury in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1623. Count 1 charged James Lane with mail fraud with regard to the El Toro Restaurant fire. Counts 2 through 4 charged both Lanes with mail fraud related to the duplex fire, and Count 5 charged them with conspiracy to commit mail fraud in connection with the flower shop arson plan. In Count 6, Dennis Lane was charged with perjury before the grand jury.

Prior to trial in the District Court for the Northern District of Texas, the Lanes filed motions for severance contending that the charged offenses were misjoined in violation of Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 8(b), but the motions were denied and the trial proceeded jointly before a jury. When evidence relating to the El Toro Restaurant fire was admitted, the trial court instructed the jury not to consider that evidence against Dennis Lane. App. 21. The trial judge repeated this instruction in the final charge, together with an instruction regarding the separate consideration to be given each defendant and each count. Ibid. The Lanes renewed their severance motions at the end of the Government's evidence and at the close of all evidence, but the motions were again denied. The jury returned convictions on all counts.

On appeal, the Lanes argued that misjoinder under Rule 8(b) had occurred.³ The Court of Appeals for the Fifth Cir- cuit concluded that Counts 2 through 6 were properly joined, but agreed "that Count 1 should not have been joined with the others because it was not part of the same series of acts or transactions as Counts 2 through 6." 735 F.2d 799, 803-804 (1984). The court refused to consider the Government's argument that the error, if any, was harmless, stating only that "Rule 8(b) misjoinder is prejudicial per se in this circuit." Id., at 806 (citing United States v. Levine, 546 F.2d 658 (CA5 1977)). The court reversed the Lanes' convictions and remanded for new trials.

At the same time, the Court of Appeals rejected the Lanes' contention that there was insufficient evidence to support convictions for mail fraud under Counts 2 through 4 because each charged mailing occurred after each related payment had been received, and thus...