U.S. v. Newman

• Decision Date: 09 November 1989
• Docket Number: No. 88-3499,88-3499
• Citation: 889 F.2d 88
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. William Howard NEWMAN, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit

Page 88

889 F.2d 88

UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. William Howard NEWMAN, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 88-3499.

United States Court of Appeals Sixth Circuit.

Argued May 22, 1989.

Decided Nov. 9, 1989.

Terry Lehmann argued, Office of the U.S. Atty., Cincinnati, Ohio, for plaintiff-appellee.

William S. O'Brien, O'Brien & Bauer, Findlay, Ohio, for defendant-appellant.

Before WELLFORD and MILBURN, Circuit Judges; and ALDRICH, District Judge. ^*

ANN ALDRICH, District Judge.

Defendant-appellant William Howard Newman appeals his conviction, after a jury trial, on one count of interstate transportation of a stolen motor vehicle, in violation of 18 U.S.C. Sec. 2312, and on one count of interstate transportation of stolen property, in violation of 18 U.S.C. Sec. 2314. He raises four assignments of error, all of which are without merit.

I.

In October 1986, Newman, an admitted alcoholic, was serving time at the Federal Correctional Institution in Sandstone, Minnesota for the interstate transportation of a stolen tractor-trailer rig. Pursuant to an arrangement whereby he would serve the balance of his sentence at the Leavenworth Prison Camp, Newman was granted a furlough and allowed to travel unaccompanied to Leavenworth, Kansas. While at the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport, however, he entered an airport lounge and drank several "double shots" of Jack Daniels bourbon and an indeterminate amount of beer. Newman testified that, a few days before the furlough, he sustained an injury to his neck, and that this consumption of alcohol was occasioned by his need to ease the pain of the injury. Newman also testified that he had lost nearly all recollection of the events that occurred during the ensuing eight days. The evidence disclosed that Newman left the airport and somehow made his way to Cincinnati, where he broke into a fenced-in parking lot and stole a 1985 Peterbilt tractor. A short while later, Newman drove to a northern Cincinnati suburb and stole a flatbed trailer loaded with Celotex roofing shingles. He hitched the trailer to the tractor and drove more than 300 miles to Chicago.

Shortly after arriving in Chicago, Newman hired several men to unload the shingles, which he then offered to sell for $1.00 a bundle. He also attempted to sell the tractor-trailer rig for $2,000, after acknowledging to a prospective purchaser that he had no title or other "papers" for the truck. The prospective purchaser became suspicious and notified the Chicago police, who arrested Newman. Newman gave the officers a false name and claimed he had stolen the rig from the Milwaukee, Wisconsin area. The next morning Newman gave his real name to FBI agents and confessed that he was an escaped federal prisoner. After being read his Miranda rights, Newman indicated that he understood them and signed a printed waiver form. Then, as one of the agents took notes, Newman confessed to the theft of the rig in Cincinnati, and recounted in considerable detail the accompanying events. Newman then signed, adopting as his own, the agent's transcription of his confession and report of those events.

At trial, the testimony of a psychologist, Dr. Roy B. Lacoursiere, formed a critical part of Newman's defense. Through this testimony, and through other evidence of his chronic alcoholism, Newman attempted to show that he suffered from "Acute Brain Syndrome," a condition that precluded both his forming the requisite mens rea for the commission of a crime and for the voluntary confession of his guilt. The district court allowed extensive testimony from Dr. Lacoursiere, and instructed the jury that evidence of Newman's condition could be considered in determining whether he was capable of forming the mens rea necessary for commission of the offenses charged. The judge had earlier determined, after conducting a suppression hearing, that evidence of the voluntariness of Newman's confession should go to the jury.

After the judge denied Newman's motion for acquittal, the jury convicted Newman on both counts in the indictment. He was sentenced to five years on the first count and ten years on the second, to be served concurrently. The judge also imposed a special assessment of $100 pursuant to the Comprehensive Crime Control Act, 18 U.S.C. Sec. 3013.

In this appeal, Newman raises four assignments of error:

1) the district court erred in failing to grant Newman's motion for a directed verdict or acquittal based upon Newman's alleged inability to form the requisite mens rea to be convicted of an intentional crime;

2) the district court erred in sentencing Newman under pre-guideline standards;

3) the district court erred in admitting Newman's post-arrest statements as a voluntary confession;

4) the district court's imposition of a special assessment pursuant to 18 U.S.C. Sec. 3013 violated Newman's federal constitutional rights because Sec. 3013 is unconstitutional.

These issues are treated in turn.

II.

Newman's first assignment of error concerns the degree to which his alleged involuntary intoxication precluded his forming the requisite mens rea for commission of the offenses charged. Newman insists that he is not here pleading anything resembling an insanity defenae. Neither, he claims, is he relying on notions of "diminished responsibility" or "diminished capacity," the use of which as defenses to criminal charges has been restricted by the Insanity Defense Reform Act of 1984, 18 U.S.C. Sec. 17. ¹ His alleged involuntary intoxication rather, relates only to his capacity to have possessed, at the relevant time, the mental state required for criminal culpability.

It is well established that intoxication, whether voluntary or involuntary, may preclude the formation of specific intent and thus serve to negate an essential element of certain crimes. See, e.g., United States v. Molina-Uribe, 853 F.2d 1193 (5th Cir.1988); United States v. Twine, 853 F.2d 676 (9th Cir.1988); United States v. Kurka, 818 F.2d 1427 (9th Cir.1987); United States v. Echeverry, 759 F.2d 1451 (9th Cir.1985). The government concedes that intoxication might still be a factor vis-a-vis a state of mind required for the commission of a certain offense, although it also offers reasons why its use as a defense in this case is inappropriate.

Whatever the legal status of Newman's attempt to invoke intoxication as a defense to his criminal conduct, the trial judge permitted a jury instruction allowing such evidence to be considered for that purpose. The judge also allowed considerable testimony from Newman's expert, Dr. Lacoursiere, pertaining to Newman's capacity knowingly or willfully to commit the criminal acts charged. Although given ample opportunity to accept intoxication as a defense, the jury rejected the argument by returning a guilty verdict.

Newman's complaint on appeal cannot, under these circumstances, concern any prejudice he suffered as a result of the district court judge's conduct of the trial. What he instead appears to be urging is that the testimony of Dr. Lacoursiere, together with other evidence of his alcoholism, so outweighed the government's evidence of intentional and deliberate criminal behavior that it was error for the trial judge to deny his motion for acquittal. Newman thus asks us to accept his proffered evidence of involuntary intoxication as not only relevant to the issue of his criminal responsibility, but also as dispositive of that issue.

A trial court must order the entry of a judgment of acquittal if "the evidence is insufficient to sustain a conviction ..." of the offenses charged. Fed.R.Crim.P. 29(a) (1966). The seminal case setting the standard for granting a judgment of acquittal in this Circuit is United States v. Adamo, 742 F.2d 927 (6th Cir.1984), cert. denied sub nom. Freeman v. United States, 469 U.S. 1193, 105 S.Ct. 971, 83 L.Ed.2d 975 (1985):

It is well established that a trial judge confronted with a Rule 29 motion must consider all of the evidence in a light most favorable to the government and grant the motion when it appears to the Court that the evidence is insufficient to sustain a conviction.... The government must be given the benefit of all inferences which can reasonably be drawn from the evidence ... even if the evidence is circumstantial.... It is not necessary that the evidence exclude every reasonable hypothesis except that of guilt.

Adamo, 742 F.2d at 932; see also United States v. Gibson, 675 F.2d 825 (6th Cir.), cert. denied 459 U.S. 972, 103 S.Ct. 305, 74 L.Ed.2d 285 (1982) (if evidence is such that a reasonable mind might fairly find guilt beyond reasonable doubt, court should deny motion for judgment of acquittal).

We have no difficulty concluding that the evidence adduced by the government at trial, particularly when viewed in a light most favorable to the government, was sufficient to sustain Newman's conviction. ² That Newman was, at the relevant times, capable of rational thought and intentional behavior is abundantly supported by evidence relating to his performance of numerous intricate and delicate tasks in the course of committing his crimes. Newman had little difficulty connecting the Peterbilt tractor, with its various air and electrical lines, to the flatbed trailer and driving the rig more than 300 miles to Chicago. He was capable of conducting business with the men he hired to unload the trailer and with those he approached about buying the shingles and the rig itself, and was sufficiently possessed of mind to fabricate a story to mislead his arresting officers. He was able, moreover, to identify himself the following morning to FBI agents, to whom Newman's answers and general demeanor appeared appropriate and rational. Even Dr. Lacoursiere testified that, on November 6, when Newman was examined in the jail's infirmary, he was suffering from only "mild alcoholic withdrawal" and was completely oriented as to time, place, and person. Even when counterbalanced by the other evidence from Dr....