U.S. v. Guadalupe

• Decision Date: 31 March 2005
• Docket Number: No. 03-3358.,03-3358.
• Citation: 402 F.3d 409
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America v. Glenn GUADALUPE Appellant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Third Circuit

402 F.3d 409

UNITED STATES of America v. Glenn GUADALUPE Appellant.

No. 03-3358.

United States Court of Appeals, Third Circuit.

Argued February 15, 2005.

March 31, 2005.

Mark E. Cedrone (Argued), Cedrone & Janove, Philadelphia, PA, for Appellant.

Anthony J. Wzorek (Argued), Office of the United States Attorney, Philadelphia, PA, for Appellee.

Before SLOVITER, AMBRO and ALDISERT, Circuit Judges.

ALDISERT, Circuit Judge.

This appeal by Glen Guadalupe requires us to decide whether: (1) the jury's verdict is supported by legally sufficient evidence; and (2) the district court properly instructed the jury. Guadalupe was tried jointly with Appellants Reginald Steptoe and Cornell Tyler in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. The jury found Steptoe and Tyler guilty of deprivation of the civil rights of another in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 242 and Guadalupe guilty of obstruction of justice in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1512(b)(3). Guadalupe was sentenced to, inter alia, incarceration for a term of fifteen months. This appeal followed.¹

The insufficiency of evidence contention is anchored on the theory that the government failed to prove that Guadalupe believed that Burnette, the person he attempted to corruptly persuade, might communicate with a federal official. We conclude that proving a violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1512(b)(3) does not depend on the existence or imminency of a federal investigation but rather on the possible existence of a federal crime and a defendant's intention to thwart an inquiry into that crime by officials who happen to be federal. Because of Guadalupe's position and experience in prison administration, he knew or should have known that the beating of Dante Hunter constituted a violation of federal civil rights statutes. Accordingly, we will affirm.

I.

Guadalupe was the former Deputy Warden of Operations at Curran Fromhold Correctional Facility ("CFCF"), a prison in Philadelphia. On March 11, 1999, Hunter, a prison inmate, was savagely beaten by Steptoe and Tyler, both former correctional officers. Linda Burnette, a former correctional lieutenant, testified that she observed Tyler and Steptoe punch and beat Hunter and said that she ordered them to stop but they would not do so. Burnette's testimony was corroborated by several other witnesses at trial.

Shortly after the beatings, Burnette told Captain Winston Boston, the shift commander, what had happened. After leaving Boston, she went to see Guadalupe and told him as well. She testified that Guadalupe responded that somebody was going to "burn" for what happened. After Burnette identified the officers who had beaten Hunter, Guadalupe told her: "they can't burn ... they're my boys, my homies."

Later, when Burnette, Boston and Guadalupe were discussing the incident, Guadalupe said that he had informed the officers involved in the beating that "someone had to come up with an injury to justify the amount of force" used on Hunter. Guadalupe also told Burnette that, in her memorandum on the beating, she should not mention that she had ordered the officers to stop.

Because she felt intimidated and was afraid to "go against the grain," Burnette lied in the written statement she gave to Boston and the first two statements she gave to Internal Affairs. On March 21, 1999, Burnette told Warden Dunleavy that she had lied. Two days later she gave a full truthful statement to Internal Affairs.

II.

18 U.S.C. § 1512(b)(3) makes it a federal offense to "knowingly ... corruptly persuade another person or attempt[] to do so ... with intent to hinder, delay, or prevent the communication to a law enforcement officer ... of the United States ... of information relating to the commission or possible commission of a Federal offense...." The statute further provides that "an official proceeding need not be pending or about to be instituted at the time of the offense...." § 1512(e)(1). "No state of mind need be proved with respect to the circumstance... that the official proceeding is before a judge or court of the United States ...," § 1512(f)(1), and "that the judge is a judge of the United States or that the law enforcement officer is an officer or employee of the Federal Government or a person authorized to act for ... the Federal Government...," § 1512(f)(2).

To obtain a conviction pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 1512(b)(3), the government must prove that: (1) the defendant attempted to corruptly persuade a person; (2) the defendant was motivated by a desire to prevent the communication between that person and law enforcement authorities concerning the commission or possible commission of an offense; (3) the offense was actually a federal offense; and (4) the defendant believed that the person he attempted to corruptly persuade might communicate with federal authorities. United States v. Stansfield, 101 F.3d 909, 918 (3d Cir.1996). This last element may be inferred from the fact that the offense was federal in nature, plus "additional appropriate evidence." Id. An example of this "additional appropriate evidence" is that the defendant had actual knowledge of the federal nature of the offense. Id.

From a policy standpoint, "this framework is an appropriate reconciliation between the constraint that the government must prove the defendant's specific intent to hinder a federal investigation and the fact that, by virtue of § 1512(f), it need not prove that the defendant knew the federal status of any particular law enforcement officer involved in an investigation." Id. at 919.

The cumulative experience of this Court's judges give us specific direction on how to analyze a charge under § 1512(b)(3). In Stansfield, we upheld a defendant's conviction for tampering with a witness because there was "additional appropriate evidence" that the defendant believed that the witness might communicate with federal authorities. Id. The defendant had knowledge of the witness's past cooperation with federal authorities and was aware that an investigation, though not necessarily a federal one, was underway. Id.

In United States v. Bell, 113 F.3d 1345 (3d Cir.1997), we applied the precise teachings of Stansfield to a similar set of facts. A witness was an informant for a task force comprised of local, state and federal investigators and was scheduled to testify at a state drug trial for the defendant's boyfriend. Id. at 1347. The defendant was also implicated in many of these drug offenses. Before the boyfriend's trial, the defendant kidnapped and murdered the witness. Id. This Court discussed Stansfield and reiterated that the government "must prove that at least one of the law enforcement-officer communications which the defendant sought to prevent would have been with a federal officer, but [ ] the government is not obligated to prove that the defendant knew or intended anything with respect to this federal involvement." Id. at 1349. In applying these principles to the facts in Bell, we reasoned that

while the evidence may lend itself more obviously to the theory that Bell killed Proctor in order to prevent her from testifying a few hours later at Tyler's trial, it also supports the inference that Bell believed Proctor was going to continue to communicate with the Task Force concerning drug crimes that Bell and others had committed.

Id. at 1350.

United States v. Applewhaite, 195 F.3d 679 (3d Cir.1999), added a new dimension to our jurisprudence. There, the defendant was involved with a woman who was separated from her husband. The defendant and the wife kidnapped the husband and attempted to murder him. Id. at 683. After the attack, the wife talked to a local police officer and asked him to provide an alibi for her. Following her arrest, her lover reminded the police officer to cover for her. Id.

The defendants were convicted of tampering with a witness in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1512(b)(3). Id. at 686. On appeal, they contended that "the evidence was not sufficient to allow the jury to infer that [the local police officer] would provide a false alibi to a federal law enforcement officer." Id.

In analyzing the federal tampering conviction, we concluded that

the evidence showed that the defendants attempted to influence the testimony available to law enforcement officers. The government did not have to establish that the defendants specifically intended to interfere with a federal investigation. All that § 1512(b)(3) requires is that the government establish that the defendants had the intent to influence an investigation that happened to be federal.

Id. at 687.

The teachings of Applewhaite lessened the government's burden of proof in federal obstruction of justice cases because we did not require any "additional appropriate evidence" that the defendant believed the person he attempted to corruptly persuade might communicate with federal officials. Applewhaite is in line with the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit's decision in United States v. Veal, 153 F.3d 1233, 1250 (11th Cir.1998) (holding that 18 U.S.C. § 1512(b)(3) "does not depend on the existence or imminency of a federal case or investigation but rather on the possible existence of a federal crime and a defendant's intention to thwart an inquiry into that crime"). The court in Veal reasoned:

For violation of § 1512(b)(3), it is sufficient if the misleading information is likely to be transferred to a federal agent. All that was required for Veal, Watson and Haynes's violation of § 1512(b)(3) was the possibility or likelihood that their false and misleading information would be transferred to federal authorities irrespective of the governmental authority represented by the initial investigators.

Id. at 1251-1252 (emphasis in original).

The United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in United States v. Causey, 185 F.3d 407 (5th Cir.1999), flatly rejected the Veal decision stating: "We do not find the Eleventh Circuit's reasoning...