U.S. v. Gupta, 02-16337.
| Decision Date | 29 March 2004 |
| Docket Number | No. 02-16337.,02-16337. |
| Citation | 363 F.3d 1169 |
| Parties | UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Mahendra Pratap GUPTA, Allegheny Management Company, et al., Defendants-Appellees. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Eleventh Circuit |
Leif M. Johnson, Billings, MT, Anne R. Schultz, U.S. Atty., Miami, FL, for Plaintiff-Appellant.
Benedict P. Kuehne, Sale & Kuehne, P.A., Neal R. Sonnett, Kendall B. Coffey, Miami, FL, for Defendants-Appellees.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida.
Before HULL, MARCUS and STAHL*, Circuit Judges.
In this complex Medicare fraud case, the United States appeals from the district court's order granting a judgment of acquittal or, alternatively, a new trial, after a jury had convicted Appellees on three counts of mail fraud and fraud against the government. The government argues that the district court lacked subject matter jurisdiction to issue the order because the motions were filed outside the time limits for post-verdict motions prescribed in Rules 29 and 33 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, and that the district court's order was wrong on the merits as well. Because the district court plainly lacked jurisdiction to entertain these post-verdict motions, we VACATE its order and REMAND for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
The relevant facts and procedural history of this case are straightforward. This case began in September of 1997 when a federal grand jury in the District of Montana returned a sixteen-count indictment against defendants Mahendra Pratap Gupta, three other natural persons, Allegheny Management Company ("Allegheny"), and ten other companies involved in providing home healthcare services and supplies. In essence, the indictment charged the named defendants with having created a scheme to defraud Medicare based upon violations of the "related party" regulation1 by use of false claims, straw owners, and other deceptive actions to conceal the close relationship between the various persons.2
On July 20, 1998, the case was transferred to the Southern District of Florida pursuant to Rule 21 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure. The district court then ordered the trial of four defendants3 severed from the trial of Mahendra Pratap Gupta and six companies. After the district court had dismissed thirteen counts of the indictment, the case proceeded to trial on October 25, 1999, against the remaining defendants — Mahendra Pratap Gupta, Edward J. Quinlan, and Kuldeep K. Hajela, and the remaining six companies, Allegheny, Cardinal, Marshall, Atlantic, West Coast, and Treasure Coast — on the three remaining counts: conspiracy to defraud Medicare, 18 U.S.C. § 286, and two counts of mail fraud, 18 U.S.C. §§ 1341, 1342.
At the close of the government's case, the district court granted defendant Hajela's motion for a judgment of acquittal and reserved ruling pursuant to Rule 29(b) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure4 on the motions of the remaining eight defendants. On November 5, 1999, the jury acquitted defendant Quinlan, but convicted Mahendra Gupta and the six companies, finding them guilty as charged.
The same day, on November 5, 1999, the district court granted the defendants' request for an extension of "at least three weeks" to file post-verdict motions. The entire exchange went as follows:
On November 29, 1999, Allegheny filed its only post-trial motion for judgment of acquittal, and on December 3, 1999, Gupta and the other five defendant companies filed motions for a judgment of acquittal, or alternatively, for a new trial. On January 27, 2000, the district court denied all of the pending post-trial motions on the merits.
Sentencing was continued several times after that. A year later, on January 25, 2001, Gupta and five of the defendant companies5 moved the court to reconsider its earlier denial of judgments of acquittal or, alternatively for a new trial, based on information not previously available. On October 1, 2001, Gupta and five of the six companies filed additional materials with respect to what they termed their renewed motions for judgment of acquittal or a new trial.
Finally, on October 16, 2002 — almost three years after the original motions for a judgment of acquittal and a new trial had been filed, and some thirty-three months after denying these motions — the district court granted the Rule 29 and 33 motions, even for defendant Allegheny, which had never filed further motions after the district court's January 27, 2000 denial of its November 29, 1999 post-trial motion for judgment of acquittal.
The government appealed, arguing first that the district court had no jurisdiction to entertain the motions for a judgment of acquittal or for a new trial because of the time limits contained in Rules 29 and 33, and that, in any event, the court erroneously granted the motions on the merits. We do not reach the merits since we agree that the court was without jurisdiction to grant the motion to reconsider its denial of the earlier motions for judgment of acquittal or new trial.
The government makes a threefold argument that the district court lacked jurisdiction to entertain the Rule 29 and 33 motions it eventually granted. First, it claims, the time extension granted to the defendants was for an uncertain period, thus violating the requirement that extensions be granted only for a time certain. Second, it says that even if the court properly granted the defendants extra time to prepare the motions, they did not file their motions for judgment of acquittal and new trial within that extended time period. Finally, the government urges that even if the original motions were timely filed, considered, and denied, Gupta's motion to reconsider and renewed motion were made far outside any possible allowable time period. Because we are persuaded by the last of these arguments, we conclude that the district court indeed lacked jurisdiction to entertain the renewed motions and, therefore, vacate the order granting the untimely verdicts, reinstate the jury's verdicts, and remand for sentencing.
We review de novo the district court's interpretation and application of statutory provisions that go to whether the court has subject matter jurisdiction. Chaney v. Tenn. Valley Auth., 264 F.3d 1325, 1326 (11th Cir.2001) (per curiam). Factual findings made by the district court with respect to jurisdiction, however, are reviewed only for clear error. United States v. McPhee, 336 F.3d 1269, 1271 (11th Cir.2003).
Rule 29(c) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure contains strict time limits for the filing of post-verdict motions, either for a judgment of acquittal, or renewing a motion for acquittal on which the district court had reserved ruling under Rule 29(b). Such motions must be filed within seven days after a guilty verdict, or within whatever additional time the court may allow, provided the extension is granted within that same seven-day time frame after the verdict.6 Further, Rule 33 provides two ways in which a new trial can be granted post-trial.7
In its order, the district court said that the defendants had requested and the court had granted an extension of time to file post-trial motions, finding that the "initial motions were timely filed within the period set by the court." This ruling by the trial court effectively resolved the question of fact as to how much time the court had granted to the defendants to file post-trial motions. All parties agree that this particular ruling is reviewed only for clear error. See McPhee, 336 F.3d at 1271. The record supports this finding. On November 5, 1999, the defendants requested and the district court granted an extension of three weeks.8 Since Rule 29(c)(1) allowed the defendants seven days to file post-trial motions, the request for an extension of three weeks can fairly be interpreted as a request for a total of 28 days up to and including December 3, 1999, which the court granted on the day of the verdict.9 Thus the district court's finding that the motions filed on November 29, 1999 and December 3, 1999 were timely is not clearly erroneous.10
Even though we conclude that the motions of November 29 and December 3 1999 were timely filed, these motions were denied on the merits on January 28, 2000. At that time nothing remained to be done, except the sentencing of the convicted defendants. Yet Gupta and five of the convicted companies (excluding Allegheny) filed a motion a year later, on January 25, 2001, asking the district court to reconsider its denial on January 27, 2000 of the Rule 29 motions. Then, on October 1, 2001, Gupta and the five companies filed a Motion of Submission and Supplemental Memorandum concerning their renewed motion for a judgment of acquittal, or in the alternative, for a new trial. After still another year had passed, on October 16, 2002, the district court entered its orders granting judgments of acquittal and, alternatively, granting a new trial.
On this appeal, the defendant must show that the motion to reconsider and renewed motion were timely and proper. We hold that they were not. See Carlisle v. United States, 517 U.S. 416, 422, 426, 116 S.Ct. 1460, 1464, 1466, 134 L.Ed.2d 613 (1996) (citing and quoting United States v. Smith, 331 U.S. 469, 473, 67 S.Ct. 1330, 1332, 91 L.Ed. 1610 (1947)); United States v. Bramlett, 116 F.3d 1403, 1406 (11th Cir. 1997) (citing and quoting United States v. Hall, 854 F.2d 1269, 1271-72 (11th Cir. 1988)); Fed.R.Crim.P. 29(c), 33(b)(2), 45.
The district court's power to act is sharply constrained by the relevant rules of criminal procedure. Indeed, time limits for post-verdict motions are older than...
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