United States v. Edwards
| Decision Date | 15 October 2019 |
| Docket Number | Case No. 16-20070-01/02-CM |
| Parties | UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff, v. RAYMOND EDWARDS and RENATA EDWARDS, Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — District of Kansas |
This criminal matter between the United States of America and defendants Raymond and Renata Edwards comes before the court for decision on various outstanding pretrial motions and other filings—filings not presented as motions but nonetheless requesting pretrial rulings on the admissibility of specific evidence. After careful consideration of the parties' positions and relevant law, the court rules as follows:
Below, these rulings are more fully explained.
The court first addresses defendants' two recently filed motions to dismiss, Docs. 173 and 174.
In Doc. 173, defendants move to dismiss Counts 1-22 of the Second Superseding Indictment. These counts charge, in relevant part, that defendants conspired to and, in fact did, traffic in goods bearing a counterfeit mark, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2320(a)(1). As to Count 1, the conspiracy count, defendants argue the two-fold position that the indictment fails to state an offense because: (1) it fails toallege all four of 18 U.S.C. § 2320(f)(1)(A)'s components defining a "counterfeit mark" and (2) instead alleges that defendants trafficked in genuine goods—conduct that defendants believe § 2320(g) immunizes from prosecution. As to Counts 2-22, the counts alleging specific acts of trafficking in computer batteries and power adapters bearing a counterfeit mark, defendants seek dismissal under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 16 as a sanction for the government's alleged failure to produce evidence that would enable defendants to determine whether the computer batteries and power adapters at issue are, in fact, non-genuine as alleged; because, again, if only genuine goods are involved, defendants argue § 2320(g) immunizes their conduct from prosecution. The government responds that affixing a counterfeit mark to a genuine good makes the good counterfeit. That being so, the government argues that it alleged in the indictment and produced to defendants all required information.
At its core, defendants' motion to dismiss the trademark counts begs the legal question: Must one necessarily traffic in a non-genuine good to traffic in "goods" bearing a "counterfeit mark"? The answer, this court finds, is no.
To interpret § 2320 to criminalize trafficking in only non-genuine goods would require this court to ignore Congress's chosen language. In 21 of the 22 instances "good" or "goods" appear throughout § 2320—subsection (a)(1) included—Congress made no distinction between genuine and non-genuine goods. It chose simply to speak generally of "goods." This lack of specificity appears intentional. Only once, in § 2320(g), did Congress carve out an exception; there, it specified that the statute is not directed at "genuine goods" repackaged so as "not . . . to deceive or confuse." Read in its entirety, § 2320's language convinces this court of two things. First, had Congress intended to limit criminal liability to trafficking in specifically non-genuine goods, it knew but never used the language appropriate to achieve that aim. Second, by expressly excluding from the general term "goods" only "genuine goods" repackaged so as "not . . . to deceive or confuse," Congress kept open the possibility that even genuinegoods trafficked in a deceptive or confusing manner could violate the statute. No doubt, that scenario presents a rare and more-difficult-to-prove case, as it requires evidence that the purchasing public is likely to be deceived or confused by receiving a trademark holder's genuine product bearing a mark substantially similar to the trademark holder's registered mark. Still, Congress's chosen language supports such a case's prosecution.
To summarize, § 2320 criminalizes trafficking in "counterfeit goods." But a good need not necessarily be non-genuine to be a "counterfeit good." To be a "counterfeit good" requires only that the combination of a particular good and mark result in a product likely to leave consumers deceived, confused, or mistaken as to the good's actual origin or quality.1
What this all means for defendants' motion to dismiss the trademark counts is plain. The government's Second Superseding Indictment need not allege goods of any particular genuine or non-genuine character. The indictment need not allege all four of § 2320(f)(1)(A)'s components defining a "counterfeit mark." Pleading a legally sufficient violation of § 2320(a)(1) simply requires allegations tracking the statute's language that defendants trafficked in "goods" and "knowingly use[d] a counterfeit mark on or in connection with such goods."2 As such, use of the general descriptor "goods" and "counterfeit mark" suffices.3 Having reviewed the indictment's allegations, the court concludes that Counts 1-22 set forth the elements of the offenses intended to be charged and with sufficient addedfactual detail to satisfy the Fifth and Sixth Amendment concerns that the grand jury "only return an indictment when it finds probable cause to support all the necessary elements of the crime" and that, once returned, the indictment "inform[] the defendant of the nature and cause of the accusation."4
Understanding that one need not necessarily traffic in non-genuine goods to violate § 2320(a)(1), it follows that the government need not, as argued by defendants, produce evidence of non-genuine goods. The government's discovery obligations, moreover, only require that the government not withhold discoverable evidence in its possession. The withholding of such evidence, however, is not what defendants argue. What defendants argue, rather, is that the government's produced discovery shows a lack of evidence they believe necessary to support a conviction. That argument must be resolved by the jury at trial, not pretrial by this court. Accordingly, defendants' motion to dismiss trademark counts is denied.
The court now considers defendants' other motion to dismiss, Doc. 174. Counts 28-42 charge that defendants devised a scheme to defraud the U.S. Postal Service by placing shortpaid parcels in the mail, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1341. Defendants argue the court should dismiss these mail-fraud charges as a sanction. Defendants' argument begins from the "now settled" position, originating from McNally v. United States, 483 U.S. 350 (1987), that "by including the phrase 'obtain money or property'" within § 1341, "Congress intended to limit the reach of mail fraud 'to the protection of property rights.'"5 From this, defendants argue that the government must identify an impaired property interest. And the evidence allegedly relied on by the government before the grand jury to substantiate that property interest—statements that defendants' business entities entered into "agreements" with the U.S. PostalService to use postage evidencing systems—was, according to defendants, requested of but never produced by the government—at least, not in the form of any sort of written agreements. The evidence of "agreements" considered by the grand jury was therefore, in defendants' view, either (1) falsified or (2) true but withheld from defense. Either way, defendants argue the government's conduct justifies dismissing the mail-fraud counts.
Defendants are correct that the government must identify a property interest.6 But their position on the government's evidence incorrectly presupposes three things this court declines to accept.
First, this court declines to accept that the lack of produced written agreements necessarily means the testimony of "agreements" referred to before the grand jury is false. Defendants complain that the grand jury was told...
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