United States v. Johnson

• Docket Number: 22-1169
• Decision Date: 25 May 2023
• Parties: UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. KEVIN O. JOHNSON, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit

1

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. KEVIN O. JOHNSON, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 22-1169

United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit

May 25, 2023

NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION

Submitted May 19, 2023

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Western Division. No. 3:16-CR-50060(1) Iain D. Johnston, Judge.

Before DIANE P. WOOD, Circuit Judge JOHN Z. LEE, Circuit Judge DORIS L. PRYOR, Circuit Judge

ORDER

Kevin Johnson appeals from his conviction on seven counts of bankruptcy fraud and related crimes, see 18 U.S.C §§ 157(2)-(3); 152(1), (8)-(9), for which he received seven concurrent terms of two years in prison followed by two years of supervised release. His appointed counsel (three attorneys) move to withdraw under Anders v. California, 386 U.S. 738 (1967). This Anders case is unusual: Counsel identifies one nonfrivolous argument on appeal, but Johnson insists that counsel raise it alongside other issues that they believe are frivolous. Because representing Johnson on the terms he demands would conflict with their ethical obligation to refrain from raising frivolous issues, counsel assert that they must withdraw. See id. at 744. In response, see CIR. R. 51(b) Johnson argues that counsel's motion ignores supposedly nonfrivolous issues that he lists in an email he sent to his trial counsel. He asks us to grant counsel's motion to withdraw and either appoint new counsel or permit him to represent himself. Because neither current counsel nor newly appointed counsel can ethically present the frivolous issues that Johnson insists upon, we grant the motion to withdraw and do not appoint new counsel. But we allow Johnson to pursue this appeal-on the express understanding that he must follow the applicable rules that bar frivolous appeals. See FED. R. APP. P. 38.

We begin by describing the one nonfrivolous issue that counsel has identified. Counsel explains that Johnson could plausibly argue that the district court wrongly denied his motion to dismiss the indictment under the Speedy Trial Act, 18 U.S.C. § 3161. Johnson's trial was continued twice under the Northern District of Illinois's general orders suspending criminal trials during the COVID-19 pandemic. Shortly before trial, Johnson argued that the delay violated the Speedy Trial Act, which requires that trials be held within a certain timeframe. The district court denied his motion, reasoning in part that the general orders justified the delay. That rationale may be debatable: As counsel points out, some circuits have ruled that pandemic-related general orders delaying trials did not violate the Speedy Trial Act, see, e.g., United States v. Leveke, 38 F.4th 662, 670 (8th Cir. 2022), but we have not decided the question. Because the question is open here, we agree with counsel that a challenge to the ruling on the motion to dismiss would not be frivolous. See United States v. Bey, 748 F.3d 774, 776 (7th Cir. 2014) (describing frivolous claims as those "so clearly blocked by statute, regulation, binding or unquestioned precedent, or some other authoritative source of law that they can be rejected summarily").

But counsel are right that Johnson has put them in an ethical bind. On the one hand, lawyers should abide by the objectives that their clients advance. See N.D.Ill. L.R. 83.50 (referencing MODEL RULES OF PRO. CONDUCT r. 1.2) ("[A] lawyer shall abide by a client's decisions concerning the objectives of representation and ... shall consult with the client as to the means by which they are to be pursued."). On the other hand, lawyers may not raise frivolous arguments. See Anders, 386 U.S. at 744. If counsel is correct that the arguments Johnson insists they make are frivolous, we may grant their motion to withdraw to eliminate the ethical conflict. We therefore examine whether any of the issues that Johnson insists his counsel raise are frivolous, and we conclude that they are.

To begin, some of the issues that Johnson insists his counsel raise would frivolously contest the sufficiency of the evidence upon which the jury relied to convict him. He states in his email for example: "Shifting the burden of proof to me in closing. I'm not obligated to prove my current work. They bore burden to prove what my current accounts were. They didn't." In reviewing a challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence, we would view the evidence in the light most favorable to the verdict and would not reverse a conviction unless the trial record contained "no evidence" to support it. United States v. Kohli, 847 F.3d 483, 489 (7th Cir. 2017). The government introduced abundant evidence in the nine-day trial that Johnson falsified and withheld records, see 18 U.S.C. § 152(8)-(9), concealed assets, see id. § 152(1), and defrauded the bankruptcy court, see id. § 157(2)-(3). This evidence included Johnson's sworn admissions in proceedings before the Illinois Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Committee that he hid assets and asked his clients to send payments to him instead of, as was required, to the trustee. Johnson thus could not plausibly argue that "no evidence" supported his convictions. Moreover, he does not explain why evidence of his "current work" was necessary to prove these crimes.

Other issues that Johnson demands that his counsel raise would also frivolously challenge the district court's evidentiary rulings. For example, he asks: "Bill Hotopp as expert. Why not?" At trial, Johnson sought to introduce expert testimony from Hotopp, an attorney who represented him during his bankruptcy proceeding, about the necessity of preserving objections during the bankruptcy...