Filed: Jul. 25, 2011
Latest Update: Feb. 22, 2020
Summary: [DO NOT PUBLISH] IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT FILED _ U.S. COURT OF APPEALS ELEVENTH CIRCUIT No. 10-13661 JULY 25, 2011 _ JOHN LEY CLERK D.C. Docket No. 4:08-cr-10078-JEM-1 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, lllllllllllllllllllll Plaintiff - Appellee, versus JUERGEN HEINZ WILLIAMS, a.k.a. Jurgen H. Williams, a.k.a. Juergen Heinz Werthmann, a.k.a. Eric Williams, a.k.a. Eric Scott Wallace, lllllllllllllllllllll Defendant - Appellant. _ Appeal from the United States Distric
Summary: [DO NOT PUBLISH] IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT FILED _ U.S. COURT OF APPEALS ELEVENTH CIRCUIT No. 10-13661 JULY 25, 2011 _ JOHN LEY CLERK D.C. Docket No. 4:08-cr-10078-JEM-1 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, lllllllllllllllllllll Plaintiff - Appellee, versus JUERGEN HEINZ WILLIAMS, a.k.a. Jurgen H. Williams, a.k.a. Juergen Heinz Werthmann, a.k.a. Eric Williams, a.k.a. Eric Scott Wallace, lllllllllllllllllllll Defendant - Appellant. _ Appeal from the United States District..
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[DO NOT PUBLISH]
IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT FILED
________________________ U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
ELEVENTH CIRCUIT
No. 10-13661 JULY 25, 2011
________________________ JOHN LEY
CLERK
D.C. Docket No. 4:08-cr-10078-JEM-1
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
lllllllllllllllllllll Plaintiff - Appellee,
versus
JUERGEN HEINZ WILLIAMS,
a.k.a. Jurgen H. Williams,
a.k.a. Juergen Heinz Werthmann,
a.k.a. Eric Williams,
a.k.a. Eric Scott Wallace,
lllllllllllllllllllll Defendant - Appellant.
________________________
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Southern District of Florida
________________________
(July 25, 2011)
Before BARKETT, WILSON and ARNOLD,* Circuit Judges.
*
Honorable Morris S. Arnold, United States Senior Circuit Judge for the Eighth Circuit,
sitting by designation.
PER CURIAM:
Juergen Heinz Williams appeals his convictions and sentences for drug
offenses involving smuggling marijuana and hashish oil into the United States.
Specifically, Williams was charged with conspiring to import marijuana and
hashish oil, importing marijuana, conspiring to possess with intent to
distribute marijuana and hashish oil, and possessing with intent to distribute
marijuana, in violation of 21 U.S.C. §§ 952(a), 963, 960(b), 841 and/or 846. The
Superceding Indictment also contained allegations involving criminal forfeiture
under § 853. On January 13, 2010, following trial, a jury convicted Williams on
all counts. On July 26, 2010, the district court sentenced Williams to concurrent
terms of life imprisonment on the conspiracy charges, as well as forty years’
imprisonment for importing and possessing with intent to distribute. It also
imposed five years’ supervised release to follow imprisonment and ordered
Williams to pay a $400 assessment.
On appeal, Williams argues that the district court erred by: (1) admitting
post-arrest statements that Williams says were taken in violation of his Fifth
Amendment right to counsel; (2) denying his motion for a competency hearing
before sentencing; and (3) refusing to give his requested jury instruction on his
innocent-intent theory of defense.
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For the admission of post-arrest statements, we review the district court’s
factual determinations for clear error and legal conclusions de novo. See United
States v. Bernal-Benitez, 594 F.3d 1303, 1318 (11th Cir.), cert. denied,
130 S. Ct.
2123 (2010). We review a district court’s denial of a motion for a competency
hearing under 18 U.S.C. § 4241 for an abuse of discretion. United States v.
Nickels,
324 F.3d 1250, 1251 (11th Cir. 2003) (per curiam). And finally, we
review a district court’s refusal to submit a defendant’s requested jury instruction
for an abuse of discretion. United States v. Morris,
20 F.3d 1111, 1114 (11th Cir.
1994). In determining whether the district court abused its discretion by refusing
to give a requested jury instruction, we consider three factors: “(1) whether the
requested instruction is a substantially correct statement of the law; (2) whether
the jury charge given addressed the requested instruction; and (3) whether the
failure to give the requested instruction seriously impaired the defendant’s ability
to present an effective defense.” United States v. Chirinos,
112 F.3d 1089, 1101
(11th Cir. 1997).
We have stated that “[e]ven an ambiguous or equivocal invocation of the
right-to-counsel triggers the prophylactic rule, and further questioning is limited to
clarification of the equivocal request.” Delap v. Dugger, 890 F.2d 285, 293 (11th
Cir. 1989). Here, Williams’s request to call his attorney to tell him “he was going
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to cooperate with the Government” constituted “some statement that can
reasonably be construed to be an expression of a desire for the assistance of an
attorney.” Davis v. United States, 512 U.S. 452, 459 (1994) (internal quotation
marks omitted). This “relatively rigid requirement . . . has the virtue of informing
police and prosecutors with specificity as to what they may do in conducting
custodial interrogation, and of informing courts under what circumstances
statements obtained during such interrogation are not admissible.” Arizona v.
Roberson,
486 U.S. 675, 681 (1988) (internal quotation marks omitted). Williams
named a specific attorney; further, he made this request after being read his
Miranda rights but before signing the Miranda waiver. Because the law requires
an officer to “scrupulously honor” a defendant’s request to speak with his
attorney, James v. Arizona,
469 U.S. 990, 992 (1984), we deem Williams’s post-
arrest statements and waiver to be “the product of the inherently compelling
pressures [of a custodial interrogation] and not the purely voluntary choice of the
suspect.”
Roberson, 486 U.S. at 681 (internal quotation omitted). Thus, the
district court erred by admitting the post-arrest statements. Because we remand
this case on other grounds, we need not decide whether the district court’s error in
admitting the post-arrest statements was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. See
United States v. Rhind,
289 F.3d 690, 694 (11th Cir. 2002) (concluding that any
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error was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt when “the other evidence of guilt
was so overwhelming that the defendant[] suffered no prejudice from the admitted
evidence”).
We need not address Williams’s claim regarding a competency hearing
because we are reversing his conviction and sentence; it will be “open to
[Williams] to raise the question of his competence to stand trial at [a retrial] and to
request a special hearing thereon.” Pate v. Robinson, 383 U.S. 375, 387 (1966).
However, the failure to give the requested instruction on Williams’s theory
of defense constitutes harmful, reversible error. We find that the proposed
instruction presented a valid defense and that there was some evidence, including
Williams’s testimony at trial, relevant to that defense. In United States v. Ruiz, 59
F.3d 1151 (11th Cir. 1995), we stated that the same pattern instruction submitted
to the jury was inadequate because it “did not focus on the contention that criminal
intent was negated by the defendant’s honest but mistaken belief that the
government, acting through [Ruiz’s co-defendant], had authorized the drug
transaction,” and it thus “failed to recognize that a series of unlawful acts may be
intentionally, willfully, purposefully, and voluntarily committed without criminal
intent.”
Id. at 1154–55 (emphasis omitted). Thus, we concluded that “[t]he failure
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to give the requested instruction seriously impaired the defense because Ruiz’
beliefs were critical to her entire theory.” Id. at 1155.
Williams’s requested instruction and the one that the district court actually
submitted here were nearly identical to Ruiz’s requested instruction and the one
actually submitted to the jury in Ruiz. See id. at 1153 n.8. Further, we have
recognized innocent intent as a generally legitimate defense strategy to negate the
mens rea for a crime. See United States v. Baptista-Rodriguez,
17 F.3d 1354,
1364–65 (11th Cir. 1994). As did Ruiz, Williams testified that he was duped into
cooperating with the government. Thus, the district court erred by failing to
submit Williams’s requested innocent-intent instruction to the jury, which was
critical to his defense.
Accordingly, we reverse Williams’s convictions and sentences and remand
his case for a new trial. On remand, the district court should not permit the
government to introduce Williams’s post-arrest statements.
REVERSED AND REMANDED.
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