In U.S. v. Ronda, No. 03-15640 (July 13, 2006), the Court (Tjoflat, Hull & Restani b.d.) affirmed the convictions and sentences of former Miami policemen involved in the fabrication of evidence to make police shootngs appear justified, by planting guns at the scenes of the shootings and/or making false statements to investigators.
Citing U.S. v. Veal, 153 F.3d 1233 (11th Cir. 1998), the Court rejected the argument that there was no federal nexus for their obstruction of justice convictions, because they lied to state, not federal, investigators. It suffices that it was "likely" that the misleading information would be transferred to a federal agent. Here, it was likely that such a federal investigation would occur. The Court distinguished Arthur Andersen v. U.S., 544 U.S. 696 (2005), as involving a different obstruction statute which referenced "an official proceeding," language not included in the statute defendants were charged with violating.
The Court rejected the argument that the jury should have been instructed about Florida’s fleeing felon statute, which authorizes police to shoot at fleeing felons in certain circumstances. The Court noted that the statute itself was introduced into evidence. Further, since the defendants still violated the law by obstructing investigations into the shootings, the justification for the shootings themselves under the fleeing felon statute had no legal impact on the elements of the obstruction offense.
The Court rejected the argument that there was no single over-arching conspiracy, finding "overwhelming" evidence to the contrary.
The Court rejected defendant Gonzalez’ argument that the evidence of perjury was insufficient. Contrary to Gonzalez’ claim that he had merely testified that he was uncertain about whether victims of police shootings had a gun, the transcript shows that Gonzalez said he believed they had a gun.
The Court affirmed the denial of a mistrial based on extrinsic evidence that one juror allegedly gave the jury during deliberations, based on watching tv reports of the trial. Further, though another juror’s home was burglarized during the trial, the trial court instructed the jury that this was in no way related to the trial. The trial court interviewed these jurors separately, and wisely chose to dismiss them.
Turning to the sentences, the Court found no Booker plain error, because the defendants did not show any comments by the district court that the sentences were too severe.
