United States v. Edwin Arnold, Jr. ( 2023 )

NOT FOR PUBLICATION FILED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS JUN 15 2023
MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK
U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, No. 22-10012
Plaintiff-Appellee, D.C. No.
2:17-cr-00042-APG-DJA-2
v.
EDWIN ARNOLD, Jr., MEMORANDUM *
Defendant-Appellant.
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the District of Nevada
Andrew P. Gordon, District Judge, Presiding
Submitted June 6, 2023**
San Francisco, California
Before: MILLER and KOH, Circuit Judges, and CHRISTENSEN,*** District
Judge.
Edwin Arnold appeals his jury conviction for conspiracy to commit Hobbs
Act robbery, Hobbs Act robbery, conspiracy to commit bank robbery, bank
*
This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent
except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3.
**
The panel unanimously concludes this case is suitable for decision
without oral argument. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2).
***
The Honorable Dana L. Christensen, United States District Judge for
the District of Montana, sitting by designation.
robbery, and brandishing a firearm during and in relation to a crime of violence.
As the parties are familiar with the facts of this case, we do not recite them here.
We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291, and we affirm.
Arnold challenges the district court’s denial of his motion for a mistrial on
Sixth Amendment Confrontation Clause grounds. We review the denial of a
motion for a mistrial for abuse of discretion, United States v. Lemus, 847 F.3d
1016, 1024 (9th Cir. 2016), and an alleged Confrontation Clause violation de novo,
United States v. Mikhel, 889 F.3d 1003, 1043 (9th Cir. 2018).
The district court did not abuse its discretion in denying Arnold’s motion for
a mistrial. Arnold contends that two references in the government’s opening
statement to codefendant Shamariae Jones’s confession violated his Sixth
Amendment right of confrontation. First, Arnold argues that the government’s
reference in its opening statement to Jones’s confession to driving Arnold to four
robberies violated Bruton v. United States, 391 U.S. 123 (1968), which “held that a
defendant is deprived of his Sixth Amendment right of confrontation when a
facially incriminating confession of a nontestifying codefendant is introduced at
their joint trial, even if the jury is instructed to consider the confession only against
the codefendant.” Mikhel, 889 F.3d at 1044. However, the Supreme Court
distinguished Bruton in Frazier v. Cupp, 394 U.S. 731 (1969), holding that a
prosecutor’s summary of a codefendant’s confession only during opening
2
statements did not constitute “‘reversible error unavoidable through limiting
instructions.’” Id. at 735 (quoting Bruton, 391 U.S. at 135).
Frazier controls here. Like in Frazier, the jury heard only a paraphrase of
Jones’s confession to driving Arnold in an opening statement, and the confession
was not admitted into evidence during the trial. See id. As a result, “the jury was
not being asked to perform the mental gymnastics of considering an incriminating
statement against only one of two defendants in a joint trial.” Id. Further, as in
Frazier, the jury was given cautionary instructions that opening statements should
not be considered as evidence. See id. Here, the district court three times
instructed the jury that opening statements are not evidence. Moreover, one of
those instructions was given shortly after and in direct response to the
government’s opening statement. Finally, again like in Frazier, the confession
“was not a vitally important part of the prosecution’s case” because there was
ample independent evidence of Arnold’s guilt. Id. In sum, a mistrial was not
warranted here, as “the limiting instructions given were sufficient to protect
[Arnold’s] constitutional rights.” Id.1
1
Contrary to Arnold’s assertion, no Bruton violation occurred by the government’s
references during closing arguments to law enforcement officers witnessing Jones
driving Arnold just after a robbery. These references made no mention of Jones’s
confession to driving Arnold, or the fact that Jones had confessed to doing so. See
Mikhel, 889 F.3d at 1044. Instead, the government’s references were based on
other properly admitted evidence, including testimony from law enforcement
officers who observed Jones driving into Arnold’s apartment complex just after the
3
Second, Arnold challenges the government’s reference to Jones’s confession
that the money in his possession when he was arrested after a robbery “came from
earlier that day.” Although Jones’s confession as to the money was introduced into
evidence, “[t]he Bruton rule is . . . ‘limited to facially incriminating confessions,’”
and “there is no Confrontation Clause violation if the codefendant’s confession
must be linked to other evidence to incriminate the defendant.” Mikhel, 889 F.3d
at 1044 (quoting Richardson v. Marsh, 481 U.S. 200, 209 (1987)); see also Gray v.
Maryland, 523 U.S. 185, 195 (1998) (“Richardson placed outside the scope of
Bruton’s rule those statements that incriminate inferentially.”). Because Jones’s
confession as to the money “does not mention [Arnold] at all,” Mason, 447 F.3d at
695–96, and “the facts that would have allowed the jury to infer that [Jones’s]
statement implicated [Arnold] came through other, properly admitted evidence”
linking Arnold to the robberies, id. at 696, no Bruton violation occurred.
AFFIRMED.
robbery, backing up the car into a parking spot in front of Arnold’s residence,
moving to the back seat where he sat for several minutes, and then opening the
trunk from which Arnold emerged with no shirt on. See Mason v. Yarborough,
447 F.3d 693, 696 (9th Cir. 2006).
4