United States of America v. Michael Stefan Prime - CEDAR

UNITED STATES v. PRIMEtimely manner. Finally, as the court suggested, a strong inferencecould be drawn that this motion was brought for purposesof delay, as it was the second such eve-of-trial motions,accompanied, as before, by a request for a continuance. Thedistrict court’s decision was not, therefore, an abuse of discretion.VJURY EXPOSURE TO EXTRINSIC EVIDENCE4993As jury deliberations commenced, a problem arose whenthe jury was mistakenly provided access to 24 exhibits thathad not been admitted into evidence. The extrinsic evidenceincluded money orders and e-mail correspondence with aliasesused to conduct fraudulent transactions, written reportsby both the fingerprint and handwriting expert, and certifiedcopies of prior convictions for both Prime and his friendShawn Cahill.The court became aware of this mistake when the jurymade a request to see Storer’s handwriting report, and shortlythereafter informed the court that they had found it. At thispoint, the court recognized that the jury had been given exhibitsthat had not been admitted into evidence and that it had tomake a decision as to the impact of the evidence. After a briefreview, the court concluded that Storer’s written report didnot include anything that had not been testified to at trial, andthat there was no harm given the brief period it was availableto the jury.During this time, the prosecution also brought to the court’sattention that there may be other exhibits in the jury room thathad not been admitted into evidence. The court then called thejury into the courtroom and informed them that “the reportfrom Kathleen Storer . . . was never offered into evidence, andwas never admitted into evidence. It should not have gone tothe jury room. We have withdrawn the report and you should