{"id":1888,"date":"2017-04-17T16:57:55","date_gmt":"2017-04-17T16:57:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sentencing.net\/?p=1888"},"modified":"2019-11-20T10:58:13","modified_gmt":"2019-11-20T15:58:13","slug":"conviction-reversed-constructive-amendment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sentencing.net\/trial\/conviction-reversed-constructive-amendment","title":{"rendered":"Constructive Amendment To Indictment Requires Reversal Of Attempted Sex Trafficking Conviction"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n<p>The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has reversed a defendant\u2019s conviction for attempted <a href=\"https:\/\/sentencing.net\/trial\/conviction-reversed-constructive-amendment\">sex trafficking<\/a> after finding a constructive amendment to indictment had occurred during trial. Ricky Davis was charged with attempted sex trafficking, a violation of 18 U.S.C. 1591(a). The indictment alleged that Davis \u201c&#8230; knowingly attempted to recruit, entice, harbor, transport, provide, obtain, and maintain by any means, a person to engage in a commercial sex act, to wit: a minor female victim, &#8230; knowing or in reckless disregard of the fact that the person had not attained the age of 18 years..\u201dHowever, at trial, the jury was instructed that \u201cThe elements of sex trafficking are: &#8230; (2) knowing that Bianca had not attained the age of 18 years, or recklessly disregarded that fact,\u00a0<em>or the defendant had a reasonable opportunity to observe Bianca<\/em>, and that Bianca would be caused to engage in a commercial sex act &#8230; \u201d<\/p>\r\n<p>Another instruction stated, \u201cFor the defendant to be found guilty, the Government need not prove that the defendant knew Bianca had not attained the age of 18 <em>so long as the defendant had a reasonable opportunity to observe Bianca<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\r\n<p>And during its closing, the Government argued that \u201cWe, again, submit that the evidence shows both, that Bianca had not attained the age of 18, or the defendant recklessly disregarded that fact, or he had a reasonable opportunity to observe Bianca and that she would be caused to engage in a commercial sex act.\u201d<\/p>\r\n<p>The Ninth Circuit, Court of Appeals found that the indictment was constructively amended.<\/p>\r\n<blockquote><p>\u201cIt is evident that the language of the indictment differs substantially from the jury instruction and the government&#8217;s closing argument. Specifically, the indictment charged that Davis knew Bianca was a minor or that he recklessly disregarded this fact. Thus, under the indictment, the government was required to prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, either that Davis affirmatively knew of Bianca&#8217;s age, or, alternatively, that he recklessly disregarded her minority status. In contrast, the jury instructions afforded jurors a\u00a0<em>third<\/em>\u00a0option for convicting Davis: namely, they could convict, even without a finding as to knowledge or recklessness, so long as they determined that Davis\u00a0<em>\u201chad a reasonable opportunity to observe Bianca.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\r\n<p>The Ninth Circuit held that a constructive amendment occurs when \u201cthe crime charged [in the indictment] was substantially altered at trial so that it was impossible to know whether the grand jury would have indicted for the crime actually proved.\u201d<\/p>\r\n<p>Davis\u2019 conviction was accordingly reversed. See <a href=\"http:\/\/cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov\/datastore\/opinions\/2017\/04\/14\/15-10402.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><em>United States v. Davis<\/em><\/a>, No. 15-10402 (9th Cir. 2017).<\/p>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has reversed a defendant\u2019s conviction for attempted sex trafficking after finding a constructive amendment to indictment had occurred during trial. Ricky Davis was charged with attempted sex trafficking, a violation of 18 U.S.C. 1591(a). The indictment alleged that Davis \u201c&#8230; knowingly attempted to recruit, entice, harbor,&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1892,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[321],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Constructive Amendment | Court of Appeals | Sentencing.net<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has reversed a defendant&#039;s conviction for attempted sex trafficking based on a constructive amendment.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/sentencing.net\/trial\/conviction-reversed-constructive-amendment\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" 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