US v. Contreras-Avalos: Castro-Aleman and two codefendants were charged with “various crimes related to their involvement in the transnational gang MS-13.” Specifically, they were charged with two counts of aiding and abetting a violent crime in aid of racketeering for their roles in a pair of murders (one of an alleged informant and the other of a rival gang member). During the oral presentation of jury instructions, the district court told the jury that on each of those counts the charge was conspiracy to commit those murders. The actual elements of the offenses were correct and the written charge that went to the jury was also correct. The defendants were convicted on all counts.
On appeal, the Fourth Circuit affirmed the convictions of Castro-Aleman and his codefendants. The court held that plain error was the proper standard of review, noting that the defendants did not object to the misread instructions, although they did “point one of them out – the government raised the other.” The court rebuffed the Government’s argument that invited error analysis applied, ultimately “choos[ing] not to decide” because the result was the same either way. That is because although there was error and it was plain, the defendants could not show prejudice, due to the correct explanation of the elements and the correct written instructions.
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