United States v. Gary Halbert

Halbert, the appellant, together with co-defendants Bucklan and Culbertson, was indicted on 16 counts of mail fraud charging violations of 18 U.S.C. §§ 1341 , 1342, in connection with a scheme to market items commemorating the Nation’s Bicentennial. Halbert asserts several claims of error, most of which are without merit. Each of Halbert’s claims, ánd the facts necessary to evaluate them, are considered in the subsections below. His principal claim is that it was prejudicial error to allow the prosecution to introduce evidence that his codefendants had pleaded guilty to the offense for which Halbert stood trial. We conclude that although the challenged evidence was admissible for certain purposes, the trial court failed to give the jury a sufficiently clear instruction limiting the proper use of such evidence and the judgment must therefore be reversed.

I.

After initially pleading not guilty, Culbertson changed his plea to guilty on one count of mail fraud and testified against Halbert at trial. Bucklan, who originally pleaded guilty to mail fraud, also testified against Halbert. Both codefendants were asked by the prosecutor, during direct examination, about their guilty pleas…