United States v. Lutrell Davis

Appellant Lutrell Davis is a Hawaii state prisoner. He mailed a letter to Chief District Judge Harold M. Fong, threatening to kill both Judge Fong and Senior District Judge Samuel P. King. As a consequence, he was convicted of mailing a threatening letter with intent to extort, and threatening to murder a United States judge with intent to impede, intimidate, interfere with, or retaliate against such judge, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 115 (a) (Supp. IV 1988) and 18 U.S.C. § 876 (1982). He contends that the district court’s refusal to give certain jury instructions, its admission of certain testimony and its exclusion of certain defense exhibits warrant reversal of his conviction. He also contends that the district court erred in refusing to grant his motion for acquittal on count one, 18 U.S.C. § 876 . We review the trial court’s evidentiary rulings for abuse of discretion. United States v. Crespo de Llano, 838 F.2d 1006, 1018 (9th Cir.1988).

A. Davis first contends that the district court erred by refusing his proposed self-defense and necessity instructions. The proposed self-defense instruction was appropriate, he argues, because he had testified that “the Federal Judges were…