United States v. Steven Gene Chase

301 F.3d 1019 UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Steven Gene CHASE, Defendant-Appellant. No. 01-30200. United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit. Argued and Submitted May 6, 2002. Filed August 21, 2002. Brett A. Purtzer, Law Offices of Monte E. Hester, Inc., P.S., Tacoma, WA, for the defendant-appellant. Michael W. Mosman, United States Attorney, and Jeffrey J. Kent, Assistant United States Attorney, Eugene, OR, for the plaintiff-appellee. Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Oregon; Michael R. Hogan, District Judge, Presiding. D.C. No. CR-99-60113-MRH. Before: TROTT and T.G. NELSON, Circuit Judges, and SHADUR, * District Judge. PER CURIAM Opinion; Dissent by Judge SHADUR. PER CURIAM: 1 Steven Gene Chase ("Chase") timely appeals his jury conviction for violating 18 U.S.C. § 115 (a)(1)(B) ("Section 115(a)(1)(B)") by threatening to murder federal law enforcement officers who were preparing to execute a search warrant on his home. Chase contends that the trial court erred (1) when it permitted his psychiatrist, in contravention of the psychotherapist-patient privilege, to give testimony on information she had learned during her…

PER CURIAM Opinion; Dissent by Judge SHADUR.

Steven Gene Chase (“Chase”) timely appeals his jury conviction for violating 18 U.S.C. § 115 (a)(1)(B) (“Section 115(a)(1)(B)”) by threatening to murder federal law enforcement officers who were preparing to execute a search warrant on his home. Chase contends that the trial court erred (1) when it permitted his psychiatrist, in contravention of the psyeho- *1021 therapist-patient privilege, to give testimony on information she had learned during her therapy sessions with him, and (2) when it allowed the jury, in violation of Fed.R.Evid. (“Rule”) 404(b), to hear testimony about asserted threats that Chase had made about individuals other than the federal law enforcement officers.

We hold that the district court correctly found that the psychiatrist’s testimony was not barred by the psychotherapist-patient privilege, and that the court did not err in admitting evidence of other threats. Accordingly, we affirm the district court’s judgment.

I

BACKGROUND

In 1997 Chase began receiving treatment for irritability, anger symptoms, and depression from psychiatrist Kay Dieter at a clinic in Salem, Oregon. Chase, who was receiving Social…

dissenting in part.

Because I read the record through a very different lens than do my colleagues, I respectfully dissent as to the affirmance of the conviction as discussed in Part IV of the per curiam opinion (Parts I through III accurately reflect my own views on the aspects of the case that are dealt with there). When the evidence and the prosecutor’s closing argument are placed alongside the charge in Count I — the only criminal charge of which Steven Chase (“Chase”) stands convicted — I believe that Chase received a profoundly unfair trial on that count.

Whenever a criminal defendant confronts multiple charges, just as whenever multiple defendants confront the same charge, a jury is asked to conduct what amounts to multiple simultaneous trials. In that respect the district judge here properly charged the jury with the standard instruction that is Ninth Circuit Model Instruction 3.12:

But unfortunately the vast bulk of the trial testimony and the overwhelming majority of the prosecutor’s closing argument were devoted to wrongs and acts other than the threat that was the gravamen of Count I — wrongs and acts that demonstrated Chase to be a thoroughly unpleasant man but did…