United States v. Martin P. Rutherford Nanja Rutherford

Martin P. and Nanja Rutherford, who were found guilty of two counts of tax evasion, appeal the district court’s denial of their motion for a new trial on grounds of jury intimidation, tampering, and misconduct. They assert three errors on appeal. They first contend that the district court erred in concluding that jurors’ statements that they discussed Mrs. Rutherford failure to testify at trial were inadmissible under Fed.R.Evid. 606(b). We reject this contention and affirm the district court on this point. They also assert that the jury was prejudiced because a large number of IRS and government agents sat directly behind the prosecution table throughout the trial and glared at the jurors, intimidating them, and causing some of the jurors to fear that if they acquitted the Rutherfords, the IRS might retaliate against them. In this regard, the Rutherfords assert that the district court improperly restricted the scope of the evi-dentiary hearing and impeded their ability to make a prima facie showing that the jurors were adversely influenced by the government agents’ conduct. The Ruther-fords’ more fundamental contention, however, is that the district court erred in finding that…