United States Eighth Circuit

Conviction for obstruction of justice, threatening to murder an Assistant United States Attorney, and three counts of using a facility of interstate commerce to commit murder-for-hire is affirmed over claims of error that: 1) the district court abused its discretion by denying defendant's motion for continuance, contending that the unredacted recordings might contain exculpatory material and that his trial counsel was unable to focus adequately on the trial after the recordings were produced; and 2) the murder-for-hire indictment was constructively amended by the jury instructions' use of the word "of" instead of mirroring the indictment by using "in".

Appellate Information

• Decided 08/29/2008
• Published 08/29/2008

Judges

• WOLLMAN, Circuit Judge., Before WOLLMAN, BEAM, and RILEY, Circuit Judges.

Court

• United States Eighth Circuit

Counsel

• For Appellant:
  
• David Earl Woods, argued, O'Fallon, MO, for appellant.


• For Appellees:
  
• Angela Scott, AUSA, argued, Kit R. Morrissey, AUSA, on the brief, Fairview Heights, IL, for appellee.