Youngstown Daily Legal News

Veteran thief loses appeal of bank robbing convictions

ANNIE YAMSON
Special to the Legal News
Published: February 3, 2014

A three-judge appellate panel in the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals recently ruled that the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio properly convicted and sentenced Robert Starnes.

In June and July of 2010, Starnes robbed three Ohio banks.

He took more than $4,600 from the Lorain National Bank and a First Merit Bank and $1,800 from a Chase Bank.

A federal grand jury indicted Starnes, charging him with one count of bank robbery and two counts of armed bank robbery.

He was convicted in the fall of 2010 but that conviction was vacated and the case remanded when the court of appeals found that the government had relied on evidence that it had impermissibly seized.

In November 2012, Starnes was retried by a jury and before a different district judge.

The government presented bank surveillance video and photographs from the June 28, 2010 robbery of Lorain National Bank.

The video depicted Starnes entering the bank, placing a note on the counter and showing the teller a gun in his front waistband.

The teller identified the demand note used in the robbery, which stated, “This is a robbery. No dye packs.”

The teller also identified Starnes as the man who committed the robbery.

Bank surveillance video from the other two robberies were also played at trial.

During each robbery, Starnes placed a note on the counter informing the teller that he was robbing the bank and ordering them to stay calm. The notes were also presented as evidence.

A teller and a branch manager made in-court identifications of Starnes as the robber.

The government then presented evidence that placed Starnes’ cell phone near the three banks before and after the robberies.

Special Agent Kevin Horan testified as an expert witness and stated that Starnes’ cell phone communicated with cell towers in the vicinity of the banks each time one of them was robbed.

At the close of the government’s case, Starnes moved for acquittal under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 29. The court denied the motion.

During the conference on the motion for acquittal, the jury tendered a note to the court deputy.

The note contained two sets of questions from two of the jurors asking, among other things, whether Starnes was given a lie detector test or if there will be a handwriting analysis.

The district court offered to voir dire the two jurors who wrote the note but Starnes and the government declined.

Instead, the parties agreed for the court to issue a curative instruction to the jury, ordering it not to deliberate until it had received the court’s instructions on the law and had heard both sides’ closing arguments.

The defense then rested without calling any witnesses and the jury found Starnes guilty of all three counts listed in his indictment.

He was sentenced to 140 months in prison followed by five years of supervised release and he was ordered to pay restitution of $11,114 along with a special assessment of $300.

Upon appeal, Starnes argued that the district court erred in its handling of the note received from the jurors.

He claimed that the note indicated premature deliberations indicating a structural error which would mandate reversal.

The court of appeals, however, disagreed.

“Upon receipt of the note, the district court asked Starnes if he wanted the court to voir dire the jury, but Starnes affirmatively declined,” the appellate panel stated in its per curiam opinion. “Further, it was Starnes who suggested that issuing a curative instruction would ‘remedy’ the situation.”

According to the record, Starnes never objected to the court’s handling of the note during trial, nor did he move for a mistrial.

The appellate panel held that the note and questions did not indicate any pre-deliberation discussions.

It admitted that the note did suggest that individual jurors were wondering about particular evidence but ultimately determined that the note did not imply that there was any discussion among the jurors.

“The character of the note on which the juror questions were written indicated that the questions came from two separate jurors acting independently,” the court of appeals wrote. “Further, when a court instructs a jury to do something, there is a strong presumption that the jury will follow that instruction.”

The court of appeals noted that the district court instructed the jury not to discuss the case at least 10 times throughout the trial, leading to the reasonable assumption that the jurors obeyed.

It concluded that the district court did not err in its handling of the jury note.

The panel also overruled Starnes’ claim that there was insufficient evidence to support his convictions.

Citing the evidence, it held that the video surveillance, still photographs, eyewitness testimony and cell phone data were enough to convict Starnes and it affirmed the district court’s denial of his motion for acquittal.

After considering Starnes’ extensive criminal history, which included misdemeanor drug possession as well as several felony convictions for breaking and entering and aggravated burglary, the court of appeals proceeded to affirm the sentence handed down in the district court.

Judges Richard Suhrheinrich, Richard Griffin and Raymond Kethledge formed the majority.

The case is cited United States v. Starnes, Case No. 13-3237.

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