United States v. Phillip Rossomando

How courts have described this case

Verbatim parenthetical descriptions written by other courts when citing this decision. Ranked by citation-network relevance.

• holding that court erred in giving “no ultimate harm” instruction because lack of proper predicate made charge too confusing for jury and potentially vitiated defendant’s good-faith defense
• noting that “where some immediate loss to the victim is contemplated by a defendant, the fact that the defendant believes (rightly or wrongly) that he will ‘ultimately be able to work things out so that the victim suffers no loss is no excuse”
• vacating conviction because initial charge was erroneous and 5 supplemental charge failed to fix the problem
• finding a no-ultimate-harm instruction improper where defense’s theory at trial had been that the defendant thought the victim was “never going to lose money”
• noting that ʺwhere some immediate loss to the victim is contemplated by a defendant, the fact that the defendant believes (rightly or wrongly) that he will ʹultimatelyʹ be able to work things out so that the victim suffers no loss is no excuseʺ
• jury request that the court clarify its “no ultimate harm” instruction demonstrated “evident confusion” resulting from instruction

Source: CourtListener parenthetical corpus (CC0).