Musacchio v. United States (577 U.S. 237)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided January 25, 2016 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 577 U.S. 237 · 136 S. Ct. 709
- Decided
- January 25, 2016
- Term
- October Term 2015
- Vote
- 9–0
- Majority author
- Justice Thomas
- Issue area
- Criminal Procedure
- Disposition
- Affirmed
- Outcome
- Petitioning party lost
- Ideological direction
- Conservative
Opinion excerpt
Justice THOMAS delivered the opinion of the Court. In this case, the Government failed to object to a jury instruction that erroneously added an element that it had to prove, and petitioner failed to press a statute-of-limitations defense until his appeal. We address two questions arising from the parties' failures to raise timely challenges. We first consider how a court should assess a challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence in a criminal case when a jury instruction adds an element to the charged crime and the Government fails to object. We conclude that the sufficiency of the evidence should be assessed against the elements of the charged crime. We next consider whether the statute-of-limitations defense contained in 18 U.S.C. § 3282(a) (the general federal criminal statute of limitations) may be successfully raised for the first time on appeal. We conclude that it may not be. I Petitioner Michael Musacchio served as president of a logistics company, Exel Transportation Services (ETS), until his resignation in 2004. In 2005, he formed a rival company, Total Transportation Services (TTS). Musacchio was soon joined there by Roy Brown, who previously headed ETS's information-technology department. At TTS, Brown, using a password, continued to access ETS's computer system without ETS's authorization. Brown also gave Musacchio access to ETS's system. This improper access…
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