United States v. David Valasquez Acosta

McWILLIAMS, Circuit Judge.

David Velasquez Acosta was charged with unlawfully conveying from place to place within the United States Penitentiary at Leavenworth, Kansas, a thing designed to kill, injure or disable an employee, officer, agent or inmate thereof, to wit: a homemade knife, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1792. His first trial on that charge ended in a mistrial as the result of a hung jury.

Acosta was then tried six months later on the same charge, and this time the jury convicted. On appeal Acosta now asserts that the trial court erred in three particulars: (1) in refusing to grant his…