132041P.pdf   01/10/2014  United States  v.  Edward J.S. Picardi
   U.S. Court of Appeals Case No:  13-2041
   U.S. District Court for the District of South Dakota - Rapid City   
   [PUBLISHED] [Gruender, Author, with Loken and Shepherd, Circuit Judges] 
   Criminal case - Criminal law. District court did not abuse its discretion 
   by replacing two jurors with alternates; dismissal of the jurors outside 
   of defendant's presence did not implicate his Sixth Amendment rights as no 
   witness or evidence against him was presented when the court dismissed the 
   jurors, and there was no evidence that the replacement of the jurors 
   prejudiced defendant; no error in excluding defendant's exhibit, an email 
   from the attorney who set up the tax scheme in question, as the exhibit 
   was likely to confuse the jury and was cumulative of other evidence; no 
   error in limiting the scope of defendant's examination of a defense 
   witness as the proposed line of testimony was inadmissible hearsay; the 
   district court did not err in rejecting defendant's proposed 
   theory-of-defense instruction to the effect that a defendant could not 
   form the requisite intent to violate a vague or highly debatable tax law 
   as this instruction presented an issue - whether a tax law is void for 
   vagueness - reserved for the court.