163945P.pdf   12/11/2017  United States  v.  Steven Blakeney
   U.S. Court of Appeals Case No:  16-3945
   U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri - St. Louis   
   [PUBLISHED] [Gruender, Author, with Wollman and Melloy, Circuit Judges] 
   Criminal case - Criminal law. Evidence was sufficient to support 
   defendant's conviction for conspiring to deprive a person of her civil 
   rights; the government presented facts which would allow a reasonable jury 
   to conclude that there was an agreement between defendant, a Pine Lawn, 
   Missouri police officer, and the city's mayor; the evidence was also 
   sufficient to show defendant deprived a mayoral race candidate of her 
   civil rights under color of state law by having her illegally arrested; no 
   error in admitting an unsigned copy of the police department incident 
   report which gave rise to the arrest as the admission did not violate the 
   best evidence rule; no error in admitting a co-conspirator's statement 
   made during the course of and in furtherance of the conspiracy; 
   prosecutor's comments in closing argument were not an improper comment on 
   defendant's failure to testify; district court did not err in its response 
   to the jury's question regarding the charge of falsifying a document; 
   defendant's absence when the court answered a question from the jury about 
   a transcript did not prejudice him as the judge gave both parties a chance 
   to object and comment once he had "tracked everyone down;" defendant was 
   not entitled to have the jury review a transcript of the government's 
   witnesses' testimony.