## Facts

- Police responded to a 911 report that Jerry Thomas Davis had pointed a sawed-off shotgun at another person.
- Officer Jady Pipes, who also served as the city and police-department chaplain, was the only witness who testified that he saw Davis throw an object from a car window.
- Officers recovered the discarded object, which was a short-barreled (sawed-off) shotgun.
- Davis was charged in federal court with possessing an unregistered short-barreled shotgun.
- The district court allowed the government to refer to Pipes as “chaplain” and elicit that his job included chaplain duties, but barred Pipes from wearing a hat displaying a prominent cross while testifying.
- Davis requested (1) exclusion of the “chaplain” references, (2) a special jury instruction about evaluating law-enforcement credibility, and (3) relief from a supplemental instruction given after the jury reported deadlock.
- The jury convicted Davis, and he appealed.

## Issues

1. Whether admitting evidence that a key police witness’s job was chaplain violated Federal Rule of Evidence 610 when the evidence was not offered to support or attack credibility based on religious belief.
2. Whether the district court abused its discretion by refusing a special jury instruction focusing on the credibility of law-enforcement witnesses and the defendant’s right to challenge it.
3. Whether the court’s post–Allen-charge instruction directing further deliberations, while indicating jurors would be released after a short additional period if no verdict was reached, impermissibly coerced a verdict.

## Decision

- The Eleventh Circuit affirmed the conviction.
- The court held that Rule 610 was not violated by references to Pipes’s chaplain job title because the references were not used to argue he was more or less credible due to religion.
- The court held the district court did not abuse its discretion in denying an officer-specific credibility instruction because the general witness-credibility instruction adequately covered the subject.
- The court held the supplemental deadlock instruction was not coercive; it did not pressure minority jurors, did not suggest a required outcome, and the prospect of release made clear a verdict was not mandatory.

## Legal Principles

- Federal Rule of Evidence 610 bars using a witness’s religious beliefs or opinions to attack or support credibility; it does not categorically exclude all evidence that incidentally reflects religious affiliation when offered for a non-credibility purpose.
- A trial court may deny a requested special instruction if the charge, viewed as a whole, accurately states the law and sufficiently covers the defendant’s theory and the relevant credibility considerations.
- Post-deadlock instructions, including modified Allen-type guidance, are reviewed for coercion; an instruction is permissible if it encourages continued deliberation without pressuring jurors to abandon conscientiously held views or implying that a verdict is required.

## Conclusion

The Eleventh Circuit upheld Davis’s conviction for possessing an unregistered short-barreled shotgun, concluding that limited references to a key officer-witness’s chaplain role did not implicate Rule 610, standard credibility instructions were sufficient, and the court’s handling of jury deadlock did not coerce a verdict.


United States v. Davis, 779 F.3d 1305 (11th Cir. 2015)