09-3953 Morisch v. U.S.

Civil Procedure
Appeals; record

Where the appellant failed to file the entire trial transcript and claims insufficiency of the evidence, the appeal is forfeited.

“The district court was permitted to consider all the evidence at trial and make factual findings based on that evidence. We review those findings under a deferential standard, but we cannot engage in a meaningful review of those findings when we only have the trial testimony of one of several witnesses who testified. The government, who was satisfied with the trial court’s findings, had no obligation or incentive to order the transcripts. Gerald must convince us that the trial court erred, and he cannot meet this burden without providing us with the record of the bench trial. (In fact, in his reply brief, which was stricken for being late, Gerald urges us to consider cited portions of Dr. Schreiber’s testimony, even though it’s not in the record.) Without the transcripts, ‘we are unable to evaluate the evidence submitted in this case,’ Hotaling, 241 F.3d at 581, and cannot conduct a meaningful review of Gerald’s claim, see Birchler, 88 F.3d at 519-20.”

Dismissed.

09-3953 Morisch v. U.S.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Illinois, Murphy, J., Tinder, J.

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