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Case 1:19-cr-00830-AT Document35 Filed 04/24/20 Page17 of 34 ee Discussion Thomas’s motion makes clear that he intends for his principal defense at trial to be that— irrespective of his guilt or innocence of the false statements charges—he should be acquitted because the MCC was understaffed, Thomas was overworked, his supervisors did not catch his crime in the moment, and falsification of count slips is rampant within the BOP. (See Mot. 3 (“staffing issues, staffing shortages, supervisory lapses and the enforcement/interpretation of BOP procedures go to the heart of his defense to the government’s criminal allegations’); 9 (Mr. Thomas will assert that the rampant staffing shortages present at the MCC in August of 2019 led to the conduct for which Mr. Thomas is now criminally charged.”)). Thomas has failed to meet his burden in establishing the materiality of discovery about these topics to preparing a valid defense because the materials he seeks do not rebut the merits of the criminal charges and instead would be impermissibly used to encourage jury nullification. The purported reasons for Thomas’s decision to falsify count slips—being tired, overworked, or understaffed—are not a valid legal defense, and therefore evidence related to those issues is not relevant. Put simply, were the jury to find beyond a reasonable doubt that Thomas intentionally made materially false statements and a/so that did so while tired or overworked, it would still be required to convict him. See United States v. Carr, 424 F.3d 213, 221 (2d Cir. 2005) (holding that “it was proper for the district court to instruct the jury that it had a duty to find [the defendant] guilty if the government proved beyond a reasonable doubt every element of the offense with which he was charged” (internal citation omitted)). None of Thomas’s proffered excuses relate to proving or rebutting the elements of a violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1001(a)(3) as they do not concern whether a writing or entry was false, whether it was material to a matter within the jurisdiction of the BOP, or whether he knowingly 12 DOJ-OGR-00022079