Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca10-87-01498/USCOURTS-ca10-87-01498-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Roger Dale Fults
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

.. 

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS 

TENTH CIRCUIT 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 

Plaintiff-Appellee, 

FILEDunit.ec1 St.at.es Court of Appeals 

Tenth Circuit 

JAN 2 8 19SS 

ROBERT L. HOECKER 

Clerk 

v. 

No. 87-1498 

(D.C. No. 86-90-CR) 

(E.D. Okla.) 

ROGER DALE FULTS, 

Defendant-Appellant. 

ORDER AND JUDGMENT 

Before ANDERSON,BALDOCK, and MCWILLIAMS, Circuit Judges. 

Roger Dale Fults, his sister, Valerie Jane Minyard, and one 

Joe Richard Phillips were charged in an eleven-count indictment 

with various crimes arising out of, or otherwise connected with, 

the transportation of a stolen 1985 Pontiac Trans Arn motor vehicle 

from Dallas, Texas, to Bokchito, Oklahoma. At trial, Fults was 

convicted by a jury on Counts II through VI, and was sentenced to 

18 months imprisonment on each of those five counts, each sentence 

to be served consecutively to the others. Fults appeals. We 

affirm. 

Count II charged Fults and Phillips with the transportation 

in interstate commerce of a stolen 1985 Pontiac Trans Arn from 

Dallas, Texas, to Bokchito, Oklahoma, in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 

2312 and 2. 

Appellate Case: 87-1498 Document: 010110025167 Date Filed: 01/28/1988 Page: 1 
Count III- charged all three defendants with the knowing 

receipt, possession and concealment of the stolen 1985 Pontiac 

Trans Am which had moved in interstate commerce from Dallas, 

Texas, to Bokchito, Oklahoma, in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 2313 

and 2. 

Count IV charged Fults and Phillips with the unlawful 

removal, obliteration, alteration of, and tampering with, the 

identification numbers on a 1985 Pontiac Trans Am bearing Vehicle 

Identification numbers (VIN) 1G2FW87F3FL-644489, in violation of 

18 U.S. C. §§ 511 and 2. ( This was the vehicle which formed the 

basis for the crime charged in Count II.) 

Count V charged Fults and Phillips with the unlawful removal, 

obliteration, alteration of, and tampering with, the identification numbers on a 1985 Pontiac Trans Am bearing VIN 

1G2FW87F7FL621443, in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 511 and 2. (This 

was not the vehicle which formed the basis for Count II.) 

Count VI charged all three defendants with a mail fraud 

violation arising out of the use of the mails to obtain title from 

the Oklahoma licensing authorities for the stolen vehicle referred 

to in Count II, in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 1341 and 2. 

On appeal, counsel urges three grounds for reversal: (1) The 

district court's instruction to the jury regarding possession of a 

motor vehicle recently stolen violates defendant's due process 

rights and destroys the presumption of innocence; (2) the evidence 

relating to Counts IV, V, and VII is legally insufficient to support a conviction; and (3) the district court erred in its answer 

to a question concerning "aiding and abetting" raised by the jury 

-2-

Appellate Case: 87-1498 Document: 010110025167 Date Filed: 01/28/1988 Page: 2 
during the courcse of their deliberations. We are not persuaded. 

Brief discussion of the government's evidence will put these matters in focus. 

The govern~ent's theor y o f the case was that the three 

defendants, acting in concert, were engaged in the business of 

stealing motor vehicles in the course of which they would replace 

the VINs on the stolen vehicle with VINs from a wrecked vehicle 

of the same make and model. 1 In support thereof, a government 

witness, Terry Pearson, testified that in November, 1985, he sold 

a wrecked 1985 Pontiac Trans Arn, which he had acquired at an 

auction yard in Grand Prairie, Texas, to Phillips, one of the 

defendants, who ran a garage in Bokchito, Oklahoma. Another 

government witness, Samuel Moon, testified that his 1985 Pontiac 

Trans Arn was stolen in Dallas, Texas, at about 7:00 p.m. on the 

evening of January 7, 1986. A third government witness, Fults' 

sister, Valerie Jane Minyard, a defendant in the case, testified 

that in the late afternoon on January 8, 1986, her brother, the 

appellant, appeared at her trail e r ho use in Bokchitc, Oklahoma, 

with a 1985 Pontiac Trans Arn which he offered to sell her. 2 She 

1 VINs are placed on automobiles in several locations. The 

"public" VINs are placed on the dashboard of the vehicle and as 

part of the federal certification sticker which is attached to the 

driver's side door. The lasts.ix digits of a VIN are also placed 

in the body plate of the front portion of a vehicle. A 

confidential VIN is placed in the motor of an automobile in a 

place that is assigned the manufacturer of the automobile. 

Another confidential VIN is also placed in the fender well of a 

vehicle. 

2 Minyard was employed at the Reba Phillips Tag Agency in 

Bokchito. Minyard's job duties included inspecting VINs on outof-state automobiles and filling out title information on such 

vehicles to send to the vehicle registration office in Oklahoma 

City, Oklahoma. 

-3-

Appellate Case: 87-1498 Document: 010110025167 Date Filed: 01/28/1988 Page: 3 
,. 

further testif-i.ed that after limited negotiations she purchased 

the vehicle for $12,500, and that her brother at that time 

delivered the car to her. She testified that her brother also 

gave her a Texas Salvage Certificate of Title, which title 

indicated that the vehicle had been rebuilt. Moon, the owner of 

the vehicle stolen in Dallas, Texas, testified that a photograph 

taken by the police of the vehicle which Valerie Minyard acquired 

from the appellant was a photograph of his automobile, and further 

stated that his vehicle had never been "rebuilt." 

Fults elected not to testify at his trial. However, a police 

officer for Durant, Oklahoma, testified that he questioned the 

defendant about the vehicle which he, the defendant, sold his 

sister, and that Fults at that time stated he had acquired the 

vehicle from Pearson. 

Over objection, the district court instructed the jury, in 

part, as follows: 

The term "interstate commerce" includes any movement from one state to another state. 

Possessi o n of a ver.icle . ecently stolen, if not 

satisfactorily explained, is ~rdinarily a circumstance 

from which the jury may find, in the light of other 

circumstances shown by the evidence in the case, that 

the person in possession knew the vehicle was stolen and 

that he transported it in interstate commerce. 

It is the exclusive province of the jury to 

determine whether the acts and circumstances shown by 

the evidence in tne case warrant any inference which the 

law permits you to draw from the possession of a 

recently stolen vehicle. If any possession the accused 

may have had of a recently stolen vehicle is consistent 

with innocence, or if you entertain a reasonable doubt 

of guilt, you must acquit the accused. 

-4-

Appellate Case: 87-1498 Document: 010110025167 Date Filed: 01/28/1988 Page: 4 
As indicated,. counsel objected to the foregoing inst ruction 

on the ground that it destroyed the presumption of innocence and 

violated defendant's due process rights. On appeal, counsel 

concedes that instructions along the same line as the instruction 

set forth above have been repeatedly approved by this court, and 

that such represents the "clear weight of authority." We agree. 

For example, in United States v. Colbert, 448 F.2d 645, 646 (10th 

Cir. 1971), we stated as follows: 

This court has often held that proof of possession of a 

recently stolen automobile in a state other than the one 

where it was stolen is sufficient to sustain an inference that the one in possession transported the vehicle 

in interstate commerce knowing it to have been stolen, 

unless the possession is satisfactorily explained. 

The general rule is that v here one is in possession o f an 

article which was recently stolen, a jury may infer from such 

circumstance that the party in possession himself stole the 

property in the first instance, unless such possession is 

satisfactorily explained. United States v. Luman, 624 F.2d 152, 

155 (10th Cir. 1980). Such rule is of long standing and is based 

on human experience and common sense. The instruction given by 

the trial court here is an adaptation of the general rule to a 

Dyer Act (18 u.s.c. §§ 2311-13) charge. 3 In this latter regard, 

see United States v. White, 649 F.2d 779, 782 (10th Cir. 1981), 

where we stated that an instuction which advised the jury that it 

may infer from the possession of recently stolen property that the 

3 The Dyer Act concerns the transportation of motor vehicles or 

aircraft in interstate or foreign commerce. 

-5-

Appellate Case: 87-1498 Document: 010110025167 Date Filed: 01/28/1988 Page: 5 
• 

person in suc~ _possession knew the property had been stolen did 

not violate constitutional rights. 

In the instant case, the evidence established beyond all 

doubt that the vehicle which Fults sold his sister was the vehicle 

stolen the day before from Moon in Dallas, Texas. 4 In connection 

with the sale, Pules ga ve nis sister a Texas Salvage Certificate 

of Title and later told an investigating officer that he had 

acquired the vehicle in question from Pearson. The jury 

obviously, and understandably, did not believe this explanation. 

We find no error in the instruction. The first and second 

paragraphs of the instruction set out above are both legally 

correct, and the third paragraph puts the matter in proper 

context. 

Counsel for Fults next argues that the government's evidence 

is legally insufficient to support a conviction on Counts IV, V, 

and VI. Such is not our analysis of the record. A car was stolen 

in Dallas, Texas, and the following day Fults appears in Bokchito, , 

Oklahoma with the stolen car, net some other car that looked li~e 

the stolen car, but the stolen car. The vehicle which Fults sold 

to his sister had certain VINs still in place which were the VINs 

of the vehicle stolen in Dallas. However, certain other 

identifying numbers which were originally on the stolen vehicle 

4 The VINs from the dashboard, body plate and federal 

certification sticker all corresponded to each other and were the 

numbers of the salvage vehicle. The VINs from the engine, 

transmission and fender well all corresponded to each other and 

also corresponded to the numbers of the vehicle stolen from Moon 

in Dallas. 

-6-

Appellate Case: 87-1498 Document: 010110025167 Date Filed: 01/28/1988 Page: 6 
., 

had been remo~_~d, and replaced with numbers from the wrecked 

salvage vehicle which Pearson had previously sold Phillips. 

Count IV charged Fults and Phillips with removing a VIN from 

the Moon vehicle, and Count V charged the same two with altering 

the VINs on the salvage vehicle acquired from Pearson. When Fults 

appears in Bokchito, Oklahoma, with a vehicle stolen in Dallas, 

Texas, bearing VINs belonging both to the original vehicle and the 

salvaged vehicle sold by Pearson to Phillips, the jury could 

permissibly infer that Fults had something to do with alteration 

of the VINs on both vehicles. All defendants were charged with 

"aiding and abetting" under 18 U.S.C. § 2, and, under the facts 

and circumstances oE this case, the jury could infer, at the very 

least, that Fults was aiding and abetting in this total operation, 

even though he may not have actually held the tools used to effect 

this partial transfer of VINs. 

Count VI charged all three defendants with mail fraud arising 

out of the use of the mails in connection with the obtaining of an 

Oklahoma title. Counsel argues that Fults did not himself mail 

any matter, nor himself prepare any of the material which Minyard 

mailed. Such is not a complete defense. In Pereira v. United 

States, 347 U.S. 1, 8-9 (1953), the Supreme Court stated that 

"[w]here one does an act with knowledge that the use of the mails 

will follow in the ordinary course of business, or where such can 

reasonably be foreseen, even though not actually intended, then he 

'causes' the mails to be used." See also, United States v. 

Sparrow, 470 F.2d 885 (10th Cir. 1972). It was at the very least 

a jury question as to whether Fults, who had given his sister a 

-7-

Appellate Case: 87-1498 Document: 010110025167 Date Filed: 01/28/1988 Page: 7 
Texas Salvag~ Certificate of Title, could have "reasonably 

foreseen" that in the "ordinary course of business" his sister 

would use the mail to obtain an Oklahoma title. 

During the course of their deliberation, the jury presented 

the following question to the district court: 

The indictment says "effect the removal," and then the 

law says, "whoever knowingly removes." Does the defendant have to personally remove the VIN or can he have 

someone else do it? 

To that inquiry, the district court responded as follows: 

The statute says "whoever knowingly removes." That 

requires an action by that person. However, the defendant has been charged with the aiding and abetting 

statute, so if you find that he, beyond a reasonable 

doubt, that he removes it himself, or aids and abets 

under the instructions concerning aiding and abetting, 

if he complies with those beyond a reasonable doubt then 

the statute, the aiding and abetting statute, is satisfied. Otherwise the law itself does require removal by 

the defendant himself before he can be found guilty, if 

you found that beyond a reasonable doubt. 

I would remind you, as I must under the law, when I comment at all on the instructions of the burden of proof 

that the government has and of the presumption of innocence of the defendant. 

We find no error in the district court's response to the 

jury's inquiry. There was no abuse 6f discretion. In support of 

this conclusion, see cases such as United States v. Cotton, 646 

F.2d 430 (10th Cir. 1981) and United States v. Brunetti, 615 F.2d 

899 (10th Cir. 1986). See also Bollenbach v. United States, 326 

U.S. 607, 612-13 (1945). ("When a jury makes explicit its 

-8-

Appellate Case: 87-1498 Document: 010110025167 Date Filed: 01/28/1988 Page: 8 
difficulties ~ -trial judge should clear them away with concrete 

accuracy.") 

Judgment affirmed. 

-9-

Entered for the Court, 

Robert H. Mcwilliams, 

Circuit Judge 

Appellate Case: 87-1498 Document: 010110025167 Date Filed: 01/28/1988 Page: 9