Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca11-14-13628/USCOURTS-ca11-14-13628-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Jermaine Gibson
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

[DO NOT PUBLISH]

IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT

________________________

No. 14-13628

Non-Argument Calendar

________________________

D.C. Docket No. 1:13-cr-00440-TWT-JSA-1

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 

 Plaintiff-Appellee,

 versus

JERMAINE GIBSON, 

 Defendant-Appellant.

________________________

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Northern District of Georgia

________________________

(November 19, 2015)

Before ED CARNES, Chief Judge, TJOFLAT and WILSON, Circuit Judges.

PER CURIAM: 

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Jermaine Gibson appeals his conviction for being a felon in possession of a 

firearm, in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 922(g)(1) and 924(a)(2), and his 72-month 

prison sentence. He first challenges his conviction on Batson grounds. Next he

contends that the government improperly vouched for its witnesses in closing 

argument and that the district court improperly instructed the jury on the meaning

of “constructive possession.” Finally, he challenges the substantive reasonableness 

of his sentence, contending that the district court’s application of the 18 U.S.C. 

§ 3553(a) factors violated his First Amendment rights. 

I.

The firearm Gibson was convicted of possessing was discovered in a home 

that he was unlawfully occupying in Lithonia, Georgia. A woman purchased that 

home from a bank in January 2013, with the closing date set for April 26, 2013. 

Gibson, along with several other people, unlawfully moved into the home during 

that time period. The purchaser and the bank’s listing agent tried to get Gibson to 

leave. He refused. When the police visited it to investigate his occupancy, he told 

them that he owned the home. He claimed ownership based on a number of 

documents that he posted on the front door and windows of the home.1

 The gist of 

 1 Those documents consisted of a “dispossessory warrant,” an “affidavit of awareness,” a 

“realtor and state agent notice,” two quitclaim deeds, a “notification of reservation of rights UCC 

1-308/1-207,” and an “affidavit of truth.”

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those documents was that Gibson owned the home and that he was a “sovereign 

citizen” not subject to the jurisdiction of the United States or any state.

2

 

Gibson continued to occupy the home through the closing date. The 

purchaser and the bank then went to court in DeKalb County, Georgia to settle the 

ownership dispute. Gibson attended those proceedings. The court ordered him to 

leave the home immediately. At the end of those proceedings, law enforcement 

officers arrested Gibson for various state law charges related to his occupation of 

the home. That same day the officers searched the home. They found fraudulent 

identification documents with Gibson’s name on them and a Smith & Wesson 

revolver under the bedsheets in the master bedroom.

The officers also interviewed Gibson twice on the day of his arrest. During 

those interviews, Gibson insisted that he owned the home, citing some of the 

documents that he had posted on the windows and door. He stated that he slept in 

the master bedroom most of the time and pointed to the location of that bedroom 

on a schematic drawing of the home. 

The officers also asked him whether there were any firearms in the home. 

Gibson replied that another occupant had a shotgun. When asked about the 

 2 For example, the “affidavit of truth” provided that Gibson was “not a ‘person’ when 

such term is defined in statutes of the United States or statutes of the several states when such 

definition includes artificial entities.” It also stated that Gibson “voluntarily [chose] to comply 

with the man-made laws which serve to bring harmony to society, but no such laws, nor their 

enforcers, have any authority over [him].”

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handgun (which the officers did not describe in detail) that had been found during 

the search, Gibson described it as a five-shot, black-handled revolver and stated 

that he had moved it around the home. His description of the handgun matched the 

revolver the officers found in the master bedroom. 

The government charged Gibson with one count of being a convicted felon 

who knowingly possessed a firearm (the handgun) in violation of 18 U.S.C. 

§§ 922(g)(1) and 924(a)(2). He agreed to stipulate at trial that he was a convicted 

felon at the time of the indictment.3 However, he continued to assert his sovereign 

citizen status. On the first day of trial, he filed pro se an “affidavit of 

competency,” which alleged (among other things) that the court was a “tribunal 

operated as a private corporation” instead of a real court. At the end of trial 

Gibson stated that the district court lacked jurisdiction over him because he was a 

sovereign citizen. The jury found Gibson guilty of being a felon in possession of a 

firearm, and the district court sentenced him to 72 months imprisonment. This is 

his appeal.

II.

Gibson first contends that the district court clearly erred when it rejected his 

Batson challenge to the government’s strikes of five African American venire 

members. He focuses particularly on the strike of Prospective Juror 1, a 24-year-

 3 Gibson had prior felony convictions for burglary and first degree forgery. 

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old African American. When asked by the district court to provide a race-neutral 

reason for that strike, the government stated that he was young, unemployed, 

previously worked at a grocery store, and did not own a home. Based on those

characteristics, the government did not believe that he would be a “suitable juror” 

for the case because of the evidence relating to Gibson’s fraudulent deeds to the 

home where he had been residing. Gibson agreed that Prospective Juror 1 was a 

renter but argued that the government’s explanation was mere pretext for 

discrimination. The district court accepted the government’s explanation, stating 

that Prospective Juror 1’s “youth and lack of experience with real estate 

transactions of any kind” was a “legitimate, non-discriminatory reason” for striking 

him. 

The Supreme Court held in Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79, 106 S. Ct. 

1712 (1986), that a “prosecutor’s use of peremptory strikes in even a single case to 

remove blacks from the jury on account of their race violates the Equal Protection 

Clause.” United States v. Stewart, 65 F.3d 918, 923 (11th Cir. 1995). The

framework for evaluating Batson challenges involves three steps. Id. at 923–24. 

The party challenging the strike must first establish a prima facie case of 

discrimination. Id. at 923. If the challenger succeeds in showing a prima facie 

case, the striking party must then articulate a race-neutral reason for the strike. Id. 

Once the striking party articulates a race-neutral reason, the district court “must 

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evaluate the credibility of the stated justifications based on the evidence placed 

before it.” United States v. Houston, 456 F.3d 1328, 1335 (11th Cir. 2006).

The district court’s determination concerning the actual motivation behind 

each challenged strike” is “pure factfinding” that we review for clear error. Id.; see 

also Greene v. Upton, 644 F.3d 1145, 1155 (11th Cir. 2011) (“[T]he determination 

on the ultimate question of discriminatory intent . . . represents a finding of fact of 

the sort accorded great deference on appeal.”) (quotation marks and alterations 

omitted). 

The district court did not clearly err in denying Gibson’s Batson challenge. 

As to the first step, the issue of whether Gibson established a prima facie case of 

discrimination is moot. Although the establishment of a prima facie case is an 

“absolute precondition to the prosecution’s burden to articulate race-neutral 

reasons” for its strikes, Houston, 456 F.3d at 1335–36, that issue becomes moot 

when the district court rules on “the ultimate issue of intentional discrimination” 

without “explicitly determin[ing]” whether the defendant made out a prima facie 

case, at least where his challenge fails on steps two and three. Id.; see also United 

States v. Gamory, 635 F.3d 480, 495 (11th Cir. 2011); United States v. Edouard, 

485 F.3d 1324, 1342–43 (11th Cir. 2007). That is what happened here.

4

 4 After Gibson argued that he had established a prima facie case of discrimination and the 

government responded that he had not, the district court stated: “Well, I don’t know. 

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Regardless of step one, Gibson’s Batson challenge fails on steps two and 

three. Step two only requires an explanation for the strikes that is legitimate, 

reasonably specific, and facially nondiscriminatory. United States v. Folk, 754 

F.3d 905, 914 (11th Cir. 2014); United States v. Alston, 895 F.2d 1362, 1366 (11th 

Cir. 1990). The district court did not clearly err in finding that the government’s 

asserted reasons for striking Prospective Juror 1 — that he was young, 

unemployed, previously worked at a grocery store, and did not own a home — are 

race neutral. 

As for step three, the district court did not clearly err in finding the 

government’s explanation for the strike credible and non-pretextual.

5

 In evaluating 

whether the rationale for a strike is mere pretext, the key question is the 

“genuineness of the [government’s] explanation, rather than its reasonableness.” 

United States v. Walker, 490 F.3d 1282, 1294 (11th Cir. 2007). We evaluate the 

credibility of that explanation based on all the relevant facts. Parker v. Allen, 565

F.3d 1258, 1271 (11th Cir. 2009).

 

Technically, [the government may be correct] . . . but I’m going to insist that you put on the 

record a racially neutral reason for exercising the strikes that you did.”

5 Gibson also argues that the district court improperly combined steps two and three. It 

did not. A district court improperly condenses steps two and three where it “summarily 

overrul[es]” the challenging party’s objections “and/or fail[s] to consider whether [the 

challenging party] ha[s] refuted” the government’s race-neutral explanations. United States v. 

Edouard, 485 F.3d 1324, 1343 (11th Cir. 2007). The Batson hearing transcript shows that the 

district court properly conducted the analysis. It first asked the government to provide raceneutral reasons for its strikes (step two), heard Gibson’s response, and then independently 

assessed the credibility of the government’s proffered reasons (step three).

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Gibson argues that the government’s explanation for the strike was mere 

pretext for two reasons. First, he points to the government’s failure to strike a 

similarly situated white venire member who was also young and did not own a 

home.6

 Second, he asserts that the government’s inquiry about whether the venire 

members owned or rented their dwellings was not a meaningful voir dire on the 

issue of their ability to understand real estate transactions because even 

homeowners might not know much about real estate transactions.

The district court did not clearly err in finding that the reasons for the 

government’s strike were credible and non-pretextual. Even if a more meaningful 

voir dire were possible, it was not clear error for the district court to accept the 

government’s race neutral reasoning that most homeowners are likely to know 

more about real estate transactions than someone who has never purchased a home. 

See Stewart, 65 F.3d at 926 (“[Where] there are two permissible views of the 

evidence, the factfinder’s choice between them cannot be clearly erroneous.”) 

(quotation marks and alterations omitted). Gibson’s focus on the government’s 

decision not to strike the young, white venire member who did not own a home is 

misplaced because there were relevant differences between that venire member and 

 6 Gibson notes in his brief to this Court that it was never actually established at voir dire 

whether Prospective Juror 1 had ever owned a home. That is correct. However, Gibson did not 

raise that point in the district court, and in his appellate brief he later states that Prospective 

Juror 1 had never owned a home. In any event, the government’s failure to clarify whether he 

had ever owned a home does not prove that its explanation was pretextual. See Parker, 565 F.3d 

at 1271 (“Neither a prosecutor’s mistaken belief about a juror nor failure to ask a voir dire 

question provides clear and convincing evidence of pretext.”) (quotation marks omitted).

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the one who was struck. See Parker, 565 F.3d at 1271 (“The prosecutor’s failure to 

strike similarly situated jurors is not pretextual . . . where there are relevant 

differences between the struck jurors and the comparator juror[].”) (quotation 

marks omitted).7

 

There were also five African Americans in the thirteen-member jury (twelve 

jurors and an alternate), out of twelve African Americans in the 32-person venire. 

See United States v. Puentes, 50 F.3d 1567, 1578 (11th Cir. 1995) (“Although the 

presence of [African American] jurors does not dispose of an allegation of racebased peremptory challenges, it is a significant factor tending to prove the paucity 

of the claim.”). For all of these reasons, the district court did not clearly err in 

finding that the government’s reasons for the strike were credible and nonpretextual.

III.

Gibson also contends that the government improperly vouched for its 

witnesses in closing argument. In his closing argument, defense counsel asserted

that the officers who testified about Gibson’s statements concerning his possession 

of the handgun essentially fabricated those statements after the interview. In

rebuttal, the government provided various reasons why the officers’ testimony was 

credible. In the course of doing so, the government stated: “I submit to you, 

 7 The juror who was not struck was pursuing a bachelor’s degree and was employed. 

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Ladies and Gentlemen, that these officers and these agents, their testimony is 

worthy of belief.” The district court overruled Gibson’s objection to that 

statement. According to Gibson, that decision was erroneous because the 

government improperly put its prestige behind the officers by assuring their 

credibility.

We review claims of improper vouching de novo. United States v. Epps, 

613 F.3d 1093, 1100 (11th Cir. 2010). Improper vouching occurs where the 

government places its prestige “behind the witness, by making personal assurances 

of the witness’ veracity.” Id. (quotation marks omitted). The government’s 

remarks must also “prejudicially affect the substantial rights of the defendant.” Id.

(quotation marks omitted). 

Contrary to Gibson’s argument, the government’s statement did not 

improperly place prestige behind the officers. The transcript of the closing 

arguments establishes that the government was attempting to respond to Gibson’s 

attacks on the officers’ credibility. An argument that fairly responds to an 

argument is permissible. See United States v. Smith, 700 F.2d 627, 634 (11th Cir. 

1983) (“[T]his Court has recognized an exception to [the prohibition on improper 

vouching], the so-called ‘fair response’ rule, that entitles a prosecutor to respond to 

arguments advanced by defense counsel in his or her statement to the jury.”). The

government did not base that response on evidence not before the jury, nor did it 

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use its own reputation to defend the officers’ credibility. See United States v. 

Lopez, 590 F.3d 1238, 1256–57 (11th Cir. 2009) (“[The] prohibition against 

vouching does not . . . forbid prosecutors from arguing credibility; rather, it forbids 

arguing credibility based on the reputation of the government office or on evidence 

not before the jury.”). The district court therefore did not err in overruling 

Gibson’s objection.

IV.

Gibson’s final challenge to his conviction is that the district court erred in 

instructing the jury on constructive possession. The court instructed the jury that 

“[c]onstructive possession of a thing occurs if a person doesn’t have actual 

possession of it but has both the power and the intention to take control over it 

later.” The court then instructed the jury that a “person who owns or exercises 

dominion and control over a residence in which contraband is knowingly 

concealed may be deemed to be in constructive possession of the contraband.”8

 

According to Gibson, that instruction allowed the jury to find him guilty based 

solely on the fact that he possessed the property, even if one of the other occupants 

of the home had knowingly concealed the handgun.

We review jury instructions under a deferential standard of review. Johnson 

v. Breeden, 280 F.3d 1308, 1314 (11th Cir. 2002). “As long as they accurately 

 8 The district court defined “knowingly” as an act done “voluntarily and intentionally and 

not because of a mistake or by accident.”

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reflect the law, the trial judge is given wide discretion as to the style and wording 

employed.” Id. (quotation marks omitted). We reverse only where there is 

“substantial and ineradicable doubt as to whether the jury was properly guided in 

its deliberations.” United States v. Cochran, 683 F.3d 1314, 1319 (11th Cir. 2012)

(quotation marks omitted). “We analyze the objected-to portion of the instructions 

in light of the entire charge and we keep in mind that isolated statements which 

appear prejudicial when taken out of context may be innocuous when viewed in 

light of the entire trial.” Id.

“A person who owns or exercises dominion and control over a . . . residence 

in which contraband is concealed may be deemed to be in constructive possession 

of the contraband.” United States v. Vera, 701 F.3d 1349, 1357 (11th Cir. 1983). 

However, a jury should not be “instructed that control of premises can serve as a 

sole basis of conviction.” Cochran, 683 F.3d at 1320. Instead, “the essence of 

constructive possession is the power to control the contraband itself,” and “control

of the premises simply permits an inference of that power.” Id.

Gibson’s argument that the instruction allowed the jury to convict him for 

constructive possession of the handgun based solely on his control of the premises 

fails. The instruction states that the person who controls the premises where the 

“contraband is knowingly concealed can be deemed to be in constructive 

possession of the contraband,” and goes on to state that the government must prove 

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that Gibson was the one who committed the crime of possessing the firearm. See

id. at 1319–21 (upholding a constructive possession instruction with “a number of 

problems” because those problems were mitigated by “the totality of the 

instructions”). The evidence at trial showed that Gibson slept most of the time in 

the master bedroom, law enforcement found the handgun in that bedroom, and 

Gibson’s description of it matched the one that law enforcement found. He also 

admitted to moving the handgun around the house. Even if the instruction could 

have been clearer in terms of specifying that Gibson must control the handgun 

itself (and not merely the premises), that lack of clarity was “innocuous” in light of 

the evidence that Gibson did exercise control over the handgun. Id. at 1319

(quotation marks omitted).

V.

Gibson also challenges the substantive reasonableness of his sentence, 

contending that the district court’s application of the 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) factors 

violated his First Amendment rights. Neither party objected to the district court’s 

calculation of 41 to 51 months imprisonment as the guidelines range. However, 

the government requested an upward variance of 21 months (to 72 months total), 

arguing that the guidelines range did not adequately reflect Gibson’s criminal 

history or the relevant conduct underlying his conviction (his unlawful occupation 

of the home). The district court agreed. In explaining why the upward variance 

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was appropriate, it referred to Gibson’s “filing of the documents the first day of 

trial that refused to admit that he was subject to the charges that were pending in 

this case.” Gibson argues that reference makes his sentence substantively

unreasonable. Essentially, he argues that the district court improperly followed 

§ 3553(a)(2)(A)’s directive to consider the need to promote respect for the law 

when the court found that the documents he had filed evidenced disrespect for the 

law. See 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a)(2)(A) (“The court, in determining the particular 

sentence to be imposed, shall consider . . . the need for the sentence . . . to promote

respect for the law . . . .”). We disagree. 

The transcript from the sentence hearing establishes that the district court 

based the variance on the need to promote respect for the law as well as on 

Gibson’s offense conduct and criminal history. Imposing an upward variance 

based on a defendant’s disrespect for law is permissible. See United States v. 

Early, 686 F.3d 1219, 1222–23 (11th Cir. 2012) (upholding a “substantial” upward 

variance based partly on the defendant’s “disrespect for the law”). The district 

court referred to the documents Gibson filed as exemplifying his disrespect for the 

law. Given that Gibson had filed documents asserting that he was not subject to 

the laws of the United States, the district court did not clearly err in making that 

finding. See United States v. Irey, 612 F.3d 1160, 1190 (11th Cir. 2010) (en banc).

(explaining that when reviewing a sentence, “[t]o the extent that the district court 

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has found facts, we accept them unless they are clearly erroneous.”). And the court 

did not apply an improper factor when it followed the statutory directive to 

consider need to promote respect for the law. 

AFFIRMED.

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