Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca10-89-06317/USCOURTS-ca10-89-06317-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
United States of America
Appellee
Dwight Christian Vaccaro
Appellant

Document Text:

' 

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS 

._ FIL-~ D 

United St.ates Court of Appc~ 1" 

Tenth Circuit "' " 

FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT ocr 1 t 1997 

__________ ROBERTL.HOECKER 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, ) 

) 

) 

) 

) 

) 

) 

) 

) 

Clerk · .. 

Plaintiff-Appellee, 

vs. 

DWIGHT CHRISTIAN VACCARO, 

Defendant-Appellant. 

No. 89-6317 

(D.C. No. CR-89-73-R) 

(W.D. Okla.) 

ORDER AND JUDGMENT* 

Before HOLLOWAY, LOGAN and BALDOCK, Circuit Judges. 

Defendant-appellant Dwight Christian Vaccaro allegedly 

participated in a scheme in which young women would fly from 

Oklahoma City to Los Angeles carrying cash provided by defendant 

and others, transfer the cash to defendant's brother, Kendrick, in 

return for cocaine, and return to Oklahoma City with the cocaine. 

Defendant and others would then distribute the cocaine in the 

Oklahoma City area. Also, defendant allegedly manufactured crack 

cocaine at his residence. Defendant, his brother, and seven 

others were named in a thirty-count indictment. The indictment 

included counts for conspiracy to possess with intent to 

* This order and judgment has no precedential value and shall 

not be cited, or used by any court within the Tenth Circuit, 

except for the purposes of establishing the doctrines of law of 

the case, res judicata, or collateral estoppel. 10th Cir. R. 

36.3. 

Appellate Case: 89-6317 Document: 010110090803 Date Filed: 10/11/1991 Page: 1 
' 

distribute in excess of five kilograms of cocaine, 21 U.S.C. 

§§ 846, 84l(a)(l), 84l(b)(l)A, manufacture of cocaine, 21 U.S.C. 

§ 841(a)(l), possession with intent to distribute two kilograms of 

cocaine, id., maintaining premises for cocaine manufacture, 21 

u.s.c. § 856(a)(l) & (2), travel act violations, 18 u.s.c. 

§ 1952(1)(3) & (2), and firearms possession, 18 U.S.C. 

§ 924(c)(l). At trial, twenty-six of the counts were submitted to 

the jury. The jury convicted on the conspiracy count, 21 u.s.c. 

§ 846, the possession count, 21 U.S.C. § 84l(a)(l), and the 

manufacturing count, id., but acquitted on the remaining 

twenty-three counts. 

Defendant contends that (1) the evidence was insufficient to 

support the three convictions, and (2) his due process rights were 

violated in the sentencing stage. We affirm the conspiracy and 

manufacture convictions; however, we reverse the possession 

conviction for lack of sufficient evidence. The case is remanded 

to the district court for further proceedings consistent with this 

opinion. Because we have remanded for resentencing, we need not 

consider defendant's due process argument. 

I. Conspiracy 

A drug distribution conspiracy is an agreement between two or 

more persons to traffic in controlled substances. United States 

v. Savaiano, 843 F.2d 1280, 1294 (10th Cir. 1988). To obtain a 

conviction, the government must prove that "(1) a conspiracy 

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Appellate Case: 89-6317 Document: 010110090803 Date Filed: 10/11/1991 Page: 2 
existed, (2) the defendant knew the essential objectives of the 

conspiracy, and (3) the defendant knowingly and voluntarily became 

a part of it." United States v. Esparsen, 930 F.2d 1461, 1471 

(10th Cir. 1991). 

We are mindful to guard against the mass application of guilt 

in conspiracy cases because guilt is always dependent on personal 

and individual conduct, not on mere association or unknowing 

involvement. See Kotteakos v. United States, 328 U.S. 750, 773 

(1946); United States v. Harrison, No. 89-5156, slip op. at 7-8, 

1991 WL 155941 (10th Cir. Aug. 19, 1991); United States v. Fox, 

902 F.2d 1508, 1514 (10th Cir.), cert. denied, 111 S. Ct. 199 

(1990). Nevertheless, we review the evidence in the light most 

favorable to the government to determine whether any rational 

trier of fact could find the defendant guilty beyond a reasonable 

doubt. See Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 318-19 (1979). 

This deferential standard recognizes that it is "the 

responsibility of the trier of fact fairly to resolve conflicts in 

the testimony, to weigh the evidence, and to draw reasonable 

inferences from basic facts to ultimate facts." Id. at 319. 

Credibility choices are resolved in favor of the jury's verdict, 

id. at 326; United States v. Record, 873 F.2d 1363, 1367 (10th 

Cir. 1989), but we cannot sustain a conspiracy conviction if the 

evidence does no more than create a suspicion of guilt or amounts 

to a conviction resulting from piling inference on top of 

inference. Direct Sales v. United States, 319 U.S. 703, 711 

(1943); Fox, 902 F.2d at 1513. 

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As the government points out, the record in this case is 

replete with evidence of a conspiracy. Witnesses testified that 

the couriers made eleven trips from Oklahoma to Los Angeles. The 

witnesses testified that defendant made the reservations and paid 

for several of the trips, that defendant provided the cash for the 

cocaine buys on several occasions, that the couriers brought 

cocaine back to defendant's residence on several occasions, that 

defendant traveled to Los Angeles to participate in one of the 

cocaine buys, and, among other things, that defendant gave 

specific instructions to the couriers and cooked and sold crack 

cocaine. Viewing this evidence in the light most favorable to the 

government, we conclude that a rational jury could find the 

existence of a conspiracy to possess and distribute in excess of 

five kilograms of cocaine beyond a reasonable doubt. 

Defendant contends that all of the above evidence should be 

disregarded because the same evidence was offered in support of 

the numerous travel act counts of which he was acquitted. He 

contends that the inconsistency in the jury verdicts mandates 

reversal. We do not think that the verdicts are inconsistent 

because the elements of the offenses are not identical. Although 

the evidence overlaps, the jury could have determined that the 

government failed to prove an element of the travel act counts, 

yet proved beyond reasonable doubt the elements of a conspiracy. 

Even so, a guilty verdict is not reviewable simply because it is 

inconsistent with another verdict in a multiple count indictment. 

See United States v. Powell, 469 U.S. 57 (1984); Harris v. Rivera, 

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454 U.S. 339, 345 (1981); Hoag v. New Jersey, 356 U.S. 464, 472 

(1958); United States v. Dotterweich, 320 U.S. 277, 279 (1943); 

Dunn v. United States, 284 U.S. 390, 393 (1932). See also Los 

Angeles v. Heller, 475 U.S. 796, 804 n.10 (1986) (per curium). 

The critical inquiry remains whether any rational jury could find 

defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, and we have already 

passed on this question. Any further inquiry into the jury's 

deliberations is impermissible. 1 See Powell, 469 U.S. at 67 

(After the sufficiency review, "further safeguards against jury 

irrationality are [not] necessary."). The conspiracy conviction 

is affirmed. 

II. Manufacture 

Defendant next contends that the record does not contain 

sufficient evidence to support his conviction for manufacturing 

cocaine, 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(l). The record, however, contains 

testimony from a person who witnessed defendant cooking crack 

cocaine at his apartment. Considering this evidence in the light 

most favorable to the government, we find that a rational juror 

could conclude beyond reasonable doubt that the defendant 

manufactured cocaine. See Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. at 

1 Along this same line of reasoning, defendant contends that 

the jury's verdict should be reversed as a compromise verdict. 

This argument is meritless. See United States v. Dotterweich, 320 

U.S. 277, 279 (1943) (Referring to compromise, the Court stated 

that "[j]uries may indulge in precisely such motives or 

vagaries."). 

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Appellate Case: 89-6317 Document: 010110090803 Date Filed: 10/11/1991 Page: 5 
318-19. The manufacturing conviction is affirmed. 

III. Possession 

Defendant correctly asserts that the evidence is insufficient 

to support his conviction for possession with intent to distribute 

two kilograms of cocaine, 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(l). The indictment 

charged defendant with possessing the cocaine on or about March 8, 

1989. Instead of addressing each of defendant's insufficient 

evidence issues specifically, the government grouped all of the 

counts together, contending that evidence of possession and 

manufacture on other dates in the indictment supported the 

conviction on this count. The government's brief was not helpful 

on the possession sufficiency issue. And we have not found a 

scintilla of evidence in the record which would suggest that 

defendant possessed any cocaine on or about March 8, 1989. 

Therefore, no rational juror could find such possession beyond 

reasonable doubt. See Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. at 318-19. 

We reverse the conviction. 

IV. Conclusion 

Given our reversal of the possession conviction, we remand 

this case to the district court for resentencing. It therefore is 

unnecessary for us to consider defendant's due process arguments 

with regard to his sentencing. We do note, however, that the 

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presentence report, as adopted by the district court, is ambiguous 

as to the amount of cocaine involved. The presentence report, 

without explanation, concludes that fifteen kilograms of cocaine 

was involved in the offense. Upon a review of the record, we 

cannot determine whether the figure is supported. On remand, the 

district court is instructed to enter a judgment of acquittal on 

the possession count and to resentence making findings supporting 

the total amount of cocaine involved. 

AFFIRMED IN PART, REVERSED IN PART AND REMANDED. 

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Entered for the Court 

Bobby R. Baldock 

Circuit Judge 

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