Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca11-22-12148/USCOURTS-ca11-22-12148-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Quinton Jarod Simmons
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

[PUBLISH]

In the

United States Court of Appeals

For the Eleventh Circuit

____________________

No. 22-12148

____________________

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 

Plaintiff-Appellee,

versus

QUINTON JAROD SIMMONS, 

Defendant-Appellant.

____________________

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Middle District of Georgia

D.C. Docket No. 7:19-cr-00025-WLS-TQL-1

____________________

USCA11 Case: 22-12148 Document: 36-1 Date Filed: 12/06/2024 Page: 1 of 15
2 Opinion of the Court 22-12148

Before BRANCH, GRANT, Circuit Judges, and CALVERT,* District 

Judge.

GRANT, Circuit Judge:

District courts have broad discretion over the management 

of trials. This authority springs from rules and statutes, of course, 

but also from the inherent powers necessary to ensure the just and 

expeditious resolution of cases. 

Here, a criminal defendant challenges the district court’s

decision in an area not covered by a specific rule—whetherto allow 

the defense to play video clips for the first time during closing 

argument. We can see why the court said no. Had it allowed this

last-minute maneuver, the new video clips would have come in 

with no explanation from any witness and no opportunity for a 

government witness to testify about them—even though the 

defendant himself had argued they were not authenticated. Under 

these circumstances, the district court did not abuse its broad 

discretion to control the scope of closing arguments. 

The defendant also raises a Batson challenge, but failed to 

make a prima facie showing below that the government struck 

jurors based on their race. What’s more, we see no error in the 

district court’s acceptance of the unrebutted, race-neutral

justifications offered for each strike. We therefore affirm. 

* The Honorable Victoria M. Calvert, United States District Judge for the 

Northern District of Georgia, sitting by designation. 

USCA11 Case: 22-12148 Document: 36-1 Date Filed: 12/06/2024 Page: 2 of 15
22-12148 Opinion of the Court 3

I.

One night on patrol, Officer Devosie Jones of the City of 

Remerton Police Department saw a black Cadillac with only one 

headlight shining. He initiated a traffic stop, turning on his lights, 

and adding sirens when the Cadillac refused to slow down. 

Eventually, Officer Jones reached a speed of between sixty and 

seventy miles per hour (the speed limit was thirty-five). Just as his

supervisor, Corporal Elvoid Hunter, was calling off the pursuit, the 

Cadillac crashed into a tree. 

Jones approached the wreckage and saw Quinton Simmons

trying (unsuccessfully) to climb out of the passenger side of the car; 

the door frame had been dented in the collision. Jones, with help 

from another officer who had arrived as backup, extracted

Simmons from the badly damaged vehicle. When Corporal 

Hunter arrived eight to ten minutes later, he and Jones worked 

together to open the car doors. They found two bags of suspected 

narcotics and a firearm. 

Simmons was charged with (1) possession of 

methamphetamine with intent to distribute in violation of 21 

U.S.C. § 841(a)(1), (b)(1)(C); (2) possession of a firearm by a 

convicted felon in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 922(g)(1) and 924(a)(2); 

and (3) possession of a firearm in furtherance of a drug trafficking 

crime in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 924(c)(1)(A). He pleaded not guilty 

to each count. 

A twelve-person jury was empaneled from a venire of about 

fifty prospective jurors. Simmons raised a Batson challenge before 

USCA11 Case: 22-12148 Document: 36-1 Date Filed: 12/06/2024 Page: 3 of 15
4 Opinion of the Court 22-12148

trial, arguing that the government’s peremptory strikes against 

three black jurors were impermissibly motivated by race. But the 

district court denied the challenge, crediting the government’s 

explanations for the strikes as genuine and race-neutral. The case 

proceeded to trial. 

During its case-in-chief, the government called Corporal

Hunter to the stand. He was asked to identify the government’s 

Exhibit 11, which he recognized as a body camera video from one 

of the police officers who had arrived on the scene before he did. 

Simmons objected to the admission of the exhibit because Hunter 

could not authenticate the first part of the video, which was 

recorded before he arrived. The government responded that it 

only intended to play clips from after Hunter had arrived on the 

scene. Emphasizing the government’s assertion that the 

government was “only going to play the part that this witness 

observed and can verify,” the court allowed the video to be 

introduced “with that understanding.” 

The government then played a twenty-seven-second clip to 

show the scene of the accident, with Simmons seated on the 

ground on the passenger side of the damaged Cadillac. No other 

part of Exhibit 11 was played during the presentation of evidence—

by either side. The government then played a small portion of 

Corporal Hunter’s own body camera footage, the government’s 

Exhibit 4. When Simmons sought to play all of government’s 

Exhibit 4, the government objected, arguing that certain parts of it 

were inadmissible. The district court overruled this objection 

USCA11 Case: 22-12148 Document: 36-1 Date Filed: 12/06/2024 Page: 4 of 15
22-12148 Opinion of the Court 5

because the entire exhibit was admitted. In that video record, 

about forty minutes after Hunter arrived on the scene, Simmons 

can be heard asking whether the officers had been able to “catch 

the other dude,” to which Hunter replied: “what other dude?” 

Simmons did not elaborate in response. 

When it was Simmons’s turn to present evidence, the theory 

he presented to the jury was that he had been kidnapped by a gang 

member who then crashed the Cadillac. This person, Simmons 

claimed, managed to flee from the site of the wreck undetected in 

the seconds before Officer Jones—who had been in hot pursuit—

arrived at the scene. And, according to Simmons, the assailant left 

his gun and drugs behind when he fled, pinning the evidence on 

Simmons. 

Simmons first attempted to support this theory with the 

testimony of James Daniels, who said that on the night of the 

accident he was staying with his grandmother a few miles away 

from Simmons’s crash. Daniels called 9-1-1 that night to report that 

his grandmother had heard someone run through the backyard and 

asked him to investigate. According to Simmons, this evidence

corroborated his story that the real driver fled on foot from the 

scene. 

Simmons’s second witness was Melvin Higgins—a felon 

who had served time in the same facility as Simmons. Higgins 

testified that on the night of the accident his brother called to say 

that he had crashed a car and then fled the scene, leaving “a Glock 

and some pills inside.” Higgins added that his brother, now 

USCA11 Case: 22-12148 Document: 36-1 Date Filed: 12/06/2024 Page: 5 of 15
6 Opinion of the Court 22-12148

deceased, had been the head of the Crips gang in Georgia before 

his death, and had asked him to warn Simmons not to “snitch.”

Higgins also testified that his brother was 5’9” but weighed at least 

230 pounds—making it less likely that he could have fled quickly 

enough to escape notice of the officer who arrived seconds after 

the crash. Simmons declined to testify on his own behalf, and the 

defense rested its case. 

On rebuttal, the government called two more witnesses. 

First was a university professor who lived two doors down from 

the site of the accident. She recalled running outside immediately 

when she heard the crash, but saw no one fleeing from the scene. 

Next was the administrator for the county jail, who authenticated 

audio recordings in which the government said Simmons coached 

his sister about how to support his story. 

After the prosecution gave its closing remarks, it was 

Simmons’s turn. His counsel gave a few introductory remarks, and 

then attempted to play several new clips from the government’s 

Exhibit 11, one of the body camera videos. The government 

immediately objected, and an impromptu bench conference 

followed. The government argued that the clips could not be 

played in closing because they had never been published to the jury 

during the trial. Simmons, on the other hand, insisted that he could

play the clips because they came from the government’s exhibit, 

the whole of which had been admitted into evidence. 

The district court agreed with the government. “What was 

played before the jury can be played,” it explained, with the jury

USCA11 Case: 22-12148 Document: 36-1 Date Filed: 12/06/2024 Page: 6 of 15
22-12148 Opinion of the Court 7

able to ask for more of the exhibit if it wished. But Simmons could 

not expand the evidence during closing by calling the jury’s 

attention to video clips that had not been presented during the 

evidence phase of the trial. With that, the bench conference 

concluded, and counsel for Simmons returned to his planned 

remarks. But not for long—almost immediately, he urged the jury 

to watch the entire exhibit during deliberation. The court cut him 

off and instructed the jury to disregard that invitation. The court 

explained that after it admitted the video, Simmons could have 

played whatever clips he wanted during the evidence stage of the 

trial; that opportunity, however, did not extend indefinitely, and 

certainly not past the close of evidence. 

While the jury deliberated, Simmons attempted to build a 

record for appeal, explaining to the court why the video clips were 

important. In the first clip, an officer told Simmons that there was 

no one else in the car in response to an unintelligible comment 

from Simmons. In the second, Simmons asked Corporal Hunter if 

he knew whether they “caught that other person,” and Hunter

responded that he did not know. And in the third, Simmons said, 

radio traffic mentioning Daniels’s 9-1-1 call demonstrated the 

proximity in time between that call and the crash. All of this 

evidence, according to Simmons, would have corroborated his

story that he was first kidnapped and then framed by a Crips leader. 

After less than twenty minutes of deliberation, the jury 

found Simmons guilty on each count of the indictment. This is his 

appeal. 

USCA11 Case: 22-12148 Document: 36-1 Date Filed: 12/06/2024 Page: 7 of 15
8 Opinion of the Court 22-12148

II.

We review restrictions on closing arguments for abuse of 

discretion. See United States v. Harris, 916 F.3d 948, 954 (11th Cir. 

2019). Absent such a showing, “the district court will not be 

reversed for limiting summation as long as the defendant has the 

opportunity to make all legally tenable arguments that are 

supported by the facts of the case.” Id. (quotation omitted). 

We review jury selection under Batson de novo, but a trial 

court’s factual findings in a Batson hearing are reviewed for clear 

error. United States v. Lewis, 40 F.4th 1229, 1242 n.8 (11th Cir. 2022). 

III.

It has “universally been held that counsel for the defense has 

a right to make a closing summation to the jury.” Herring v. New 

York, 422 U.S. 853, 858 (1975). After all, that is “the last clear chance 

to persuade the trier of fact that there may be reasonable doubt of 

the defendant’s guilt.” Id. at 862. 

But the solemnity of this right does not mean that closing 

arguments must be “uncontrolled” or “unrestrained.” Id. To the 

contrary, the district court has “broad discretion” and “great 

latitude,” in “limiting the scope of closing summations,” and can 

“ensure that argument does not stray unduly from the mark, or 

otherwise impede the fair and orderly conduct of the trial.” Id. So

long as the court allows a defendant to offer “the essence of his 

desired argument to the jury, his right to present a complete

defense has not been prejudiced.” Harris, 916 F.3d at 959. 

USCA11 Case: 22-12148 Document: 36-1 Date Filed: 12/06/2024 Page: 8 of 15
22-12148 Opinion of the Court 9

Here, the district court did not abuse its discretion when it 

stopped Simmons from showing the new video clips during his

closing argument. To start, Simmons had every opportunity to 

publish those parts of Exhibit 11 to the jury during the presentation 

of evidence, but chose not to do so. As the district court explained, 

the government’s decision to play only a brief segment of the 

exhibit during its case-in-chief in no way limited Simmons’s ability 

to play the entire video before the jury earlier in the trial. Indeed, 

Simmons chose to play all of government’s Exhibit 4 during his

cross-examination of Hunter. 

What’s more, no witness ever authenticated the opening of 

that footage. See 2 Robert P. Mosteller et al., McCormick on Evidence

§ 216 (8th ed. July 2022 update). And at least part of the video that 

Simmons tried to play was from the part of the tape that he had 

argued could not be authenticated by Hunter. We can understand 

why the court did not want to walk into that authentication 

problem during closing arguments. 

Similarly, allowing Simmons to play these clips for the first 

time during closing would have offered no opportunity for the 

government to examine a witness about the video, or show further 

excerpts that would put it in proper context. Cross-examination is 

“an essential safeguard of the accuracy and completeness of 

testimony,” that is regarded by many judges and lawyers as “a 

right, not a mere privilege.” 1 Mosteller et al., supra, § 19 (footnote 

omitted). But if a video is shown for the first time during closing 

argument, there is no witness to examine or cross-examine and no 

USCA11 Case: 22-12148 Document: 36-1 Date Filed: 12/06/2024 Page: 9 of 15
10 Opinion of the Court 22-12148

way for opposing counsel to challenge the other side’s explanation. 

See Whittenburg v. Werner Enters. Inc., 561 F.3d 1122, 1128–29 (10th 

Cir. 2009) (Gorsuch, J.); Jacob Stein, Closing Arguments, § 1:14 (2d 

ed. 2005). 

Simmons relies on the fact that the entire exhibit had already 

been admitted into evidence, but that does not move the needle. 

The district court was operating well within its discretion here 

when it concluded that Simmons was trying to introduce new 

evidence rather than summarize and argue from evidence the jury 

had already heard. See United States v. Al Jaberi, 97 F.4th 1310, 1328 

(11th Cir. 2024); United States v. Klebig, 600 F.3d 700, 718 (7th Cir. 

2009); 1 Mosteller et al., supra, § 4. Though the lengthy body 

camera video (ninety minutes) had been admitted into evidence as 

a technical matter, only a small portion (twenty-seven seconds) had 

been published to the jury. Simmons could have chosen to present 

other clips from the video, as he did with government’s Exhibit 4, 

but for whatever reason—an unfortunate oversight, an attempt to 

gain an advantage, or something else—did not. He has not offered 

any justification for this failure, either here or at the district court, 

and we see no reason that the district court needed to excuse it by 

effectively allowing new evidence to be presented so late in the 

game. 

Simmons next argues that he should have been allowed to 

play the remaining portions of the video under the rule of 

completeness. The problem with this argument is that the portion 

of government’s Exhibit 11 that the government played did not 

USCA11 Case: 22-12148 Document: 36-1 Date Filed: 12/06/2024 Page: 10 of 15
22-12148 Opinion of the Court 11

include any statements by Simmons; thus, there was nothing to 

complete. See United States v. Ramirez-Perez, 166 F.3d 1106, 1112–

13 (11th Cir. 1999). And even if the rule of completeness did apply, 

Simmons fails to explain why he could not have played more of 

government’s Exhibit 11 before his closing argument.

We note that even with this very reasonable limitation on 

Simmons’s closing argument, he was able to make “the essence of 

his desired argument.” Harris, 916 F.3d at 959. Simmons’s counsel 

explained his theory that Simmons had been kidnapped on the 

night of the wreck. He recounted Higgins’s testimony to that 

effect; he replayed Mr. Daniels’s phone call to 9-1-1; he reminded 

the jury that Simmons had asked Corporal Hunter at the scene 

about “the other dude”; and he tried to minimize the testimony 

from the neighbor who did not see another suspect flee the scene 

on foot. Even if the unplayed portions of the video would have 

arguably corroborated those same arguments, forbidding them did 

not prejudice Simmons’s “right to present a complete defense.” Id. 

In sum, the district court did not abuse its discretion by 

preventing Simmons’s counsel from showing previously 

unpublished video evidence during his closing argument. Though 

there is no explicit rule about such matters, our conclusion respects 

“that a district court possesses inherent powers that are ‘governed 

not by rule or statute but by the control necessarily vested in courts 

to manage their own affairs so as to achieve the orderly and 

expeditious disposition of cases.’” Dietz v. Bouldin, 579 U.S. 40, 45 

USCA11 Case: 22-12148 Document: 36-1 Date Filed: 12/06/2024 Page: 11 of 15
12 Opinion of the Court 22-12148

(2016) (quoting Link v. Wabash R.R. Co., 370 U.S. 626, 630–31

(1962)).

IV.

Simmons also challenges his conviction on the ground that 

the government improperly struck jurors on the basis of race. He 

lacks evidence of such discrimination, however, so we conclude 

that the district court did not err in rejecting his Batson challenge. 

In its landmark decision Batson v. Kentucky, the Supreme 

Court held that the Equal Protection Clause prohibits the 

prosecution from peremptorily striking jurors on account of race. 

476 U.S. 79, 89 (1986). Batson and its progeny established a threepart, burden-shifting test for evaluating whether a peremptory 

strike violates the Constitution. See United States v. Folk, 754 F.3d 

905, 912 (11th Cir. 2014). First, “a defendant must make a prima 

facie showing that a peremptory challenge has been exercised on 

the basis of race.” Miller-El v. Cockrell, 537 U.S. 322, 328 (2003). 

Second, “if that showing has been made, the prosecution must offer 

a race-neutral basis for striking the juror in question.” Id. Third, 

“in light of the parties’ submissions, the trial court must determine 

whether the defendant has shown purposeful discrimination.” Id. 

at 328–29. 

The first step is crucial. This Court has explained that a 

prima facie case “must be established before there is any further 

inquiry into the motives for the challenged strikes.” United States 

v. Walker, 490 F.3d 1282, 1291 (11th Cir. 2007). To make out a 

prima facie case, the moving party “is required to present evidence 

USCA11 Case: 22-12148 Document: 36-1 Date Filed: 12/06/2024 Page: 12 of 15
22-12148 Opinion of the Court 13

other than the bare fact of a juror’s removal.” Id. Sometimes a 

pattern will be enough. Id. Other relevant evidence can include

“statistical evidence”; “evidence of a prosecutor’s disparate 

questioning and investigation of black and white prospective 

jurors”; “side-by-side comparisons” of black and white prospective 

jurors who were struck and not struck; any misrepresentations by 

the prosecutor “when defending the strikes during the Batson

hearing”; “relevant history of the State’s peremptory strikes in past 

cases”; or any “other relevant circumstances.” Flowers v. 

Mississippi, 588 U.S. 284, 302 (2019). 

Simmons offered none of this. He instead argued that the 

government used the majority of its strikes on black jurors, even 

though they were only a small minority of the venire panel. The 

problem with Simmons’s argument is that the record does not 

reflect this. We have no information on the racial makeup of the 

panel, which means we have insufficient evidence to conclude, as 

Simmons alleges, that only a small minority of the original panel of 

potential jurors were black. 

Though Simmons failed to offer a prima facie case of a 

Batson violation, the government (helpfully) tendered 

nondiscriminatory reasons for each strike anyway. The district 

court did not clearly err in crediting the sincerity of those 

explanations. Juror 33, the government said, was “disingenuous 

and not forthcoming.” When asked whether he had been arrested 

in the past, for example, Juror 33 stated that he had a DUI charge 

that was reduced to reckless driving, received stolen property once 

USCA11 Case: 22-12148 Document: 36-1 Date Filed: 12/06/2024 Page: 13 of 15
14 Opinion of the Court 22-12148

over twenty years ago, and discharged a firearm in the late 1990s. 

Only when he was specifically asked did he admit to also having 

multiple charges for theft by shoplifting, plus several other DUIs. 

On top of that, the juror revealed in his initial questionnaire that 

“he felt that he could not sit in judgment of another person.” 

The government next explained that it struck Juror 45 

because counsel believed that the juror’s business was under 

criminal investigation. Though it later became clear that there had 

been a mix-up between the juror’s business and another business 

with the same name, the government did not know that when it 

exercised the strike. Finally, the government said it struck Juror 55 

for three reasons: her place of employment was a “very liberal 

establishment”; she received her news from CNN and YouTube;

and her husband was a jailer at a notoriously corrupt jail. 

Simmons did not show that any of the government’s 

proffered explanations were pretextual. Moreover, the district 

court’s step-three determination that the government lacked 

discriminatory intent is entitled to a high degree of deference. See 

Vinson v. Koch Foods of Alabama, LLC, 12 F.4th 1270, 1275–76 (11th 

Cir. 2021). Because nothing in the record suggests that the trial 

court clearly erred in crediting the government’s explanations for 

the challenges, we affirm the denial of Simmons’s Batson challenge. 

* * *

The district court did not abuse its broad discretion over the 

scope of closing argument. Nor did it err in denying Simmons’s 

USCA11 Case: 22-12148 Document: 36-1 Date Filed: 12/06/2024 Page: 14 of 15
22-12148 Opinion of the Court 15

Batson challenge. Because we find no error, the judgment is 

AFFIRMED.

USCA11 Case: 22-12148 Document: 36-1 Date Filed: 12/06/2024 Page: 15 of 15