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Parties Involved:
United States of America
Appellee
Ronald Williams
Appellant

Document Text:

United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued November 25, 2014 Decided May 1, 2015

No. 13-3059

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

APPELLEE

v.

RONALD WILLIAMS,

APPELLANT

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Columbia

(No. 1:12-cr-00022-1)

Jonathan S. Zucker, appointed by the court, argued the 

cause and filed the briefs for appellant.

Stephen F. Rickard, Assistant U.S. Attorney, argued the 

cause for appellee. With him on the brief were Ronald C. 

Machen Jr., U.S. Attorney, and Elizabeth Trosman, Assistant 

U.S. Attorney.

Before: ROGERS, KAVANAUGH, and PILLARD, Circuit 

Judges.

Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge 

KAVANAUGH.

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KAVANAUGH, Circuit Judge: A jury convicted Ronald 

Williams of two drug possession offenses and one drug

conspiracy offense. On appeal, Williams challenges his 

conspiracy conviction on sufficiency of the evidence grounds. 

He also contends that the District Court erred at trial by 

excluding certain evidence. Finally, he raises an ineffective 

assistance of trial counsel claim. We affirm the judgment of 

the District Court except that, consistent with this Court’s

ordinary practice in these circumstances, we remand the case 

so that the District Court may address Williams’s claim of 

ineffective assistance of trial counsel in the first instance.

I

On September 16, 2011, an undercover police officer 

stationed himself outside Maurice Williams’s house. The 

officer observed Maurice’s brother, Ronald Williams, sitting 

on the front porch of the house.

As the officer watched, Ronald engaged in a series of 

apparent drug transactions. Three men approached the house, 

one after the other. Ronald ushered each man inside for a 

brief visit. After the men left the house, police followed them 

and recovered small bags of cocaine from two of them. The 

third man swallowed what appeared to be two small bags of 

cocaine.

The police continued their investigation. On October 21, 

2011, an officer saw Maurice – whom the officer initially 

mistook for a drug buyer – exit his house and drive away. 

After stopping and searching Maurice’s car, the officer found 

a substantial quantity of cocaine, marijuana, and cash. Based 

on that evidence, the police obtained a search warrant for 

Maurice’s residence.

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When the officers arrived at Maurice’s house, they found 

Ronald again sitting on the porch. One officer spoke to

Ronald outside, while another officer entered the house to 

retrieve Ronald’s keys in order to search his car. From 

outside, Ronald saw the officer who was looking for the keys 

move toward a table. Ronald called out: “Not there. Not 

there. It’s not that table. Not there. To the left. To the left.” 

Supplemental App. 200 (internal quotation marks omitted). 

Later, the police officers found drugs on the table that Ronald 

had been directing them away from. The officers found

additional drugs, scales, and packaging materials in the house. 

They also found drugs in the pocket of a jacket that was 

Ronald’s size and would have been large for Maurice. The 

drugs found in the house were cocaine and marijuana.

Ronald and Maurice Williams were indicted and tried 

together. Each was charged with one count of conspiracy to 

distribute cocaine and marijuana, in violation of 21 U.S.C. 

§ 846. Ronald was also charged with two counts of 

distribution, in violation of 21 U.S.C. §§ 841(a)(1), (b)(1)(C).

Ronald and Maurice were each charged with two counts of 

possession with intent to distribute cocaine, in violation of 21 

U.S.C. §§ 841(a)(1), (b)(1)(B)(iii), (b)(1)(C).

At trial, the jury found Maurice guilty of all charges. The 

jury acquitted Ronald on both distribution counts. The jury 

could not reach a verdict on the other three counts against 

Ronald (the conspiracy count and the two possession with 

intent to distribute counts). The District Court therefore 

declared a mistrial as to those counts. The Government then 

re-tried Ronald on the conspiracy count and the two 

possession with intent to distribute counts. At the second 

trial, the jury found Ronald guilty on all three counts. Ronald 

Williams now appeals. 

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II

On appeal, Ronald Williams argues that there was

insufficient evidence to support his conspiracy conviction. 

(He does not make a sufficiency of the evidence argument 

with respect to his two convictions for possession with intent 

to distribute drugs.) He also contends that, during his second 

trial, the District Court wrongly excluded evidence that the 

jury in the first trial had acquitted him of the distribution 

counts. Finally, he claims that his trial counsel rendered 

ineffective assistance.

A

To convict a defendant of a drug conspiracy, the 

Government must prove that the defendant entered into an 

agreement with at least one other person to do something that 

violates the law. United States v. Gaviria, 116 F.3d 1498, 

1515 (D.C. Cir. 1997). The Government must “show that the 

conspirators agreed on the essential nature of the plan, not 

that they agreed on the details of their criminal scheme.” Id.

(internal quotation marks omitted).

Ronald Williams contends that there was insufficient 

evidence to establish that he entered into an agreement to 

distribute drugs with his brother Maurice. When reviewing 

sufficiency claims, we generally “accept the jury’s guilty 

verdict” if “any rational trier of fact could have found the 

essential elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt.” 

United States v. Andrews, 532 F.3d 900, 903 n.1 (D.C. Cir. 

2008) (internal quotation marks omitted). In so doing, we 

view the evidence in the light most favorable to the 

Government. See Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 319 

(1979).

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At his trial, Ronald Williams failed to preserve his 

sufficiency claim for appellate review. Williams moved for a 

judgment of acquittal after the Government concluded its 

case, but he did not renew his motion after the close of all 

evidence. Therefore, Williams’s “exceedingly heavy burden”

becomes “even heavier.” United States v. LopesierraGutierrez, 708 F.3d 193, 206 (D.C. Cir. 2013) (internal 

quotation marks omitted). Williams ultimately must show

that upholding the conspiracy conviction would constitute “a 

manifest miscarriage of justice.” Id. (internal quotation marks 

omitted). A manifest miscarriage of justice occurs when the 

record is “devoid of evidence pointing to guilt” or the 

“evidence on a key element of the offense was so tenuous that 

a conviction would be shocking.” United States v. Spinner, 

152 F.3d 950, 956 (D.C. Cir. 1998) (internal quotation marks 

omitted).

Applying that especially deferential standard, we 

conclude that the evidence suffices to show a conspiracy

between Ronald and Maurice to distribute drugs.

On September 16, while the police watched, Ronald met 

with two individuals at Maurice’s house. After the two men 

left the house, the police stopped them and found cocaine on 

them. That day, the police also observed Ronald meeting 

with a third man. When the police later approached that man, 

he appeared to swallow bags of cocaine. On October 21, 

moreover, Maurice was caught with dealer-level quantities of 

drugs after leaving his house. Then, during the search of 

Maurice’s house on October 21, the officers found substantial 

quantities of cocaine, marijuana, and drug packaging 

materials. In addition, during that search, Ronald attempted 

to divert officers from a table where drugs were later found. 

In the house, the officers also found a jacket of Ronald’s size 

that contained drugs.

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Although the evidence is admittedly thin, a rational jury 

could conclude that both Ronald and Maurice knew about the 

substantial quantities of drugs in Maurice’s house and that 

both Ronald and Maurice were dealing drugs from Maurice’s 

house. Putting all of the evidence together, moreover, a 

rational jury could further conclude that the brothers were not 

coincidentally running separate operations out of Maurice’s 

house, but rather had agreed to distribute drugs, with 

Maurice’s house as a base of operations. See, e.g., United 

States v. Branham, 515 F.3d 1268, 1273-74 (D.C. Cir. 2008); 

United States v. Childress, 58 F.3d 693, 713 (D.C. Cir. 1995);

United States v. Jenkins, 928 F.2d 1175, 1179 (D.C. Cir. 

1991).

In short, applying the especially deferential “manifest 

miscarriage of justice” standard, we conclude that the record 

contains sufficient evidence that Ronald Williams unlawfully 

conspired with his brother Maurice to distribute drugs. 

B

At Ronald Williams’s first trial, the jury acquitted him of 

the two drug distribution charges and hung on the conspiracy 

and possession with intent to distribute counts. At his second 

trial on the conspiracy and possession with intent to distribute 

counts, the District Court excluded evidence that Williams

had been acquitted on the distribution counts during the first 

trial. On appeal, Williams challenges that decision. We 

review his evidentiary claim under the deferential abuse of 

discretion standard. See United States v. Bailey, 319 F.3d 

514, 517 (D.C. Cir. 2003).

The District Court did not abuse its discretion by 

excluding evidence of Williams’s prior acquittal of other 

crimes. It is settled that a criminal defendant ordinarily may 

not introduce evidence at trial of his or her prior acquittal of

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other crimes. The hearsay, relevance, and more-prejudicialthan-probative rules generally preclude the admission of 

evidence of such prior acquittals. See United States v. 

Thomas, 114 F.3d 228, 249-50 (D.C. Cir. 1997); Bailey, 319 

F.3d at 518.

Faced with that legal barrier, Williams advances a 

narrower argument. According to Williams, evidence of his 

prior acquittal was relevant because he was seeking to correct

mistaken speculation by the second jury that he had 

previously been convicted of distribution. Evidence about the 

status of a defendant’s other criminal charges may be relevant 

where the jury otherwise would reasonably think that the 

defendant had previously been convicted of the other 

offenses. See Bailey, 319 F.3d at 518 (“We think that if the 

jury inference is plausible, evidence to rebut that inference is 

relevant.”).

But here, the District Court and the parties took great 

pains to conceal the first trial from the second jury. The 

distribution charges from the first trial were not mentioned in 

the jury’s presence. So there was no mistaken speculation to 

correct. Williams notes that a police officer testified that 

drugs seized from one of the alleged buyers no longer existed 

because “once the case is resolved, due to limited storage

space, all narcotics are destroyed.” App. 87. In addition, the 

parties stipulated that drugs seized from another alleged buyer

were “destroyed pursuant to Metropolitan Police 

Department’s evidence retention guidelines.” Id. at 107. 

According to Williams, those references to a “resolved” case 

and “destroyed” drugs may have confused the jury into 

thinking that he had already been arrested, tried, and

convicted of another drug crime. But Williams’s theory 

stretches too far, particularly when reviewed under the 

deferential abuse of discretion standard. After all, Williams’s 

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case obviously had not been resolved in its entirety, given that 

he was the defendant in the then-ongoing trial. Under an 

abuse of discretion standard, his theory is unconvincing: The 

logical inference for the jury to draw from those snippets of 

evidence was that any cases against the drug buyers had been 

resolved.

In short, the District Court did not abuse its discretion by 

excluding evidence of Williams’s prior acquittal on the drug

distribution counts.

C

We turn next to Williams’s claim that his trial counsel 

was ineffective. He alleges that his counsel failed to provide 

effective assistance during pre-trial plea negotiations and at 

trial. Consistent with this Court’s practice in these 

circumstances, we remand to the District Court so that it may

consider the claim in the first instance.

To make out a case of ineffective assistance, a defendant 

must present “factual allegations that, if true, would establish 

a violation” of the Sixth Amendment right to counsel. United 

States v. Mohammed, 693 F.3d 192, 202 (D.C. Cir. 2012) 

(internal quotation marks omitted). The defendant “must 

show not only that counsel’s performance was deficient, but 

that he suffered prejudice as a result.” United States v. Solofa, 

745 F.3d 1226, 1229 (D.C. Cir. 2014) (citing Strickland v. 

Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 687 (1984)).

This Court allows defendants to raise ineffective 

assistance claims on direct appeal, as well as in collateral 

proceedings. But as the Supreme Court has stated, ineffective 

assistance claims “ordinarily will be litigated in the first 

instance in the district court, the forum best suited to 

developing the facts necessary to determining the adequacy of 

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representation during an entire trial.” Massaro v. United 

States, 538 U.S. 500, 505 (2003); see United States v. Bell, 

708 F.3d 223, 225 (D.C. Cir. 2013). Therefore, our typical

practice on direct appeal is to remand “colorable” claims of 

ineffective assistance to the district court without first 

substantially analyzing the merits. See Mohammed, 693 F.3d 

at 202. Although we do not “reflexively remand,” we also do 

not “hesitate to remand when a trial record is insufficient to 

assess the full circumstances and rationales informing the 

strategic decisions of trial counsel.” Id. (internal quotation 

marks omitted).

Applying those standards, we remand here so that the 

District Court may consider Williams’s ineffective assistance 

of counsel claims. Williams alleges that his counsel was

ineffective in pre-trial plea negotiations and at trial. Before 

Williams’s second trial, the Government extended a favorable 

plea offer. Williams now contends that his counsel did not 

convey that offer to him until the first day of trial, after the 

offer had expired. He also claims that his counsel incorrectly

explained how his career offender status might affect his 

sentencing exposure. Had Williams received proper advice, 

he says, he would never have risked a trial. On top of that, 

Williams also alleges that his counsel erred in several respects

at trial, including by failing to move for acquittal at the close 

of evidence, failing to impeach a witness, and failing to make 

certain evidentiary arguments. 

A court cannot meaningfully assess those claims without 

first hearing from Williams’s trial counsel. Without evidence 

from trial counsel, we cannot know what actually happened or 

the reasons behind the trial counsel’s decisions. On some 

occasions, even without evidence from trial counsel, we can

determine that there was no possibility of prejudice from the 

allegedly deficient performance. In such cases, we therefore 

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may affirm rather than remand because a remand would serve 

no purpose. See United States v. Pole, 741 F.3d 120, 126-27

(D.C. Cir. 2013). But this is not such a case. Therefore, the 

proper course of action for us here is to remand and “allow 

the district court to address the claims – and the government’s 

responses – in the first instance.” Id. at 127. 

* * *

We affirm the judgment of the District Court except that, 

consistent with this Court’s ordinary practice in these 

circumstances, we remand the case so that the District Court 

may address Williams’s claim of ineffective assistance of 

counsel in the first instance.

So ordered.

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