Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca8-04-01026/USCOURTS-ca8-04-01026-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
United States of America
Appellee
Arthur Vesey
Appellant

Document Text:

1

The Honorable J. Leon Holmes, United States District Judge for the Eastern

District of Arkansas, sitting by designation.

2

The Honorable Mark W. Bennett, Chief Judge, United States District Court

for the Northern District of Iowa.

United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE EIGHTH CIRCUIT

___________

No. 04-1026

___________

United States of America, *

*

Appellee, *

* Appeal from the United States

v. * District Court for the 

* Northern District of Iowa.

Arthur Vesey, *

*

Appellant. *

___________

Submitted: November 18, 2004

Filed: January 21, 2005

___________

Before WOLLMAN and HEANEY, Circuit Judges, and HOLMES,1

 District Judge.

___________

WOLLMAN, Circuit Judge.

Arthur Vesey appeals from the district court’s2

 denial of his motion for new

trial. We affirm.

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-2-

I.

Vesey originally was charged with four counts of distribution of cocaine base,

in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1). After his first trial resulted in a hung jury,

Vesey was retried and was convicted on three counts and acquitted on one count. We

reversed that conviction and remanded for a third trial, holding that Vesey had been

prejudiced by the district court’s denial of a continuance at the second trial. United

States v. Vesey, 330 F.3d 1070 (8th Cir. 2003).

Following another mistrial, the government tried Vesey for the fourth time on

a single count of distributing more than 5 grams of cocaine base. See 21 U.S.C. §

841(a)(1). At the fourth trial, police informant Susan Zieser-Perkins testified that she

purchased 14 rocks of crack cocaine from Vesey in a controlled drug buy on July 31,

2003, in Bever Park in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Perkins wore a recording device during

the controlled buy, and the government introduced a tape recording of the alleged

deal to supplement Perkins’s testimony. The government also introduced the

testimony of Wilson Wade, an inmate who claimed that Vesey had admitted to him

that he disposed of both the container in which he transported the drugs to the

controlled buy and the sequentially marked bills that Perkins used to buy the drugs.

In response, Vesey presented various witnesses who claimed that the testimony of

both Perkins and Wade was unreliable. The jury subsequently returned a guilty

verdict.

Following the verdict, Vesey moved for a new trial on the ground that the

evidence adduced at the fourth trial was insufficient to support the jury’s verdict.

II.

“The decision to grant or deny a motion for a new trial based upon the weight

of the evidence is within the sound discretion of the trial court.” United States v.

Campos, 306 F.3d 577, 579 (8th Cir. 2002). In making its decision, the district court

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“need not view the evidence in the light most favorable to the government, but may

instead weigh the evidence and evaluate for itself the credibility of the witnesses.”

United States v. Lacey, 219 F.3d 779, 783-84 (8th Cir. 2000). The district court need

not grant a motion for a new trial unless the evidence “weighs heavily enough against

the verdict that a miscarriage of justice may have occurred.” Id. at 783 (citation

omitted). We review the district court’s denial of a motion for a new trial “with great

deference, reversing only if the district court abused its discretion.” United States v.

Leonos-Marquez, 323 F.3d 679, 682 (8th Cir. 2003) (quoting Jones v. TEK Indus.,

319 F.3d 355, 358 (8th Cir. 2003)).

In order to prove that Vesey distributed cocaine base in violation of 21 U.S.C.

§ 841(a)(1), the government was required to establish that: (1) Vesey distributed

cocaine base on or about July 31, 2003; and (2) he did so knowingly and

intentionally. See United States v. Johnson, 934 F.2d 936, 939 n.5 (8th Cir. 1991)

(elements of distribution of a controlled substance under 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1)) . The

government presented a recording of the dialogue between Perkins and Vesey at the

controlled buy. The recording clearly indicates that Vesey gave Perkins what he

believed to be twelve or thirteen individual units of drugs in exchange for cash. After

the deal was concluded, Perkins returned fourteen rocks of crack cocaine to the police

officers with whom she was cooperating. Although neither the sequentially marked

bills that Perkins used to pay for the crack cocaine nor the container in which Vesey

allegedly transported the drugs to the deal was ever retrieved by police, the recording

of the controlled buy and the record as a whole convince us that sufficient evidence

existed to support Vesey’s conviction. See also United States v. Copple, 827 F.2d

1182, 1187 (8th Cir. 1987) (citing United States v. Coronel-Quintana, 752 F.2d 1284,

1292 (8th Cir. 1985)) (government may prove its case through circumstantial

evidence). We are thus satisfied that no miscarriage of justice occurred and that the

district court did not abuse its discretion in denying Vesey’s motion for a new trial.

The order denying a new trial is affirmed.

______________________________

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