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Parties Involved:
Leon Boyd
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

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United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued December 2, 2005 Decided January 27, 2006

No. 04-3142

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

APPELLEE

v.

LEON BOYD,

APPELLANT

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Columbia

(No. 02cr00489-01)

Mary E. Davis, appointed by the court, argued the cause

for appellant. With her on the brief was Thomas Abbenante,

appointed by the court.

Suzanne C. Nyland, Assistant U.S. Attorney, argued the

cause for appellee. With her on the brief were Kenneth L.

Wainstein, U.S. Attorney, and David B. Goodhand, Assistant

U.S. Attorney. Roy W. McLeese, III, Assistant U.S. Attorney,

entered an appearance.

Before: HENDERSON, ROGERS and BROWN, Circuit

Judges.

Opinion for the court filed by Circuit Judge ROGERS.

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ROGERS, Circuit Judge: Leon Boyd appeals his conviction

by a jury on the ground that the district court erred in admitting

into evidence information from the files of the D.C. Pretrial

Services Agency (“PSA”) regarding the negative results of his

drug test. He also seeks re-sentencing. The Government

conceded at oral argument that the drug test evidence was

admitted to show Boyd’s guilt, which D.C. Code § 23-1303(d)

prohibits, but maintains that any error was harmless because the

evidence was admissible for impeachment under Federal Rule

of Evidence 806 and because the evidence of Boyd’s guilt was

overwhelming. We need not decide if the evidence was

admissible under Rule 806 because we conclude that the error

in admitting the evidence to show guilt was harmless.

Accordingly we affirm the judgment of conviction for drug and

firearms offenses, except we remand the case to the district court

for re-sentencing in light of United States v. Booker, 125 S. Ct.

738 (2005).

I. 

On November 5, 2002, Investigator Greene of the

Metropolitan Police Department (“MPD”) and other members

of a narcotics unit were driving past the 1100 block of Bellevue

Street, S.E., Washington, D.C. Greene observed two men

converse and engage in what seemed to be a drug transaction.

Boyd reached into his coat pocket and handed “small objects”

to the other man, who then handed Boyd some money. Upon

searching the two men, the officers seized from Boyd’s person

a loaded handgun and a plastic bag with 1.7 grams of cocaine

base in “small white rocks.”

Boyd was indicted on three counts: (1) unlawful possession

of a firearm and ammunition by a felon, 18 U.S.C. §§ 922(g)(1)

and 924(a)(2); (2) unlawful possession with intent to distribute

cocaine base (“crack”), 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1) and (b)(1)(C); and

(3) unlawful possession of a firearm during a drug trafficking

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offense, 18 U.S.C. § 924(c)(1). The parties stipulated that at the

time of his arrest Boyd had a prior felony conviction, that the

firearm seized from him was operable, and that the firearm and

ammunition were manufactured outside of the District of

Columbia. An expert testified that the presence of 53 chunks in

the bag seized from Boyd tended to show that he was going to

distribute the drugs rather than use them himself.

Boyd’s defense was that he possessed the drugs for his

personal use. The police had recorded on MPD Form 163

Boyd’s statement at the time of his arrest that “I was just getting

ready to smoke that dog.” On cross-examination, an MPD

detective acknowledged that Boyd’s statement was consistent

with personal use. The district court then allowed the

Government, over defense objection, to call a witness from the

PSA who testified that Boyd had tested negative for cocaine on

the day after his arrest. On cross-examination the witness

acknowledged that Boyd had tested positive for opiates, which

meant that he had ingested either heroin or an opiate prescription

drug. As part of the defense case, Boyd recalled an MPD

detective who testified that, as an alternative to using a crack

pipe, crack cocaine can be consumed by sprinkling it on

marijuana or “other smoking matter.” The detective confirmed,

however, that the crack seized from Boyd had not been

pulverized into a form that would typically be used to sprinkle

on other smoking matter. On redirect, the detective

acknowledged that Boyd’s statement at the time of his arrest was

consistent with personal use of cocaine.

The jury convicted Boyd on all counts. The district court

sentenced Boyd under the Sentencing Guidelines to 180 months’

imprisonment on the distribution count, 120 months on the

firearm and ammunition count, and 60 months for possessing a

firearm during a drug trafficking offense, with the sentences to

be served consecutively.

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II.

D.C. Code § 23-1303(d) provides that information collected

by the PSA “shall not be admissible on the issue of guilt in any

judicial proceeding,” although such information may be used

“for the purposes of impeachment in any subsequent

proceeding.” Boyd argued in the district court that testimony

about the result of his drug test was not probative of whether he

used crack cocaine and was, in any event, an impermissible use

of PSA information. On appeal he renews his objection,

contending that the district court erred in admitting the evidence

because, contrary to the statute, the drug test was used to prove

that he did not possess crack for his personal use but rather in

order to distribute it. Indeed, during closing argument the

prosecutor pointed to the drug test evidence as undermining

Boyd’s defense that the crack that the police seized from him

was for his personal use.

The Government conceded during oral argument that it had

sought to admit the drug test evidence to prove Boyd’s guilt, but

maintains that any error was harmless because the drug test was

admissible for impeachment purposes under Federal Rule of

Evidence 806 and because there was overwhelming evidence

that Boyd intended to distribute the drugs. Although it is not

self-evident from the plain text of D.C. Code § 23-1303(d) that

PSA information is admissible as impeachment evidence at a

defendant’s trial, the District of Columbia Court of Appeals has

construed congressional intent to allow it, see Herbert v. United

States, 340 A.2d 802, 804-05 (D.C. 1975), and Boyd does not

challenge the admissibility of the drug test information on that

ground. We need not decide, however, whether the drug test

evidence was admissible for impeachment under Rule 806. 

Upon review of an error for harmlessness, the court will

reverse the judgment of conviction only if the error was

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“prejudicial” in that it affected the defendant’s “substantial

rights.” FED.R.CRIM. P. 52(a); United States v. Coumaris, 399

F.3d 343, 347 (D.C. Cir. 2005). Because the other evidence of

Boyd’s guilt was overwhelming, the erroneous admission of the

PSA drug test evidence did not affect his “substantial rights.”

Although that evidence weakened Boyd’s defense of personal

use, it had no outcome-determinative bearing on the question

whether Boyd possessed the drugs for his personal use rather

than for purposes of distribution.

In addition to the parties’ stipulations, the evidence showed

that the officers had observed Boyd in what appeared to be a

hand-to-hand drug transaction and that at the time he was in

possession of a loaded firearm, crack cocaine worth $530 that

was packaged in a manner consistent with how crack is carried

by dealers selling it on the street, and $117 in smalldenomination bills. Expert testimony explained why a personal

user would not buy such a large quantity of crack cocaine at one

time. An MPD narcotics detective, who had been detailed for

years to the Drug Enforcement Administration as an intelligence

analyst and who, without objection, was qualified as a narcotics

expert, testified that the bag seized from Boyd contained 53

“chunks” of cocaine, far more than a cocaine user would carry

around at once. According to the expert witness:

[Crack cocaine users] have a basic formula of how they

are going to use crack cocaine. They basically wake[]

up. They figure out a way to get $10. They will go

b[u]y a $10 rock or piece of crack cocaine, take it,

smoke it, get high and unhigh, and depending upon

their habit, they may do it several times a day. . . .

There are reasons why these individuals don’t go buy

large quantities or 53 rocks for their personal use.

These reasons are widely known and they range from

the fact that there is crack cocaine of a very low quality

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that is on the street. They don’t want to go and invest

any large amount of money and find out they

purchased crack of a very low quality because they will

be stuck with it.

The officers found no device to smoke the drugs on Boyd at the

time of his arrest and no drug paraphernalia in his apartment.

Boyd’s defense that he could have consumed the crack by

crushing and smoking it was undermined by the evidence as to

the non-pulverized condition of the 53 rocks in his possession

and Boyd’s contemporaneous statement that he was “getting

ready” to smoke it. An MPD detective explained why Boyd’s

statement that he “was just getting ready to smoke that dog” was

self-serving and should not be taken at face value: such a claim

was “typically a statement than an individual with some

experience would say to the police hoping they wouldn’t get

charged with distribution but merely possession.”

Accordingly, because the evidence of Boyd’s guilt was

overwhelming, we affirm the judgment of conviction, except we

vacate Boyd’s sentence and remand the case for re-sentencing.

The Government advised by letter of November 30, 2005, that

it agrees with Boyd that his case should be remanded for resentencing in light of Booker, 125 S. Ct. 738. Boyd preserved

his challenge to the Sentencing Guidelines in his memorandum

in aid of sentencing, which raised objections under Blakely v.

Washington, 542 U.S. 296 (2004), and Apprendi v. New Jersey,

530 U.S. 466 (2000). The Government therefore acknowledges

that the limited remand procedure for plain error review under

United States v. Coles, 403 F.3d 764, 771 (D.C. Cir. 2005), does

not apply. See Coumaris, 399 F.3d at 351.

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