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Parties Involved:
United States of America
Appellee
Tracy Vaughn
Appellant

Document Text:

1

The HONORABLE LAURIE SMITH CAMP, United States District Judge for

the District of Nebraska.

United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE EIGHTH CIRCUIT

___________

No. 04-2092

___________

United States of America, *

*

Plaintiff - Appellee, *

* Appeal from the United States

v. * District Court for the

* District of Nebraska.

Tracy Vaughn, *

*

Defendant - Appellant. *

___________

Submitted: December 17, 2004

Filed: June 8, 2005

___________

Before LOKEN, Chief Judge, MORRIS SHEPPARD ARNOLD and RILEY, Circuit

Judges.

___________

LOKEN, Chief Judge

After a bench trial, the district court1

 convicted Tracy Vaughn of conspiracy

to distribute fifty grams or more of crack cocaine in violation of 21 U.S.C.

§§ 841(a)(1) and (b)(1). Vaughn appeals, arguing there was insufficient evidence to

support his conviction and challenging the drug quantity finding underlying his 360-

month sentence. We affirm.

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In a pro se supplemental brief, Vaughn argues that the district court erred in

crediting the testimony that the drug trafficking involved crack cocaine, because the

conspirators were not qualified experts capable of distinguishing crack from other

forms of cocaine. This argument is without merit. The witnesses were experienced

drug dealers. The district court did not commit clear error in crediting their testimony

that they were selling and buying crack cocaine. See United States v. Marsalla, 164

F.3d 1178, 1179-80 (8th Cir. 1999).

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I. Sufficiency of the Evidence

At trial, five admitted conspirators testified for the government that they had

bought crack cocaine from or sold crack cocaine to Vaughn on numerous occasions

during the alleged conspiracy period. The district court’s detailed findings of fact

reviewed this trial testimony, noted that the five witnesses had an incentive to

cooperate with the government but not to testify falsely, further noted that some of

their testimony was corroborated by others, and credited the testimony that they

engaged in on-going crack cocaine transactions with Vaughn.2

On appeal, Vaughn argues that the district court erred in finding these

witnesses credible because they had been convicted of drug offenses and agreed to

testify against Vaughn in exchange for the possibility of receiving reduced sentences.

In reviewing the sufficiency of the evidence after a bench trial, we apply the same

standard that we apply when reviewing a jury verdict. See United States v. Matra,

841 F.2d 837, 840 (8th Cir. 1988); United States v. Barletta, 565 F.2d 985, 991 (8th

Cir. 1977). It is well-established that “the uncorroborated testimony of an accomplice

is sufficient to sustain a conviction if the testimony is not otherwise incredible or

unsubstantial on its face.” United States v. Dunn, 494 F.2d 1280, 1281-82 (8th Cir.),

cert. denied, 419 U.S. 855 (1974). Here, the district court credited the conspirators’

testimony; these credibility findings are “virtually unreviewable on appeal.” United

States v. Candie, 974 F.2d 61, 64 (8th Cir. 1992). After careful review of the trial

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record, we conclude that the evidence was more than sufficient to sustain Vaughn’s

conviction.

II. Sentencing Issues

The district court’s post-trial findings of fact included detailed findings as to

the quantities of crack cocaine to which the five conspirator witnesses testified at

trial. Based in large part on those findings, Vaughn’s Presentence Investigation

Report (PSR) recommended that he be held accountable for 2.17 kilograms of crack

cocaine. Vaughn objected to this recommendation, arguing “that there was no direct

evidence of the amount of drugs attributable to [Vaughn] and that amount of drugs

attributed to [him] by the government’s witnesses was vague and incorrect.” At

sentencing, the district court overruled this objection: “Having presided over the trial

of this matter as the finder of fact and law, I agree that the amount of crack cocaine

attributed to [Vaughn] in the PSR is fair and accurate.”

On appeal, noting that the district court did not recite that its post-trial drug

quantity findings were made beyond a reasonable doubt, Vaughn argues for the first

time that the court violated his Sixth Amendment rights under the Supreme Court’s

post-sentencing decision in Blakely v. Washington, 124 S. Ct. 2531 (2004). In

considering this contention, we apply the Supreme Court’s more recent clarifying

opinion in United States v. Booker, 125 S. Ct. 738 (2005). Because Vaughn failed

to raise the issue at sentencing, we review for plain error. United States v. Pirani, 406

F.3d 543 (8th Cir. 2005) (en banc). 

We will assume that the district court made its pre-Blakely drug quantity

findings under the preponderance of the evidence standard. But the remedial opinion

in Booker held that such judicial fact-finding for sentencing purposes does not violate

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For this reason, Vaughn’s pro se argument that the district court violated

Blakely in finding by a preponderance that the conspiracy offense began less than two

years after his release from prison is without merit. See U.S.S.G. § 4A1.1(e). 

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the Sixth Amendment when made as part of an advisory Guidelines regime.3

 Thus,

the “Booker error” in this case was the district court’s understandable error in treating

the Guidelines regime as mandatory. The plain error question, then, is whether

Vaughn has satisfied his burden of demonstrating a “reasonable probability” that the

district court would have imposed a more favorable sentence had the court understood

the Guidelines to be advisory, as now mandated by Booker. We conclude Vaughn

has made no such showing. In imposing the 360-month sentence, the court explained,

“I’ve chosen a sentence at the low end of the guidelines range because I think . . . a

sentence of that substantial length is going to serve all of the goals of the criminal

justice system.” See Pirani, 406 F.3d at 553.

Vaughn argues in the alternative that the evidence at trial did not support the

district court’s drug quantity finding. He relies on the fact that the district court

credited witness Chinn’s testimony that Vaughn supplied Chinn with 13 ounces of

crack cocaine, whereas the government advised the court some months after the trial,

while this appeal was pending, that the government had not called Chinn as a witness

in a subsequent trial because of concerns about his truthfulness in that unrelated

matter. If Chinn’s trial testimony were material to the district court’s drug quantity

finding, we would need to consider whether this new information casts sufficient

doubt on Chinn’s credibility to warrant a remand so that the district court could

consider the question in the first instance. But we conclude that Chinn’s testimony

was not material to the drug quantity issue. The district court attributed 2.17

kilograms of crack to Vaughn for sentencing purposes. This resulted in a base

offense level of 38. See U.S.S.G. § 2D1.1(c)(1). Base offense level 38 applies if the

defendant was responsible for 1.5 kilograms or more of crack cocaine. Chinn’s

testimony attributed 13 additional ounces, or 368.55 grams (one ounce equals 28.35

grams). Subtracting Chinn’s 368.55 grams from the total of 2.17 kilograms still

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leaves Vaughn responsible for well over 1.5 kilograms, so Chinn’s testimony did not

affect Vaughn’s base offense level of 38. 

The judgment of the district court is affirmed.

______________________________

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