Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-03-03158/USCOURTS-caDC-03-03158-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
United States of America
Appellee
Michael Wells
Appellant

Document Text:

United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued October 31, 2005 Decided June 2, 2006 

No. 03-3157 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 

APPELLEE

v. 

REGINALD BAUGHAM, A/K/A REDS, 

APPELLANT

Consolidated with 

03-3158 

Appeals from the United States District Court 

for the District of Columbia 

(No. 01cr00253-02) 

(No. 01cr00253-03) 

 Anthony D. Martin, appointed by the court, argued the 

cause and filed the brief for appellant Reginald Baugham in 

No. 03-3157. 

 Dennis M. Hart, appointed by the court, argued the cause 

and filed the brief for appellant Michael Wells in No. 03-

3158. 

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 Suzanne G. Curt, Assistant U.S. Attorney, argued the 

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

Wainstein, U.S. Attorney, John R. Fisher, Assistant U.S. 

Attorney at the time the brief was filed, and David B. 

Goodhand and Martin D. Carpenter, Assistant U.S. 

Attorneys. 

 Before: ROGERS, Circuit Judge, and EDWARDS* and 

WILLIAMS, Senior Circuit Judges. 

 Opinion for the Court filed by Senior Circuit Judge

WILLIAMS. 

 WILLIAMS, Senior Circuit Judge: Five defendants—

appellants Baugham and Wells and three others, Honesty, 

White, and James Nelson, Jr.1—were tried together for 

conspiracy to distribute and to possess with intent to distribute 

50 grams or more of cocaine base, in violation of 21 U.S.C. 

§ 846. Each of the five defendants was also tried in the same 

proceeding on one or more substantive offenses, each 

involving drugs, guns, or both. Honesty, White, and James 

Nelson, Jr., were acquitted on all counts. Baugham was 

convicted on the conspiracy count, plus two others: 

distributing cocaine base, in violation of 21 U.S.C. 

§§ 841(a)(1) and (b)(1)(C) and 18 U.S.C. § 2, and possessing 

5 grams or more of cocaine base with intent to distribute, in 

violation of 21 U.S.C. §§ 841(a)(1), (b)(1)(B)(iii) and 18 

U.S.C. § 2. Wells was also convicted on the conspiracy 

count, plus two others: distributing 50 grams or more of 

 

* Senior Circuit Judge Edwards was in regular active service at 

the time of oral argument. 

1

 One defendant and three witnesses all have the last name 

“Nelson.” For clarity, we refer to these four by their full names or 

first names. 

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cocaine base, in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1) and 

(b)(1)(A)(iii) and 18 U.S.C. § 2, and possessing a firearm in 

furtherance of a drug trafficking offense (i.e., the drug 

conspiracy), in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 924(c)(1). 

Baugham and Wells attack their convictions on a variety 

of grounds; the only ones meriting discussion in a published 

opinion are claims of insufficiency of evidence of conspiracy 

and of a fatal variance between the conspiracy alleged and the 

proof at trial. They also challenge their sentences. We affirm 

the convictions but vacate the sentences and remand for 

resentencing. 

I. The Conspiracy Convictions 

Baugham argues that there was insufficient evidence that 

he conspired with any of the defendants, cooperators, or 

informants. It is unclear whether Wells also mounts a 

sufficiency challenge, but the government reads his brief as 

doing so and therefore presents what it contends is evidence 

sufficient to support both appellants’ conspiracy convictions. 

Brief of Appellee at 29-37, esp. 34, 36. Given that this court 

in any event has the power to notice a plain error sua sponte, 

Silber v. United States, 370 U.S. 717, 718 (1962), and 

assuming in Wells’s favor that our usual deference to the jury 

verdict is no greater when the plain-error rule applies, see 

United States v. Spinner, 152 F.3d 950, 956 (D.C. Cir. 1998), 

we think it appropriate, under these circumstances, to subject 

his conspiracy conviction to the same scrutiny as Baugham’s. 

Evidence is sufficient if, when viewed in the light most 

favorable to the government, it would permit a rational jury to 

find the elements of conspiracy beyond a reasonable doubt. 

United States v. Graham, 83 F.3d 1466, 1471 (D.C. Cir. 

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1996). The drug conspiracy statute, 21 U.S.C. § 846, 

dispenses with the usual requirement of an overt act and 

requires only an agreement to commit any offense(s) defined 

in the subchapter, United States v. Shabani, 513 U.S. 10, 16-

17 (1994)—in this case, distribution of, or possession with 

intent to distribute, 50 grams or more of “cocaine base,” 21 

U.S.C. §§ 841(a)(1), (b)(1)(A)(iii). 

The sufficiency and variance issues interact with each 

other here in a rather complex way. In United States v. 

Brisbane, 367 F.3d 910 (D.C. Cir. 2004), we addressed the 

“cocaine base” element of the offense, holding that a 

conviction premised on “cocaine base” under 21 U.S.C. § 841 

cannot stand unless the evidence establishes that the cocaine 

at issue was crack or that it was smokable; we left unresolved 

whether proof of smokability alone would suffice. Id. at 914. 

Appellants did not raise the Brisbane problem below, so we 

review for plain error under Federal Rule of Criminal 

Procedure 52(b). Thus, the convictions cannot stand if 

(1) there is error (2) that is plain and (3) that affects 

substantial rights, and (4) we find that the error “seriously 

affects the fairness, integrity or public reputation of judicial 

proceedings.” United States v. Olano, 507 U.S. 725, 732 

(1993) (citations, internal quotation marks, and brackets 

omitted). 

Here, if the evidence turns out to be sufficient to support 

the conviction even when the statute is read in accordance 

with Brisbane, there is no error at all as to sufficiency. 

Because of all hands’ failure to anticipate Brisbane, the record 

is relatively weak on whether either the conspiracy alleged in 

the indictment, or even a Baugham-Wells conspiracy argued 

by the government as a fallback, actually involved 50 grams 

of cocaine base as defined in Brisbane. But the evidence, as 

we shall soon see, is quite abundant for a showing that 

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Baugham and Wells each conspired with cooperating witness 

Earl Nelson to distribute far more than 50 grams of crack. 

Because the parties’ briefs hadn’t addressed the relation 

between Brisbane and the sufficiency and variance issues, we 

ordered a second round of briefing, putting to the parties the 

questions (among others) whether the evidence was adequate 

to show Baugham-Earl and Wells-Earl conspiracies on the 

scale of 50 grams of cocaine base as defined in Brisbane and 

whether reliance on those conspiracies would mean that the 

variance caused appellants harm justifying reversal. Having 

studied the second round of briefs, we proceed to those two 

issues. 

A. Sufficiency of the Evidence 

Cooperating witness Earl Nelson testified that he 

purchased an ounce (i.e., about 28 grams) of “crack cocaine” 

from Baugham “more than twenty or thirty” times and that he 

purchased even more ounces of crack cocaine from Wells. 

A sale of drugs does not, however, per se establish a 

conspiracy between seller and buyer to distribute such drugs, 

or to possess them with intent to distribute. In drawing the 

distinction between a conspiracy and a non-conspiratorial 

buyer-seller relationship, the Supreme Court and this court 

have considered a variety of factors: the seller’s knowledge of 

the buyer’s illegal purpose (e.g., to re-sell the drugs) and of 

any larger organization designed to further that purpose; the 

seller’s intent to further the buyer’s illegal purpose; the 

duration and regularity of the dealings; the quantity of drugs 

sold; the importance of the particular buyer to the particular 

seller and vice versa; and either party’s special efforts to get 

the other party to transact with him (including extension of 

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credit) or to make the entire operation run successfully. See 

Direct Sales Co. v. United States, 319 U.S. 703, 711-12 & n.8 

(1943); United States v. Thomas, 114 F.3d 228, 245 & n.5 

(D.C. Cir. 1997); United States v. Baylor, 97 F.3d 542, 543-

44, 547 (D.C. Cir. 1996); United States v. Sobamowo, 892 

F.2d 90, 94-95 (D.C. Cir. 1989); United States v. Morris, 836 

F.2d 1371, 1373-74 (D.C. Cir. 1988). While the seller’s 

knowledge of the buyer’s illegal purpose is necessary to 

conviction, Direct Sales, 319 U.S. at 712 & n.8, and multiple 

huge sales (much larger than those here) may be sufficient, 

United States v. Childress, 58 F.3d 693, 714 (D.C. Cir. 1995), 

the cases otherwise say little about how the various factors are 

to be weighed. 

We conclude that Earl’s purchases from each of the 

appellants separately fulfill enough of the indicia of 

conspiracy to support their convictions. We do not decide 

whether the evidence supports the single broad horizontaland-vertical conspiracy alleged in the indictment, nor any part 

of it (e.g., the Baugham-Wells conspiracy identified by the 

government), aside from the Earl-Baugham and Earl-Wells 

agreements. We save the variance issue for the next section. 

Earl plainly intended to distribute the crack he bought 

from each appellant. When asked about his general practice 

when purchasing ounces from Baugham, Earl testified that the 

purchase price was $1000 and that if the entire quantity were 

sold at retail (i.e., “[i]f you bag up an ounce”), the gross 

revenue would be $2000. In fact, however, Earl said his profit 

if he “did good” was only $200 or $300, since he exchanged 

some of the crack for sex, sometimes didn’t get the full price 

from his retail customers, and smoked some of the crack 

himself (the only non-distributed portion). Thus, Earl must 

have typically distributed around half or more of each ounce 

he purchased from Baugham. 

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The jury could rationally infer that this testimony also 

applied to the ounces that Earl purchased from Wells. Earl 

gave no reason to think his practice differed depending on his 

supplier. Moreover, immediately after giving the testimony 

on Baugham cited above, Earl shifted seamlessly into 

comments that applied to all of his suppliers, suggesting he 

didn’t mean his testimony to be specific to Baugham. 

Further, there is evidence that each appellant knew of 

Earl’s intent to distribute and sought to further the 

distribution. Testifying as to his general practice when 

purchasing ounces from Baugham, Earl said that he could sell 

an ounce in a day and a half if he worked hard. He said he 

would sometimes take breaks in the crack house until whoever 

was supplying him—and here he named Baugham and Wells 

as examples—would “come in the crack house hollering what 

you doing here in it or why you in here and run me out 

because you can’t make no money in here.” 

In addition, Earl said that Baugham and Wells were 

aware of his distribution activities during earlier phases of his 

career during which he was buying sub-ounce quantities, and 

that they then kept tabs on his selling. On this basis, the jury 

had every reason to infer that appellants remained aware of 

Earl’s distribution activities once they began selling him even 

larger quantities. 

There is also evidence that Earl dealt with each appellant 

regularly and over a long period. Earl testified that his drugdealing relationship with Baugham began in 1993, and 

audiotape evidence confirms that he bought an ounce from 

him in 2000. Earl said that, over the course of his relationship 

with Baugham, he initially received sets of tiny “dime bags” 

at least two to three times per week; next “eight-balls” (each 

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one-eighth of an ounce) one or two times per week, “if [he] 

did that many”; next quarter-ounces, though Earl didn’t say 

how frequently; and finally ounces, at least two or three times 

per week, for a total of over twenty or thirty. As for Wells, 

Earl said he began dealing drugs for him in 1993 and 

continued (with a one-year interruption) over a ten-year 

period, which would cover most of the alleged period of the 

conspiracy (1992-2000). Earl said that when he was buying 

ounces from Wells the frequency was at least two or three per 

week, for a total of more than twenty or thirty. 

 As we mentioned, credit arrangements can be a 

significant factor supporting a buyer-seller conspiracy; this is 

true even if they apply to only some of the transactions. See 

United States v. Melendez, 401 F.3d 851, 854 (7th Cir. 2005); 

United States v. Burroughs, 830 F.2d 1574, 1581 (11th Cir. 

1987). Earl testified that when he bought ounces from 

Baugham, he received them on credit sometimes, depending 

on whether he had the cash and whether Baugham felt 

generous. When asked about his general practice after 

obtaining an ounce, Earl responded that he would only “pay 

him [i.e., Baugham] his thousand” after he’d smoked some of 

the crack and distributed the rest, suggesting that sales on 

credit were a familiar part of their relationship. 

As to Wells, Earl said some of their dealings were on 

credit in the early part of his career, when he sold very small 

quantities. He also testified that people who sold to him on 

credit would investigate stories he told of his stash being 

stolen; when asked who these investigating people were, Earl 

replied, “[p]eople that fronted me” and named Wells (and 

Baugham) as examples. Further, audiotape evidence shows 

that, when Baugham and Wells jointly sold an ounce to Earl 

in May 2000, they agreed that Earl would pay $1000 up front, 

that Baugham would deliver the drugs later in the day, and 

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that Earl would pay an additional $200 at some unspecified 

later time. Earl testified that he trusted Wells to follow 

through on the delivery because “we got a history, so I could 

trust him. I had trust in him just like he had it in me . . . . But 

I’m saying if I gave him my money I know it was good. I 

never had a problem with him before, so I ain’t—I knew I 

wasn’t going to have [one] with [him] then. He was going to 

deliver.” As to the deferred payment of $200, Earl added that 

“I told [Wells] I don’t have nothing but the thousand. You 

know I’m good, I owe you shit and I ain’t try to owe you. If I 

give you thousand, let me give you the two tomorrow. So he 

knew it was good, so he went for it. It was on him just like it 

was on me. You had to put trust or something in each other to 

make the deal go through.” To be sure, this testimony 

concerns both deferred payment and deferred delivery, 

whereas our cases tend to focus on the former. Yet both 

indicate “a level of mutual trust,” which at least one other 

circuit has reasonably identified as an indicator of a buyerseller conspiracy. See Melendez, 401 F.3d at 854. 

 

 There is also the issue of the buyer’s importance to the 

seller and vice versa. Earl had no monopoly on distribution 

services; many people sold drugs at retail in his selling area. 

The government certainly did not allege that Baugham or 

Wells used Earl exclusively, and there’s no reason to think 

either appellant was especially dependent on Earl, though the 

mutual build-up of trust between them presumably would 

have meant there was some cost to replacing him. 

 As to the parties’ awareness of a larger organization, 

video and audiotape evidence and the testimony of Earl, a 

police detective, and a DEA chemist establish Baugham and 

Wells’s cooperation to sell a substantial quantity of crack to 

Earl in May 2000. 

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 Overall, enough of the indicators of a buyer-seller 

conspiracy are present to sustain the convictions. The trial 

court charged the jury on the issue, in terms that correctly 

stated the law, and to which appellants have raised no 

objection in either the first or second round of briefing. 

Thus, the government presented, at the very least, 

evidence sufficient to convict each appellant of a conspiracy 

with Earl to distribute, or to possess with intent to distribute, 

50 grams of cocaine base under 21 U.S.C. § 846. 

B. Variance 

What we’ve just said, of course, doesn’t resolve 

appellants’ claims that the evidence at trial was insufficient to 

prove the single conspiracy alleged in the indictment 

(involving all five defendants plus various co-conspirators) 

and that the variance between indictment and proof warrants 

reversal. In response to those claims, the government argues 

energetically that the proof was sufficient to show the fivedefendant-plus conspiracy. We think the proof of such a 

conspiracy exiguous at best, and as to the narrower BaughamWells conspiracy, exiguous on the assumption that Brisbane

applies. But we need not go into the matter, for even if the 

proof suffered from this deficiency—even if it showed three 

narrow and separate conspiracies, one between Earl and 

Baugham, another between Earl and Wells and yet another (as 

appellants contend) among Honesty, James Nelson, Jr., and 

others—such a variance does not warrant reversal if it was 

harmless. We conclude that it was. 

We first address the standard of review and the burden of 

persuasion, and then apply them to the record. 

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1. Standard of Review 

We start our harmless error analysis by addressing the 

tension between general statements about harmless error 

review of constitutional errors and actual judicial treatment of 

the sort of variance alleged here. 

In their opening briefs, appellants assert only one type of 

harm arising from variance: “transference of guilt,” especially 

jury confusion and improper reliance on testimony against one 

defendant to convict another (possibly inadmissible against 

the latter defendant under the hearsay rule). Further, in 

response to this court’s questions about evidence relating to 

Earl Nelson, Wells claims that affirmance on the basis of his 

agreement with Earl would be unfair because he lacked notice 

of this theory at trial. 

The proper standard of review for the type of variance 

claimed here is the conventional one, articulated in Kotteakos 

v. United States, 328 U.S. 750, 776 (1946), i.e., whether the 

error had a “substantial and injurious effect or influence in 

determining the jury’s verdict,” rather than the one set forth in 

Chapman v. California, 386 U.S. 18, 24 (1967), requiring that 

for constitutional errors the government must normally show 

lack of prejudice beyond a reasonable doubt. The Court 

decided Chapman, significantly, against a well-nigh universal 

background understanding that all constitutional errors, at 

least in federal court, required reversal regardless of any 

specific reason to infer an impact. 5 LAFAVE, ISRAEL & KING,

CRIMINAL PROCEDURE § 27.6(c) (2d ed. 1999 & Supp. 2006). 

Some divergences between indictment and proof (we use 

the neutral term “divergence” advisedly, to encompass both 

“constructive amendments” and “variances,” see 4 LAFAVE ET 

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AL., supra § 19.6(c)) plainly have a constitutional dimension. 

They surely relate to an accused’s Fifth Amendment right not 

to be tried for a felony “unless on a presentment or indictment 

of a Grand Jury” and to his Sixth Amendment right “to be 

informed of the nature and cause of the accusation.” Less 

obviously, and perhaps less realistically in light of 

Blockburger v. United States, 284 U.S. 299 (1932), see 4 

LAFAVE ET AL., supra, § 19.6(b) at 808, a divergence might 

expose the defendant to a risk of double jeopardy in violation 

of the Fifth Amendment. See Berger v. United States, 295 

U.S. 78, 82 (1935) (noting possibilities of surprise and double 

jeopardy). 

Despite these attributes of divergence errors and the 

general principle said to govern constitutional error, no 

decision of the Supreme Court (nor indeed of any other 

federal appellate court that we can discover) has applied the 

“reasonable doubt” variant of harmless error, much less 

automatic reversal, to the kind of divergence claimed here—a 

charge of one conspiracy but proof of more than one. Berger

itself, identifying the possible harms as deprivation of notice 

(which sounds like the Sixth Amendment right to be informed 

of the charge) and double jeopardy, straightforwardly applied 

the prejudice requirement stated in the then-prevailing version 

of today’s harmless error statute (28 U.S.C. § 2111; see also 

FED. R. CRIM. P. 52(a)). The Court gave no hint that applying 

the standard might breach a pre-existing norm of automatic 

reversal. Given that Berger found conventional harmless 

error analysis appropriate for the divergence at issue despite a 

background assumption of automatic reversal for 

constitutional errors, it follows that such analysis remains 

appropriate in the post-Chapman world, where the 

background assumption is less demanding for the government 

than prior to Chapman. 

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Kotteakos is of course consistent with this conclusion. 

There the government tried 19 defendants (of whom six were 

dropped before the case went to the jury) as alleged members 

of one conspiracy, 328 U.S. at 753 & n.4, while the proof 

instead showed at least eight separate ones, id. at 754-55. The 

harm claimed was the risk of “transference of guilt from one 

[defendant] to another across the line separating conspiracies, 

subconsciously or otherwise.” Id. at 774; see also id. at 766-

67, 769-75. Finding the risk substantial, the Court reversed, 

id. at 774, 776, but as in Berger it applied the harmless error 

statute and made no reference to reasonable doubt or 

automatic reversal, id. at 757-76. This flowed naturally from 

appellants’ exclusive reliance on transference of guilt as the 

harm, since it is not linked to any specific constitutional 

requirement. When it alone is in question, the error is perhaps 

best understood as derived from common law, as asserted in 

one leading treatise, 5 LAFAVE ET AL., supra § 27.6(b) at 940 

n.35, or from the rules governing joinder, which Kotteakos

itself offered as an alternative basis for the holding, 328 U.S. 

at 774-75, and which one circuit has argued (in dictum) are 

the true basis of the “multiple conspiracy doctrine,” United 

States v. Sutherland, 656 F.2d 1181, 1190 n.6 (5th Cir. 1981) 

(citing FED. R. CRIM. P. 8(b)). 

Although the divergence between one and many 

conspiracies has constitutional overtones, Berger itself spoke 

of the potential harm in very mild terms. First, it noted that it 

was settled that, where the indictment claims a conspiracy of 

“several persons” and the proof was sufficient only for 

“some,” “the variance is not material.” 295 U.S. at 81. Then: 

If the proof had been confined to that conspiracy [one 

conspiracy, but inadequate against one or more of the 

accused], the variance, as we have seen, would not have 

been fatal. Does it become so because, in addition to 

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proof of the conspiracy with which petitioner was 

connected, proof of a conspiracy with which he was not 

connected was also furnished and made the basis of a 

verdict against others? 

Id. Answering its own (perhaps rhetorical) question, the 

Court proceeded to apply a conventional harmless error 

analysis. Id. at 81-84. Cf. Brecht v. Abrahamson, 507 U.S. 

619, 631-32 & n.7 (1993) (alluding to Kotteakos as a 

paradigmatic application of the then-prevailing harmless error 

statute, which is substantively identical to the current one, 28 

U.S.C. § 2111, so far as the harmless error standard itself 

goes). 

Berger and Kotteakos contrast sharply with the more 

acute divergences (labeled “constructive amendments”) that 

lead to reversal automatically, without a specific inquiry as to 

harm. Thus in Stirone v. United States, 361 U.S. 212 (1960), 

the defendant was charged with unlawfully obstructing 

shipments of sand into Pennsylvania, while at trial the 

prosecutor offered evidence not only of that but also of the 

defendant’s obstruction of shipments of steel out of 

Pennsylvania. Id. at 213-14. The jury could have convicted 

on the basis of shipments of a different commodity and in a 

different direction from the ones stated the indictment. Id. at 

218-19. Compare United States v. Miller, 471 U.S. 130 

(1985); see also 1 WRIGHT, FEDERAL PRACTICE AND 

PROCEDURE: CRIMINAL § 127 (3d ed. 1999 & Supp. 2004); 4 

LAFAVE ET AL., supra § 19.6(c). 

 The harms claimed here are like the ones at issue in 

Berger (surprise) and Kotteakos (transference). We therefore 

apply the conventional harmless error standard, i.e., error is 

harmful if it had a “substantial and injurious effect or 

influence in determining the jury’s verdict.” United States v. 

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Powell, 334 F.3d 42, 45 (D.C. Cir. 2003) (quoting Kotteakos, 

328 U.S. at 776). The question is “whether the guilty verdict 

actually rendered in this trial was surely unattributable to the 

error,” Sullivan v. Louisiana, 508 U.S. 275, 279 (1993); see 

also United States v. Maddox, 156 F.3d 1280, 1283-84 (D.C. 

Cir. 1998); United States v. Cunningham, 145 F.3d 1385, 

1394 (D.C. Cir. 1998).2 This inquiry leads us to ask how 

correction of the particular error at issue might have altered 

either a defendant’s strategy or the jury’s thinking and 

whether such alteration (if any) might have led to a different 

verdict in light of all the evidence. An error whose correction 

could neither have materially enhanced a defendant’s ability 

to present a valid defense, nor have had any plausible effect 

on jury reasoning, cannot be prejudicial, even if the totality of 

the government’s evidence on a given charge is less than 

overwhelming. 

2. Burden of Persuasion 

It is firmly established that the government bears the 

burden of showing the absence of prejudice in harmless error 

cases generally, whether decided under Kotteakos, see Olano, 

507 U.S. at 734, 741; Powell, 334 F.3d at 45; United States v. 

Smart, 98 F.3d 1379, 1390 (D.C. Cir. 1996), or Chapman, see 

Satterwhite v. Texas, 486 U.S. 249, 256 (1988). 

 2

 Although one might perhaps argue that Sullivan’s use of the 

word “surely” is premised on the constitutional nature of the 

violation in that case (and consequent application of Chapman’s 

reasonable doubt standard), Sullivan’s more general directive to 

focus the inquiry on the connection between the error and the actual 

verdict would logically seem applicable to every harmless error 

analysis, whether the error be constitutional or not. 

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 Against this background, variance law presents an 

apparent anomaly. The conspiracy variance cases in our 

circuit have generally said that the defendant bears the burden 

of showing prejudice. United States v. Mathis, 216 F.3d 18, 

23 (D.C. Cir. 2000); United States v. Gaviria, 116 F.3d 1498, 

1516 (D.C. Cir. 1997); United States v. Graham, 83 F.3d 

1466, 1471 (D.C. Cir. 1996); United States v. Childress, 58 

F.3d 693, 709 (D.C. Cir. 1995); United States v. Tarantino, 

846 F.2d 1384, 1391 (D.C. Cir. 1988). See also United States 

v. Anderson, 39 F.3d 331, 348 (D.C. Cir. 1994) (assuming the 

evidence supported multiple conspiracies rather than the 

single one alleged, no reversal was in order because the 

prejudice requirement was not fulfilled), rev’d in part on 

other grounds, 59 F.3d 1323 (D.C. Cir. 1995) (en banc). 

Similar statements about how variance claims should 

generally be treated can be found in the case law of every 

circuit with criminal jurisdiction. E.g., United States v. 

Stigler, 413 F.3d 588, 592 (7th Cir. 2005); United States v. 

Salmonese, 352 F.3d 608, 621-22 (2d Cir. 2003); United 

States v. Herrera, 289 F.3d 311, 318-19 (5th Cir.), vacated 

pending review en banc 300 F.3d 530 (5th Cir.), reinstated in 

relevant part, 313 F.3d 882, 885 (5th Cir. 2002) (en banc); 

United States v. Lopez-Arce, 267 F.3d 775, 781 (8th Cir. 

2001); United States v. Crozier, 259 F.3d 503, 519 (6th Cir. 

2001); United States v. Moore, 198 F.3d 793, 795-96 (10th 

Cir. 1999); United States v. Candelaria-Silva, 166 F.3d 19, 40 

(1st Cir. 1999); United States v. Romer, 148 F.3d 359, 369 

(4th Cir. 1998), overruled on other grounds as recognized in

United States v. Strassini, 59 Fed. Appx. 550, 552 (4th Cir. 

2003); United States v. Balter, 91 F.3d 427, 441 (3d Cir. 

1996); United States v. Starrett, 55 F.3d 1525, 1553 (11th Cir. 

1995); United States v. Homick, 964 F.2d 899, 907 (9th Cir. 

1992). Indeed, we have found no circuit decision to the 

contrary. 

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A possible explanation might be that the prejudice from a 

variance is an element of the violation itself, in the same way 

that the Supreme Court conceives of prejudice as an element 

of the violation of the right to effective assistance of counsel, 

Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 692 (1984), and of 

the right to prosecutorial disclosure of certain evidence, Kyles 

v. Whitley, 514 U.S. 419, 435-36 (1995). See also 5 LAFAVE 

ET AL., supra § 27.6(d) at 947-48 & n.74. On that view, it 

makes sense to require the defendant to show prejudice. E.g., 

Strickler v. Greene, 527 U.S. 263, 291 (1999) (in 

prosecutorial nondisclosure case, “petitioner’s burden is to 

establish a reasonable probability of a different result”); 

Strickland, 466 U.S. at 687 (“defendant must show that 

[counsel’s] deficient performance prejudiced the defense”). 

(Though Strickland, Kyles, and Strickler are all habeas cases, 

it seems probable that the formula is the same for all 

ineffectiveness and nondisclosure claims, see, e.g., 5 LAFAVE 

ET AL., supra § 27.6(d) at 947-48 & n.74.) But this theory 

seems to run aground on the fact that both Berger, 295 U.S. at 

81-84, and Kotteakos, 328 U.S. at 757-76, rely heavily on the 

harmless error statute, which would be unnecessary if, in the 

absence of prejudice, there were no violation at all. Cf. Kyles, 

514 U.S. at 435-37 (discussing prejudice element of 

prosecutorial nondisclosure claim without reference to 

harmless error statute or rule); Strickland, 466 U.S. at 691-96 

(same for ineffective assistance of counsel). 

We need not resolve this conflict here. On this record, 

the government prevails even if it bears the burden. In 

making that determination, we are guided by Sullivan’s 

directive to focus on whether the error might have accounted 

for the outcome. 

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3. Application 

 

 We first consider the issue of transference of “guilt” from 

one defendant to another. The most obvious ways in which 

the inclusion of four unnecessary co-defendants (i.e., the three 

acquitted defendants plus the other appellant) might have 

affected the jury’s reasoning process are through (1) evidence 

against either appellant that wouldn’t have been admissible in 

the absence of the four co-defendants, and (2) jury confusion. 

Here, for each of the convictions, the government’s case 

rested on evidence that would have been admitted even if 

Baugham and Wells had each been tried alone. To show this, 

we consider each conviction in turn. 

First, as to conspiracy, we have already analyzed the 

evidence that Baugham and Wells each conspired with Earl, 

whose testimony was admitted directly against each appellant. 

Baugham’s conviction on the count of distributing 

cocaine base rested on a videotape of Baugham handing a 

clear plastic envelope to one Darryl Young, and the testimony 

of the videotaping detectives, who after witnessing the handoff contacted other officers and asked them to follow Young. 

A chemist’s report identifies as cocaine base the contents of a 

plastic envelope found on an entertainment center in the 

apartment into which Young fled. Although some of this 

evidence is hearsay, arguably non-admissible hearsay, its 

admission didn’t depend on the inclusion in the indictment of 

the other four defendants, and Baugham has made no 

challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence on this count.3

 

 3

 Baugham’s statement of facts discusses the problem, gives 

some citations to the record, and says the evidence was insufficient, 

but the remainder of the brief completely fails to pursue the issue. 

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Baugham’s conviction on the count of possessing 5 grams 

or more of cocaine base with intent to distribute was equally 

independent of evidence against the other defendants. It 

rested on Metropolitan Police Department (“MPD”) detective 

Witkowski’s testimony that: he had seen Baugham driving a 

certain car “on many occasions”; that he acquired a warrant to 

seize the car; that Baugham, upon encountering Witkowski 

and other officers, fled in that same car; that Witkowski and 

other officers located Baugham soon afterward, getting out of 

the car; that they seized the car; and that Witkowski later 

participated in a search of the car that produced, from under 

the back seat, numerous small ziploc bags each containing a 

 

See FED. R. APP. P. 28(a)(9) (the “argument” section of the brief 

“must contain . . . appellant’s contentions and the reasons for them, 

with citation to the authorities and parts of the record on which 

appellant relies” and must also contain “for each issue, a concise 

statement of the applicable standard of review”); Edmond v. U.S. 

Postal Service General Counsel, 953 F.2d 1398, 1399 (D.C. Cir. 

1992) (Edwards, J., concurring in denial of rehearing en banc) (“a 

mere assertion of fact, in the introductory part of a brief, does not 

adequately raise a legal argument predicated on those facts”; “if a 

litigant means to raise a particular claim in his brief as a basis for 

judgment on appeal, he is ‘obligated to say precisely that in [his] 

opening brief and to include an argument, with citations to 

authorities in [his] favor,’” quoting Rollins Environmental Services 

(NJ), Inc. v. EPA, 937 F.2d 649, 652 n.2 (D.C. Cir. 1991); a “legal 

argument” must be “appropriately identified as such—appearing in 

a section of the brief devoted to that argument”). Though 

Baugham’s statement of facts includes more than the “mere 

assertion of fact” that appeared in the brief in Edmond, Baugham 

still fails to satisfy the requirements set forth in Rule 28(a)(9) and 

explained by Judge Edwards in Edmond, for he omits the issue 

entirely from the argument section, never gives a standard of 

review, and never cites any authorities. (He also omits the matter 

from his statement of issues, in violation of Rule 28(a)(5).) 

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white rock substance. A DEA chemist later testified that the 

substance was crack cocaine. The evidence cited by the 

government does not support the 5-gram amount; but 

Baugham has in no way challenged the sufficiency of the 

evidence underlying this conviction, and we can conceive of 

no way in which trying Baugham together with his four codefendants could have made the jury more likely to convict on 

this count. 

Wells’s conviction on the count of distributing 50 grams 

or more of cocaine base rested on testimony of cooperator 

Perry Nelson that he paid Wells $1900 in exchange for 62 

grams of crack; a videotape of Perry entering Wells’s 

apartment building; an audiotape (from a wire worn by Perry) 

of the transaction itself; and testimony of Witkowski that he 

received the contraband from Perry immediately after the 

transaction, that it was a “white rock substance,” that he had it 

tested by the DEA, and that it came to 59 grams. 

Finally, Wells’s conviction on the count of possessing a 

firearm in furtherance of a drug trafficking conspiracy rested 

on the MPD’s seizure from Wells’s apartment—within four 

hours of his sale to Perry Nelson described above—of four 

pistols (three semi-automatic and at least three loaded), 

ammunition, $6000 cash, a gram scale, a lease agreement 

between Wells and the apartment owner, and Wells’s driving 

license. The seizure was described at length in the testimony 

of Witkowski, who supervised it. It was also captured on 

videotape. Although no drugs were recovered during the 

seizure, the audiotape of Wells’s prior sale to Perry recorded 

Wells’s statement that he was selling Perry all the drugs he 

had left. 

Thus the government has pointed to evidence underlying 

the three counts against each defendant (the conspiracy count 

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21

in common, the two separate counts for each) that is in no way 

dependent on the fact that the five men were tried together. 

The only specific evidence pointed out by either appellant 

that wouldn’t have been admitted had each been tried alone is 

the testimony of one Paula Spriggs. Baugham, in an effort to 

show that his operation was unrelated to that of Wells, called 

Spriggs, who said she had purchased drugs from Baugham 

and then testified as follows: 

Q. I had asked you whether or not you had ever 

purchased drugs from Michael Wells? 

A. Yes. 

Q. And as between Michael Wells and Reginald 

Baugham’s drugs, whose drugs, if either, had more 

flavor? 

A. Reginald Baugham. 

Wells argues that this testimony interfered with his defense of 

general denial and was therefore prejudicial. We think it was 

cumulative and therefore not prejudicial. It was brief and 

extremely general, in contrast to the extensive and far more 

specific testimony of Earl and Perry Nelson as to Wells’s 

longtime drug-dealing; plus the videotape and audiotape 

evidence (coupled with the testimony of Earl, a police 

detective, and a DEA chemist) that Wells made a sale of a 

substantial quantity of crack to Earl; plus the videotape and 

audiotape evidence (coupled with the testimony of Perry and a 

police detective) that Wells sold 59 grams to Perry. Wells 

contends that the Spriggs testimony was uniquely damaging in 

that it was elicited by Baugham, his co-defendant and brother. 

But the identity of the party eliciting Spriggs’s testimony does 

not outweigh the fact that the marginal significance of the 

information she provided was small. Drawing an analogy to a 

related doctrine, we note that inconsistent defenses do not per 

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22

se justify severance, even when co-defendants “point the 

accusing finger at one another.” United States v. Moore, 104 

F.3d 377, 384 (D.C. Cir. 1997). 

Conceivably the 3600-page record contains some 

additional testimony or exhibits relating to these counts that 

won admission only because of the broader charge, but 

appellants haven’t pointed us to one iota of such evidence. 

We are confident, then, that the evidence leading to 

appellants’ convictions would have reached the jury even if 

each had been tried alone. 

Apart from admissibility of otherwise inadmissible 

evidence, improper transference of guilt might arise from 

disparities in the weight or type of evidence against the 

appellants and others, United States v. Badru, 97 F.3d 1471, 

1475 (D.C. Cir. 1996) (addressing a similar problem in the 

context of misjoinder), or from the presence of “shocking or 

inflammatory evidence” that “came in against co-defendants,” 

United States v. Alessi, 638 F.2d 466, 475 (2d Cir. 1980). 

Here the acquittal of the other three defendants indicates no 

such risk with respect to them, and appellants point us to 

nothing of the kind. As between Baugham and Wells, the 

government’s cases against the two men were not especially 

disparate; each was aimed at showing a longtime drug-dealing 

career, involving the use of guns, via testimony of law 

enforcement officers and cooperators and video and audiotape 

evidence of sales. 

Kotteakos, 328 U.S. at 766-67, 772-73, also pointed to the 

risk of transference that might arise from the sheer number of 

co-defendants and resulting jury confusion. See also Mathis, 

216 F.3d at 25; Gaviria, 116 F.3d at 1533. But the number 

tried here is hardly of that dimension. Our variance cases 

have twice approvingly cited Alessi, 638 F.2d at 475, noting 

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23

both times that the court there found that ten defendants were 

a “sufficiently small” number to enable the jury to give each 

individual consideration. Gaviria, 116 F.3d at 1533; 

Anderson, 39 F.3d at 348. 

Finally, we’ve noted before that “the danger of spillover 

prejudice is minimal when the Government presents tape 

recordings of individual defendants,” since it’s easier, other 

things being equal, for a jury to match such evidence to 

individual defendants. Gaviria, 116 F.3d at 1533; see also 

Mathis, 216 F.3d at 25; Anderson, 39 F.3d at 348. Here, 

audio and video recordings helped show Baugham and 

Wells’s joint sale to Earl Nelson and Wells’s sale to Perry 

Nelson, and a video recording helped show Baugham’s 

distribution to Young. 

As in claims of misjoinder, a variance might sometimes 

injure defendants because of conflicts between their defenses. 

Apart from Wells’s complaint about Spriggs’s testimony, 

discussed above, appellants make only one claim along these 

lines. Baugham notes that cooperating witnesses Vincent 

McSwain, Earl Nelson, Perry Nelson, and James Nelson, Sr., 

are relatives of co-defendants Honesty and James Nelson, Jr. 

He suggests (very briefly) that the cooperators testified so as 

to “minimize the misconduct of their relatives . . . while lying 

about” how they sold crack for Baugham. Wells adopted this 

same reasoning at oral argument, again with little elaboration. 

Oral Arg. Tr. at 6. There are two problems with the theory. 

First, of the four relative-cooperators, one (McSwain) 

implicated his relative Honesty more than he did appellants, 

and another (Perry Nelson), while giving testimony that was 

overall more damaging to appellants than to his relatives, said 

that he received very significant amounts of crack from 

McSwain, who, in turn, admitted he was supplied by Honesty. 

Thus, the record offers relatively little support for appellants’ 

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theory. Second, and perhaps more telling, even if the 

cooperators’ sympathy for their relatives inclined them against 

appellants, it’s unclear how separate trials for the two groups 

would have helped. Presumably the cooperators agreed to 

testify in the hopes of more favorable sentencing. These 

incentives would have remained the same regardless of 

whether the trials were separate or combined. One can, of 

course, hypothesize a chain of reasoning supportive of 

appellants’ claim. Suppose that (1) despite their pleas, the 

cooperators would have liked to go easy on everybody, but 

(2) the combined trial focused them especially on securing a 

conviction in that trial, and (3) they therefore directed the 

jury’s wrath away from their relatives and toward appellants. 

The scenario doesn’t seem to us sufficiently plausible to refute 

the government’s showing. 

As to “transference of guilt,” then, the government has 

offered convincing reason to believe that any error had no 

“substantial and injurious effect or influence in determining 

the jury's verdict.” Kotteakos, 328 U.S. at 776. In reaching 

this conclusion, we do not rely on its suggestion that the 

court’s charge required the jury to acquit of conspiracy unless 

it found the “single conspiracy charged in the indictment.” 

Cf. Mathis, 216 F.3d at 25. The trial court had given such a 

charge in Kotteakos; Justice Douglas, citing Judge Hand’s 

opinion for the Second Circuit, noted that it was error, but an 

error favoring defendants. See 328 U.S. at 778-79 (Douglas, 

J., dissenting). Though favoring the defendants, its role is 

quite obscure. As the jury acquitted the other three charged 

conspirators, we must infer that it disregarded that portion of 

the charge (assuming the passage meant what the government 

claims). The passage cited gives the government no extra 

mileage. 

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Having disposed of the transference issue, we now turn to 

Wells’s claim in his supplemental briefs that his defense 

suffered from lack of notice that he might be convicted on the 

basis of his dealings with Earl. 

In fact Wells received reasonable notice. The indictment, 

though not referring to Earl by name, did refer to “other 

persons known and unknown to the grand jury” and alleged 

that Baugham and Wells, specifically, “distributed quantities 

of cocaine base . . . to other drug dealers” in the very 

neighborhood where Earl said he dealt with appellants. While 

the government’s opening statement referenced a large 

number of alleged conspirators, it made clear that their 

“common plan” was “to sell crack cocaine to keep the 

customers there [i.e., in the neighborhood], to keep the supply 

going so that everyone can make money”; that the “suppliers” 

were Baugham, Wells, and Honesty; that the “redistributors 

. . . who these wholesale suppliers sold to” included Earl 

Nelson; and that all the conspirators were “acting as agents for 

each other.” Further, the opening statement made four distinct 

explicit references to Earl’s distribution activities on behalf of 

both Wells and Baugham. At trial, Earl gave more than a full 

day of testimony, and was cross-examined by counsel for 

Wells and Baugham. So far as appears, neither Wells nor 

Baugham ever suggested here or in the district court that he 

was ambushed by this testimony, and it’s hard to imagine how 

either could have been. In its summation, the government 

pointed to evidence supporting the claims of vertical 

conspiracy made in its opening statement, emphasizing that 

the “resellers” were a “really necessary” part of the selling 

effort, naming Earl twice as a reseller, and describing some of 

Earl’s distribution activities on behalf of Baugham and Wells. 

 Nor does Wells explain what difference greater 

foreknowledge of the ultimate basis for affirmance would 

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have made. He says he would have argued differently as to 

“the prejudicial evidence presented by Baugham,” presumably 

meaning the Spriggs testimony. But he gives no specifics, 

and given that the testimony itself was not prejudicial, we 

cannot imagine how a different treatment of it at trial would 

have made a difference to the outcome. 

 Wells also says he would have requested different jury 

instructions. But the district court gave an instruction on the 

buyer-seller exception to conspiracy liability, which properly 

stated the law. Granted, there might have been more focus on 

the exact language if defense counsel had been focused on his 

client’s dealings with Earl, but even now Wells doesn’t so 

much as hint at any language he would want altered. 

 Finally, Wells argues he would have conducted cross 

examination differently. Again he gives no specifics. 

Moreover, his trial defense was a general denial, meaning that 

he had as much reason to counter all testimony of his drugselling activity as he would have had if the indictment had 

named only him and Earl. (We note that the same goes for 

Baugham, who adopted a “lone wolf” defense, meaning he 

had as much reason to refute any of Earl’s testimony that 

suggested a conspiratorial relationship as he would have had if 

the indictment had named only him and Earl.) Even under the 

government’s dominant theory at trial, both appellants had 

ample incentive to attack the government’s evidence as to 

their drug-dealing links with each of the charged coconspirators. 

 Assuming the government bears the burden of persuasion 

in harmless error cases involving variance (as it surely does in 

harmless error cases generally), the government has 

successfully carried that burden here. 

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II. Sentences 

 Sentencing the appellants before the Supreme Court’s 

decision in United States v. Booker, 543 U.S. 220 (2005), the 

district court treated the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines as 

mandatory. Under Booker, of course, this violated their Sixth 

Amendment rights. Though the government’s brief conceded 

that at trial the appellants had preserved their claims under the 

principle established in Booker, it erroneously suggested that 

such a preserved claim merited only a limited remand under 

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

the district court’s position on whether it would have imposed 

a different sentence had it recognized its discretion. 

Government counsel at oral argument corrected this mistake 

and conceded that the proper remedy in this case is a remand 

for full-blown resentencing. So the sentences will be vacated 

and the case remanded. 

Appellants do, however, make one sentencing claim that 

we may resolve. They invoke United States v. Brisbane, 367 

F.3d 910 (D.C. Cir. 2004), which, as we noted at the outset of 

the opinion, holds that convictions dependent on “cocaine 

base” under 21 U.S.C. § 841 require evidence that the cocaine 

at issue was either crack or smokable (leaving unresolved 

whether proof of smokability alone was enough). Id. at 914. 

Appellants argue that the evidence against them fails to 

establish these characteristics. In addressing appellants’ 

sufficiency and variance attacks on the conspiracy conviction 

we considered Brisbane on our own initiative, finding 

evidence supporting each appellant’s participation in a vertical 

conspiracy involving far more than the 50 grams of crack for 

which each was convicted of conspiring to distribute. 

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Appellants did not make a Brisbane attack on their 

substantive convictions below, so we review for plain error 

under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 52(b). Under the 

familiar Olano criteria, an affected conviction must be 

reversed if (1) there is error (2) that is plain and (3) that 

affects substantial rights, and (4) we find that the error 

“seriously affects the fairness, integrity or public reputation of 

judicial proceedings.” Olano, 507 U.S. at 732 (citations, 

internal quotation marks, and brackets omitted). The Supreme 

Court has left unresolved whether, where the law on a point 

was simply non-existent at the time of trial (as it was here, 

since Brisbane was decided after appellants were sentenced 

and pre-Brisbane cases contained no strong signs one way or 

the other), an error under the law at the time of appeal can be 

regarded as plain. Johnson v. United States, 520 U.S. 461, 

467-68 (1997); see also United States v. Johnson, 437 F.3d 

69, 74 (D.C. Cir. 2006). As in our Johnson decision, we 

assume in appellants’ favor that, if there was any error, it was 

plain. Thus we turn to the third element of Olano, the 

requirement that appellants “make a specific showing of 

prejudice,” 507 U.S. at 735, i.e., show that the error “affected 

the outcome of the district court proceedings,” id. at 734. 

Appellants fail to make that showing. 

 Wells confines his discussion of the record to substantive 

count 23 in the indictment against him, involving the cocaine 

that Perry Nelson purchased from him in January 2000. He 

contends that the evidence was insufficient to show that it was 

crack. We disagree. Witkowski, who personally received the 

cocaine from Perry, testified that it was a “white rock 

substance.” Witkowski made clear that he distinguished 

between rock and powder when he testified at another point 

that he once recovered “powder cocaine” during a separate 

operation. Further, Witkowski agreed with examining counsel 

that “cocaine base” was “another name” for “[c]rack” and that 

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crack was the “vernacular slang for cocaine base.” Further, 

witnesses who testified to Wells’s regular drug-dealing 

referred expressly to (or implicitly accepted the prosecutor’s 

statements regarding) reliance on Wells for crack, without 

express reference to any other drug. For his part, Wells does 

not suggest that he dealt a non-crack form of cocaine. 

In some ways, the foregoing evidence is less suggestive 

of crack than in Johnson, but in others it is more so. In 

Johnson, the government pointed to evidence that the 

cocaine’s purity level was comparable to that of crack, that its 

packaging was typical of crack, and that defendant had a 

“cooking kit” (though not shown to be useful only for 

producing crack), Johnson, 437 F.3d at 75; here, those items 

are missing. But there are offsetting strengths to the 

government’s case—Wells’s notoriety as a crack dealer, the 

detective’s understanding that “cocaine base” is generally 

synonymous with crack, and the detective’s ability to 

distinguish between rock and powder. And, as in Johnson, 

437 F.3d at 75, an officer described the substance as a “white 

rock.” Overall, Wells has failed to carry his burden of 

showing that the evidence was inadequate. 

For his part, Baugham gives no citations to the record but 

simply makes a series of general assertions to the effect that 

the witnesses spoke only of cocaine base. These blanket 

assertions do not hold up. For example, Witkowski testified 

that the cocaine seized from Young after he received it from 

Baugham was “crack cocaine” and that the cocaine seized 

from Baugham’s car in numerous ziploc bags was “a white 

rock substance.” The record is, at the very least, more 

complex than Baugham’s blanket assertions suggest, and 

without more specifics, he cannot carry his burden of showing 

prejudice. 

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* * * 

 Appellants’ convictions are affirmed. Their sentences are 

vacated and their cases are remanded for resentencing not 

inconsistent with this opinion. 

So ordered. 

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