Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca8-09-01917/USCOURTS-ca8-09-01917-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Vince Byers
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

1

The Honorable James B. Loken stepped down as Chief Judge of the United

States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit at the close of business on March 31,

2010. He has been succeeded by the Honorable William Jay Riley.

2

The Honorable Charles A. Shaw, United States District Judge for the Eastern

District of Missouri. 

United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE EIGHTH CIRCUIT

___________

No. 09-1917

___________

United States of America, *

*

Appellee, *

* Appeal from the United States

v. * District Court for the

* Eastern District of Missouri.

Vince Byers, *

*

Appellant. *

___________

Submitted: January 11, 2010

Filed: April 28, 2010

___________

Before LOKEN,1

 Chief Judge, JOHN R. GIBSON, and WOLLMAN, Circuit Judges.

___________

WOLLMAN, Circuit Judge.

Vince Byers was convicted of unlawful possession of a firearm as a previously

convicted felon, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1). On appeal, Byers argues that

he is entitled to reversal of his conviction because of prosecutorial misconduct and

because the district court2

 committed plain error when it instructed the jury that the

Appellate Case: 09-1917 Page: 1 Date Filed: 04/28/2010 Entry ID: 3659174
-2-

length of time that a firearm is possessed is not relevant under § 922(g)(1). We

affirm. 

I. 

Shortly after 11:00 p.m., on June 24, 2003, Saint Louis Metropolitan Police

Department Officers Aaron Harwood and Matthew Karnowski observed a white

Mercury Cougar driven by a man later identified as Vince Byers. Officer Karnowski

noticed that the temporary license tag affixed to the rear window appeared to be fake.

The officers followed the vehicle for a block, noting that there were three

individuals in the vehicle and that the vehicle’s left taillight did not work. When the

vehicle turned right without signaling, the officers activated the police car’s lights and

siren in an attempt to pull the vehicle over. The vehicle initially slowed, then

accelerated, slowed again, and ultimately accelerated away from the police car. 

While attempting to make a turn, Byers lost control of the vehicle, which

jumped the curb and hit an iron fence. As the officers approached the crash site, the

three occupants exited the vehicle and fled in different directions. As he exited the

vehicle and fled the scene, Byers dropped a Glock model 26 nine millimeter

semiautomatic pistol. Officer Harwood pursued Byers on foot and observed that

Byers was handling a second handgun, which it appeared he was trying to load.

Byers continued to run, and Harwood lost sight of him. Harwood returned to

the crash site and found the Glock that Byers had dropped. The officers posted a

description of the incident and Byers’s physical characteristics through the police

dispatcher. Shortly thereafter, an officer responding to the call saw Byers near where

Harwood had lost sight of him. The officer detained Byers and escorted him back to

the crash site, where Harwood identified him as the driver who had exited the vehicle,

dropped the first handgun, and possessed a second handgun during the foot pursuit.

Appellate Case: 09-1917 Page: 2 Date Filed: 04/28/2010 Entry ID: 3659174
-3-

After Byers’s arrest, officers retraced the path of the foot pursuit and found a

CZ model 40B .40 caliber semiautomatic pistol. One round of hollow-tipped

ammunition lay next to the handgun, a second round of hollow-tipped ammunition

was jammed in the weapon, and its magazine was loaded with ten rounds of

ammunition, including one hollow-tipped cartridge. 

Byers was indicted for unlawful possession of a firearm as a previously

convicted felon. Because there was no dispute that he had a qualifying prior

conviction and that the handguns had crossed state lines prior to their presence in

Missouri, the only issue in the case was whether Byers knowingly possessed either

handgun. 

During his opening statement, the prosecutor explained that the Glock handgun

had an extended magazine that allowed it to hold more than thirty rounds and that the

weapon had been stolen. The prosecutor elicited testimony from Officer Harwood

about the firearms, asking him to describe certain photographs of the scene. Byers did

not object to the opening statement, the questioning regarding the handguns, or the

admission of the photographs, the handguns, and their ammunition clips. 

On the second day of trial, Byers moved to exclude any evidence that the Glock

handgun had been stolen. After the district court granted the motion on the ground

that the evidence was unfairly prejudicial, Byers informed the court that there were

no other evidentiary issues to be raised. 

During his questioning, the prosecutor asked Officer Karnowski to describe the

photographs that he had taken of both of the weapons. Karnowski described the

Glock’s extended magazine and the hollow-tipped ammunition. Karnowski testified

that “should that bullet be used against somebody, it would cause a fairly devastating

injury.” The district court sustained Byer’s relevancy-based objection when the

prosecutor showed Karnowski an envelope that contained ammunition seized from the

Appellate Case: 09-1917 Page: 3 Date Filed: 04/28/2010 Entry ID: 3659174
-4-

CZ handgun and asked about the hollow-tipped ammunition. Ultimately, and without

objection from Byers, the district court admitted the ammunition into evidence. 

Officer David Menendez, a firearms examiner, testified regarding the firearms

and the ammunition. After the district court sustained Byers’s relevancy-based

objection to a question about the ammunition, the prosecutor rephrased his question,

and Menendez’s explanation of the wound-enhancing characteristics of hollow-tipped

ammunition was admitted without further objection.

Byers’s cousin, Terrell Wheeler, testified that he was one of the passengers in

the vehicle with Byers the evening of the arrest, that he had observed Byers in

possession of a firearm, and that Byers had informed him and the other passenger that

there were three guns in the car. 

The jury was instructed that “[u]nder the statute upon which the indictment is

based, the length of time that each firearm was possessed is not relevant.” The jury

was also instructed regarding actual and constructive possession. Byers did not object

to these instructions. 

During closing argument, and without objection from Byers, the prosecutor

referred to the Glock’s extended magazine and, in rebuttal, also mentioned the hollowtipped ammunition. While deliberating, the jury sent a question to the district court

asking, “[d]oes the driver of the vehicle have to know the person has a gun?” The

court responded that the jury had received its instructions and that they should be

guided by them. The jury then convicted Byers of one count of violating § 922(g)(1)

and returned a special finding that Byers had possessed both weapons. Byers was

sentenced to 180 months’ imprisonment. 

Appellate Case: 09-1917 Page: 4 Date Filed: 04/28/2010 Entry ID: 3659174
-5-

II. 

A. Prosecutorial Misconduct

Byers contends that the prosecutor was guilty of misconduct by continuing to

elicit testimony about the hollow-tipped ammunition and by mentioning the

ammunition and the extended magazine during his closing argument. Byers argues

that the evidence of the extended magazine and hollow-tipped ammunition was

irrelevant because it had no tendency to prove or disprove the allegation that Byers

possessed either weapon. 

We conclude that Byers has failed to establish prosecutorial misconduct,

because the remarks and questions were not improper. See United States v. King, 36

F.3d 728, 733 (8th Cir. 1994) (explaining that a defendant must establish that “(1) the

prosecutor’s remarks were improper, and (2) such remarks prejudiced his rights in

obtaining a fair trial” to obtain a reversal for prosecutorial misconduct). Relevant

evidence is “evidence having any tendency to make the existence of any fact that is

of consequence to the determination of the action more probable or less probable than

it would be without the evidence.” Fed. R. Evid. 401. “We have recognized that ‘[a]

jury is entitled to know the circumstances and background of a criminal charge,’ and

have permitted the introduction of evidence ‘providing the context in which the crime

occurred, i.e. the res gestae.’” United States v. LaDue, 561 F.3d 855, 857 (8th Cir.

2009) (quoting United States v. Savage, 863 F.2d 595, 599 (8th Cir. 1988)). In felonin-possession cases, we have permitted the introduction of evidence that provides the

context in which the crime occurred, including events immediately preceding the

defendant’s arrest and the circumstances of the arrest itself. Id. at 857-58. The

characteristics of the ammunition and the magazine provided the jury with the context

in which this crime occurred. The information was thus relevant and the prosecutor

was not guilty of misconduct in presenting it to the jury. 

Appellate Case: 09-1917 Page: 5 Date Filed: 04/28/2010 Entry ID: 3659174
-6-

B. Jury Instructions

Byers contends that the district court erred when it instructed the jury that the

length of time that each firearm was possessed was not relevant. Because Byers did

not object to the instruction, we review for plain error. See Puckett v. United States,

129 S. Ct. 1423, 1429 (2009) (explaining that there is a narrow exception to the

general rule that a litigant must object in a timely manner to preserve an issue for

appeal). To establish plain error Byers must demonstrate that (1) there was an error

that he did not affirmatively waive, (2) the error was clear and obvious, (3) the error

affected his substantial rights, and (4) the error seriously affected the fairness,

integrity or public reputation of judicial proceedings. Id.; United States v. Martin, 583

F.3d 1068, 1074 (8th Cir. 2009). Jury instructions are sufficient if, “taken as a whole,

they adequately advise the jury of the essential elements of the offenses charged and

the burden of proof required of the government.” United States v. Rice, 449 F.3d 887,

895 (8th Cir. 2006). 

We have held that police observation of defendant’s brief possession of a

firearm is sufficient to support a conviction. See United States v. Calicutt, 598 F.2d

1120, 1121 (8th Cir. 1979) (testimony that the defendant removed a sawed-off rifle

from underneath his shirt and threw it into a trash can); United States v. Adams, 438

F.2d 644, 645 (8th Cir. 1971) (testimony that the officer observed the defendant throw

the gun from the roof). Leaving open the question whether the duration of possession

might ever be relevant to a finding of knowing possession, see for example United

States v. Teemer, 394 F.3d 59, 63 (1st Cir. 2005), the facts in the instant case did not

warrant or require an instruction to that effect, and thus the district court did not

commit error of any kind in failing to give such an instruction. 

With respect to the question of innocent or transitory possession, we have twice

declined to rule on the availability of an innocent possession defense. See United

States v. Ali, 63 F.3d 710, 717 n.9 (8th Cir. 1995) (“Because defendant failed to seek

Appellate Case: 09-1917 Page: 6 Date Filed: 04/28/2010 Entry ID: 3659174
-7-

a proper instruction on his innocent possession theory, we need not, and do not, decide

at this time whether an ‘innocent reasons’ defense is available under § 922(g).”);

United States v. Stover, 822 F.2d 48, 50 (8th Cir. 1987) (holding that any claim of

error had been waived). Byers has not demonstrated that he obtained the firearms

innocently without an illicit purpose or that he tried to rid himself of them as promptly

as reasonably possible. Indeed, his possession of the weapons was transitory only

because he dropped the Glock while exiting and fleeing his vehicle and the CZ while

trying to evade capture by Officer Harwood. Thus, we need not decide whether an

innocent or transitory possession instruction is ever required in a § 922(g)(1) case.

Compare United States v. Mason, 233 F.3d 619, 624 (D.C. Cir. 2001) (recognizing an

affirmative defense for innocent possession), with United States v. Johnson, 459 F.3d

990, 996 (9th Cir. 2006) (rejecting the defense as absent from the statutory text and

negated by the mens rea requirement of knowingly); United States v. Gilbert, 430 F.3d

215, 218-19 (4th Cir. 2005) (same); Teemer, 394 F.3d at 63-64 (refusing to adopt a

benign transitory possession defense); United States v. Hendricks, 319 F.3d 993, 1007

(7th Cir. 2003) (affirming the district court’s refusal to give an innocent possession

instruction). 

III. 

The judgment is affirmed. 

______________________________

Appellate Case: 09-1917 Page: 7 Date Filed: 04/28/2010 Entry ID: 3659174