Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca8-07-01970/USCOURTS-ca8-07-01970-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Jerome Lanelle Coleman
Appellant
United States
Appellee

Document Text:

1

The HONORABLE RICHARD G. KOPF, United States District Judge for the

District of Nebraska.

 United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE EIGHTH CIRCUIT

___________

No. 07-1970

___________

United States of America, *

*

Plaintiff - Appellee, *

* Appeal from the United States

v. * District Court for the

* District of Nebraska.

Jerome Lanelle Coleman, *

*

Defendant - Appellant. *

___________

Submitted: December 13, 2007

Filed: May 15, 2008

___________

Before LOKEN, Chief Judge, WOLLMAN and SHEPHERD, Circuit Judges.

___________

LOKEN, Chief Judge.

Jerome Lanelle Coleman appeals his conviction and 292-month prison sentence

for conspiring to distribute crack cocaine in Lincoln, Nebraska, in violation of 21

U.S.C. § 846. Coleman argues that the evidence was insufficient to support the

conviction, the sentence is unreasonable, and the district court1

 failed to make specific

perjury findings to support an obstruction-of-justice enhancement. We affirm.

Appellate Case: 07-1970 Page: 1 Date Filed: 05/15/2008 Entry ID: 3434464
-2-

1. The indictment charged that Coleman conspired to distribute fifty grams or

more of crack cocaine in the District of Nebraska between January 1, 1998, and May

19, 2006. At trial, ten cooperating government witnesses testified regarding the

distribution of large quantities of crack cocaine in Lincoln during this period.

Damario Waters testified that Coleman and others provided money that Waters used

to purchase large quantities of powder cocaine in Houston. Waters then cooked the

powder into crack cocaine and divided it into distribution quantities for Coleman and

Waters’s other customers. Waters’s girlfriend, his partner, and one of his customers

corroborated much of his testimony. In some instances, one of them accompanied

Waters on trips to Coleman’s place of business for apparent drug transactions. Three

other witnesses testified they bought crack from Coleman, another witness bought and

sold crack with Coleman’s relatives and employee, and another testified that she

waited in a car while her friend bought crack from Coleman outside his shop. 

Coleman argues that this evidence was insufficient to convict him of conspiracy

because Waters and the other cooperating witnesses lied, as Coleman testified at trial.

We have repeatedly upheld jury verdicts based solely on the testimony of coconspirators and cooperating witnesses, noting that it is within the province of the jury

to make credibility assessments and resolve conflicting testimony. United States v.

Velazquez, 410 F.3d 1011, 1015-16 (8th Cir.), cert. denied, 546 U.S. 971 (2005).

Here, numerous cooperating witnesses testified to Coleman’s substantial involvement

in a long-standing conspiracy to distribute crack cocaine. There were no material

conflicts in this evidence, other than Coleman’s blanket denials, and it was

corroborated by the testimony of police officers who discovered suspiciously large

quantities of cash after two unrelated traffic stops. The evidence was clearly sufficient

to convict Coleman of conspiring to distribute fifty grams or more of crack cocaine.

The government proved far more than an isolated buyer-seller transaction that may

fall short of establishing a conspiracy to distribute. See United States v.

Montano-Gudino, 309 F.3d 501, 505-06 (8th Cir. 2002). 

Appellate Case: 07-1970 Page: 2 Date Filed: 05/15/2008 Entry ID: 3434464
2

At oral argument, counsel for Coleman urged a remand for resentencing under

the recent retroactive amendments to the guidelines that apply to crack cocaine

offenses. As Coleman did not raise this issue in the district court, it is more

appropriately addressed in a motion to that court under 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(2). See

United States v. King, 518 F.3d 571, 575-77 (8th Cir. 2008); compare United States

v. Whiting, --- F.3d ---, 2008 WL 961171 (8th Cir. Apr. 10, 2008).

-3-

2. Coleman argues that his 292-month prison sentence is unreasonable. At

sentencing, the district court sustained Coleman’s objection to the calculation of his

criminal history points in the Presentence Investigation Report (PSR). This reduced

the advisory guidelines sentencing range from 324-405 months to 292-365 months.

The government then urged a 324-month sentence; counsel for Coleman urged a

sentence at the bottom of the adjusted range, 292 months. After noting that the

guidelines are now advisory and reviewing the sentencing factors in 18 U.S.C.

§ 3553(a), the court determined that a sentence at the bottom of the advisory range,

292 months, was reasonable. The court committed no procedural sentencing error.

We conclude that the sentence was reasonable applying the deferential abuse-ofdiscretion standard mandated by Gall v. United States, 128 S. Ct. 586, 600 (2007).2

3. In a pro se supplemental brief, Coleman first argues that the district court

erred in accepting the drug quantity recommended in the PSR. Coleman did not

object to this recommendation. Therefore, the issue was not properly preserved, and

the district court committed no plain error. See Fed. R. Crim. P. 32(f)(1), 32(i)(3)(A).

Second, Coleman argues that the district court clearly erred in imposing a twolevel obstruction of justice enhancement without adequate independent findings that

he committed perjury in testifying at trial. Specifically contradicting the

government’s cooperating witnesses, Coleman testified that he never sold crack

cocaine to anyone and was unaware that his friends and relatives were involved in

drug trafficking. The PSR recommended an obstruction of justice enhancement based

on this untruthful testimony. Coleman objected to the recommendation. At

Appellate Case: 07-1970 Page: 3 Date Filed: 05/15/2008 Entry ID: 3434464
-4-

sentencing, the government submitted excerpts of the trial testimony of Coleman and

two government witnesses, arguing these were specific instances where Coleman’s

categorical denials were “plainly untruthful.” The district court overruled the

objection, finding that Coleman “perjured himself at trial, first of all by denying what

was apparent . . . he’s a drug dealer, and for all the other reasons that [the prosecutor

has] outlined.” As in United States v. Brown, 311 F.3d 886, 890 (8th Cir. 2002),

Coleman “testified on the central issues at trial, and the [prosecutor] identified specific

ways in which that testimony was contrary to the jury’s verdict.” On this record, there

was no clear error in imposing the enhancement.

The judgment of the district court is affirmed. 

______________________________

Appellate Case: 07-1970 Page: 4 Date Filed: 05/15/2008 Entry ID: 3434464