Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-10-03010/USCOURTS-caDC-10-03010-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
United States of America
Appellee
Ian Fitzroy Watson
Appellant

Document Text:

United States Court of Appeals 

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued April 8, 2013 Decided June 4, 2013 

No. 10-3010 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 

APPELLEE

v. 

IAN FITZROY WATSON, 

APPELLANT

Appeal from the United States District Court 

for the District of Columbia 

(No. 1:08-cr-00268-1) 

Edward C. Sussman argued the cause and filed briefs for 

the appellant. 

Jonathan David Shaub, Attorney, United States 

Department of Justice, argued the cause for the appellee. 

Ronald C. Machen Jr., United States Attorney, and Elizabeth 

Trosman, Assistant United States Attorney, were on brief. 

Before: HENDERSON, TATEL and KAVANAUGH, Circuit 

Judges. 

Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge HENDERSON. 

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 KAREN LECRAFT HENDERSON, Circuit Judge: Ian Fitzroy 

Watson (Watson) challenges his conviction on one count of 

conspiracy to distribute and possess with intent to distribute 

five or more kilograms of cocaine in violation of 21 U.S.C. 

§§ 841, 846 on several grounds: improper venue; ineffective 

assistance of counsel; inadmissible evidence seized as the 

fruit of an illegal vehicle stop; and inadmissible expert 

testimony of a non-expert witness. We reject his challenges 

and affirm his conviction. 

I. 

 Beginning in late 2001 or early 2002, Elliot Jimmie Reed 

began purchasing cocaine from Watson on a regular basis. 

Watson sold the cocaine to Reed at New Reflections Auto 

Detailing (New Reflections), a Maryland business where 

Watson worked. Sometimes, Watson sold to Reed through 

Vincent Millhouse, an intermediary. Reed sold the cocaine he 

purchased from Watson in Maryland and the District of 

Columbia (District). 

 In 2003, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) began 

investigating Reed on suspicion of selling cocaine in the 

District On February 25, 2004, the FBI wiretapped Reed’s 

mobile telephones and intercepted a number of calls between 

Reed and Watson. FBI agents corroborated the substance of 

the calls by observing Reed at New Reflections on the days 

Reed’s calls led the agents to believe that he was there to 

obtain cocaine from Watson. 

 In November 2004, the FBI executed a search warrant at 

Reed’s residence and found cocaine, marijuana and items 

used to “cook crack.” Reed subsequently agreed to cooperate 

with the FBI. In January 2005, Reed helped conduct two 

controlled purchases of cocaine from Watson and Millhouse. 

The government introduced surveillance footage of both 

transactions at trial. Before the second transaction, the 

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government made a photocopy of the money used in the sale, 

some of which was later found at Watson’s Maryland 

residence. 

In the early morning of February 4, 2005, Maryland 

Police Officer Andy Johnson arrested Watson and his 

common-law wife, Daisy Torres, after stopping Watson’s van 

as Watson was driving on Interstate 95 in Maryland. Inside 

the van they found a one-kilogram compressed brick of 

powder cocaine. The next day, the Maryland State Police 

executed a search warrant on a Maryland residence believed 

to be Watson and Torres’s. Inside the residence they found, 

among other things, thousands of dollars in cash, firearms, a 

digital scale, plastic baggies, razor blades, luxury items, ten 

brand new Lazy-Boy massaging chairs and a “poster-sized 

picture” of Watson inside a closet; outside and in two garages 

at the residence they found a number of different vehicles 

(including a Hummer H-2, a Cadillac, a John Deere tractor, 

All-Terrain Vehicles and a golf cart) and various watercraft. 

A jury convicted Watson after a six-day trial. The district 

court subsequently sentenced Watson to 188 months in 

prison, followed by five years of supervised release. Watson 

timely appealed. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. 

§ 1291. 

II. 

 Watson first challenges his conviction on the ground that 

the District Court for the District of Columbia was an 

improper venue. His argument fails, however, because venue 

is proper in any jurisdiction where any co-conspirator 

committed an overt act in furtherance of the conspiracy. See, 

e.g., United States v. Brodie, 524 F.3d 259, 273 (D.C. Cir. 

2008), cert. denied, 555 U.S. 1204 (2009); see also 18 U.S.C. 

§ 3237(a). The evidence establishes that Reed, Watson’s coconspirator, committed overt acts in the District in furtherance 

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of the conspiracy by selling in the District cocaine sold to him 

by Watson. See United States v. Gaviria, 116 F.3d 1498, 1517 

n.23 (D.C. Cir. 1997) (“receiving payment” for cocaine sale is 

overt act); United States v. Lam Kwong-Wah, 924 F.2d 298, 

301 (D.C. Cir. 1991) (negotiating cocaine transaction is overt 

act); see also United States v. Trenton Potteries Co., 273 U.S. 

392, 404 (1927) (“[E]ffect[ing] sales within the district . . . . 

[is an] overt act[ ] sufficient for jurisdictional requirements.”). 

 We likewise reject Watson’s related argument that his 

counsel was constitutionally ineffective by failing to discuss 

the venue issue with Watson or raise it before trial. See

Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668 (1984). To constitute 

constitutionally ineffective assistance under Strickland, the 

defendant must show his counsel’s performance was both 

deficient and prejudiced the defense. Id. at 687. Watson’s 

argument fails the first prong of Strickland because counsel 

does not perform deficiently by declining to pursue a losing 

argument. See, e.g., United States v. Kelly, 552 F.3d 824, 831 

(D.C. Cir. 2009) (ineffective assistance claim “plainly fails 

inasmuch as his counsel was not obliged to raise a meritless 

defense”); see also United States v. Carr, 373 F.3d 1350, 

1354 (D.C. Cir. 2004) (“[F]ailure to renew a non-meritorious 

motion renders a lawyer’s performance efficient, not 

deficient.”). 

 Watson next argues that the district court erred by failing 

to suppress the cocaine seized from his van because the initial 

stop of the van was unlawful and therefore the subsequent 

search and seizure was tainted by the unlawful stop. We 

disagree. The police may stop a vehicle if “it was objectively 

reasonable for the officer[ ] who observed [the] vehicle to 

conclude that a traffic violation had occurred.” United States 

v. Southerland, 486 F.3d 1355, 1358 (D.C. Cir. 2007). 

Moreover, “[t]he police may initiate a stop even if the traffic 

violation is a minor one.” Id. at 1359 (traffic stop did not 

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violate Fourth Amendment when officers believed vehicle’s 

license plate was improperly displayed). Here, Officer 

Johnson, who stopped Watson’s van, testified that he 

observed that the van (1) was traveling too close to the 

vehicle ahead of it; and (2) had a “tinted tag cover” that 

obscured its license plate number. These two facts gave him 

reason to believe that Watson was violating at least two 

Maryland traffic laws. See MD. CODE ANN., TRANSP. § 21-

310(a) (“The driver of a motor vehicle may not follow another 

vehicle more closely than is reasonable and prudent . . . . ”); 

id. § 13-411(c)(1) (“At all times, each registration plate shall 

be . . . [m]aintained free from foreign materials, including 

registration plate covers . . . . ”). Because “it was objectively 

reasonable for [Officer Johnson] to conclude that a traffic 

violation had occurred,” his stop of Watson’s van was lawful. 

Southerland, 486 F.3d at 1358. Further, Watson’s argument 

that Johnson’s subjective motivation was improper is nihil ad 

rem because, in determining whether a law enforcement 

officer can stop a vehicle, subjective motivations are 

irrelevant. See id. at 1358-59; United States v. Washington, 

559 F.3d 573, 575 (D.C. Cir. 2009) (“[T]he officers’ actual 

subjective motives . . . are irrelevant to the Fourth 

Amendment analysis of the traffic stop . . . .”).1

 Finally, Watson contends that the district court erred in 

allowing Michael Margulis, a police officer who was not 

qualified as an expert witness, to offer expert testimony that 

he found “cocaine residue” on various objects recovered from 

Watson’s residence, including a cheese grater, digital scale 

 1

 In his brief, Watson emphasized that he challenged only the 

initial stop of the van and not a subsequent dog sniff and vehicle 

search. 

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and plastic baggies.2

 Because Watson failed to raise this 

objection at trial, our review is for plain error. United States v. 

Mahdi, 598 F.3d 883, 888 (D.C. Cir. 2010). Under plain error 

review, Watson “must show there is error that is clear or 

obvious, and the error affected his substantial rights, which in 

the ordinary case means it affected the outcome of the trial, 

and the error seriously affects the fairness, integrity, or public 

reputation of judicial proceedings.” United States v. Guerrero, 

665 F.3d 1305, 1309 (D.C. Cir. 2011). 

 Assuming arguendo that the district court erroneously 

admitted Margulis’ testimony, cf. United States v. Smith, 640 

F.3d 358, 365 (D.C. Cir. 2011) (“knowledge derived from 

previous professional experience falls squarely within the 

scope of Rule 702” (quotation marks omitted)), the admission 

caused no prejudice because the testimony was cumulative of 

the properly admitted testimony of an expert witness. See Fed. 

R. Crim. P. 52(a) (“Any error, defect, irregularity, or variance 

that does not affect substantial rights must be disregarded.”). 

Specifically, a chemist also testified on behalf of the 

government that the substance on the scale, plastic baggies 

and cheese grater was cocaine. The chemist was duly 

qualified as an expert witness and Watson does not challenge 

 2

 Watson also contends that Margulis offered improper opinion 

testimony that (1) men’s clothing he found in Watson and Torres’s 

residence would approximately fit Watson and women’s clothing 

he found there would approximately fit Torres; and (2) a notepad he 

also found there “contains money prices on there and added up as 

it’s a tally sheet.” Margulis’ testimony regarding the clothing sizes 

was proper lay opinion testimony, see Fed. R. Evid. 701, and, 

assuming arguendo that Margulis should not have characterized the 

notepad as a “tally sheet,” we fail to see any prejudice arising from 

that testimony, see United States v. Brinson-Scott, No. 09-3017, 

2013 WL 1876242, at *3 (D.C. Cir. May 7, 2013). 

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the admissibility of his testimony. Margulis’ challenged 

testimony is merely cumulative of the chemist’s properly 

admitted testimony and its admission was not prejudicial. See, 

e.g., United States v. Smith, 964 F.2d 1221, 1224 (D.C. Cir. 

1992) (admission of report alleged to be inadmissible hearsay 

was, at worst, harmless error because the report “merely 

reinforced the identical opinion [the chemist who testified as 

an expert] had already properly offered”); see also United 

States v. Powell, 334 F.3d 42, 47 (D.C. Cir. 2003). 

Accordingly, Watson cannot establish plain error. 

 For the foregoing reasons, we affirm the district court’s 

judgment. 

So ordered.

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