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Parties Involved:
Brian Eric Carr
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

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United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued November 25, 2003 Decided July 13, 2004

No. 03-3017

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

APPELLEE

v.

BRIAN ERIC CARR,

APPELLANT

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Columbia

(No. 02cr00106–01)

Edward C. Sussman, appointed by the court, argued the

cause and filed the briefs for appellant.

David B. Goodhand, Assistant U.S. Attorney, argued the

cause for appellee. With him on the brief were Roscoe C.

Howard, Jr., U.S. Attorney, John R. Fisher, Elizabeth Trosman, and Barbara E. Kittay, Assistant U.S. Attorneys.

 Bills of costs must be filed within 14 days after entry of judgment.

The court looks with disfavor upon motions to file bills of costs out

of time.

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Before: GINSBURG, Chief Judge, and EDWARDS and TATEL,

Circuit Judges.

Opinion for the Court filed by Chief Judge GINSBURG.

GINSBURG, Chief Judge: Brian Carr was convicted on five

counts of bank robbery. Carr challenges his convictions and

his sentence, arguing that the district court erred by: (1)

failing to sever each count for a separate trial; (2) instructing

the jury that the change in Carr’s appearance before trial

could be considered as evidence of his consciousness of guilt;

and (3) making his 22–month sentence on one count consecutive to his concurrent sentences of 240 months on each of the

other four counts. Carr also claims he received ineffective

assistance of counsel, in violation of the Sixth Amendment to

the Constitution of the United States. Because none of

Carr’s arguments has any merit, we affirm the judgment of

the district court.

I. Background

On January 30, 2002 Carr entered a branch of the Chevy

Chase Bank in downtown Washington, D.C. and passed the

teller a note demanding ‘‘all the money.’’ Upon exiting the

bank Carr was immediately stopped by officers of the Metropolitan Police Department because he fit the description of

the suspect in four other bank robberies perpetrated within a

few blocks of the Chevy Chase branch. After confirming the

bank had just been robbed, the officers set up an identification procedure at which two bank employees identified Carr

as the person who had just robbed their branch; questioning

of Carr then elicited an admission that he had robbed the

branch.

The officers informed Carr that his appearance fit that of

the person who had committed the other four robberies.

That person was, like Carr, a black male in his 20s or 30s,

who had a thick, unkempt beard and wore a heavy jacket and

either a baseball cap or a knit hat. The modus operandi of

all five robberies was also similar, as were the robber’s facial

expressions, gestures, and demand notes, which in each case

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the robber asked be returned to him. Carr denied robbing

the other four banks.

Carr was charged with all five bank robberies. He was

tried by a jury and convicted on all counts, for which he was

sentenced to four prison terms of 240 months, to be served

concurrently, and one term of 22 months, to be served

consecutively. Carr now appeals both his conviction and the

sentence.

II. Analysis

We take up first Carr’s three claims of reversible error by

the district court. We then turn to Carr’s claim to have

received ineffective assistance of counsel at trial.

A. Severance

Carr argues the district court erred in denying his motion

to sever each bank robbery count for a separate trial. Under

Rule 14 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, a ‘‘court

may order [a] separate trial[ ]’’ for each offense if it appears

the defendant would be prejudiced by ‘‘the joinder of offenses’’ in a single trial. Carr, laboring under the mistaken

impression his counsel had not moved for severance before

trial, now argues that ‘‘[a]s the trial progressed’’ the district

court should have sua sponte ordered separate trials for each

of the five counts because the ‘‘joint trial of extremely similar

events, and the manner in which it was tried, created an

unfairly prejudicial environment.’’ The Government argues

Carr did not suffer any prejudice from the district court’s

failure to sever each count.

A district court’s denial of a defendant’s motion to sever

may generally be reversed ‘‘only upon a finding of clear

prejudice and abuse of discretion.’’ United States v. Levi, 45

F.3d 453, 455 (D.C. Cir. 1995) (citations and internal quotations omitted). In Levi, as in the present case, ‘‘the perpetrator [had] used similar notes, made similar statements and

gestures, wore similar clothing, and robbed banks TTT in the

same general area of the city’’ in each robbery. Id. We

explained that a ‘‘finding of prejudice is logically precluded if,

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had the counts been tried separately, the evidence concerning

each count would have been admissible on each other count.’’

Id. In that case, as in this, if the defendant had been tried

separately on each count, then the same evidence concerning

the perpetrator’s modus operandi would have been admissible in each case under the identity exception to Federal Rule

of Evidence 404(b). Id.; see United States v. Rollins, 301

F.3d 511, 518–19 & n.3 (7th Cir. 2002) (evidence of modus

operandi admissible under ‘‘identity exception’’ to 404(b)).

Therefore, here, as in Levi, there was no prejudice to the

defendant from joining the counts in a single trial.

B. Appearance Instruction

Between Carr’s arrest and his trial he gained weight,

shaved his beard, and began to wear glasses. The Government therefore asked for and the district court gave the jury

the following instruction:

A defendant’s attempt to change his appearance after

a crime has been committed does not create a presumption of guilt. An innocent person charged with a serious

offense may resort to various means, both lawful and

unlawful, to avoid prosecution.

On the other hand, you may consider evidence of the

defendant’s attempt to change his appearance as tending

to prove the defendant’s fear of being identified and

therefore his consciousness of guilt. You are not required to do so. You should consider and weigh such

evidence along with all of the other evidence in the case

and give it the weight you think it deserves.

Carr argues this instruction created a ‘‘presumption of

guilt,’’ the first sentence of the instruction to the contrary

notwithstanding. The Government responds that a defendant’s attempt to change his appearance is properly the

subject of a jury instruction, citing United States v. Perkins,

937 F.2d 1397, 1403 (9th Cir. 1991), and United States v.

McKinley, 485 F.2d 1059, 1061 (D.C. Cir. 1973). We review

the district court’s instruction for abuse of discretion. See

United States v. White, 116 F.3d 903, 924 (D.C. Cir. 1997);

United States v. Williams, 113 F.3d 243, 246 (D.C. Cir. 1997).

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Obviously Carr could anticipate that witnesses would be

called at trial to identify him as the robber. For whatever

reason, Carr made profound alterations to his appearance

before trial by gaining weight, shaving his heavy beard, and

donning glasses. Almost every witness who was asked nonetheless identified Carr as the robber — and each such witness

commented upon the change in his appearance. Because

there was ‘‘independent evidence indicating that the defendant TTT changed his appearance,’’ the jury could reasonably

infer that he did so in order to avoid identification at trial and

thereby ‘‘evinced [a] consciousness of guilt.’’ Perkins, 937

F.2d at 1403. Therefore, the district court’s instruction that

the jury ‘‘may consider evidence of the defendant’s attempt to

change his appearance’’ was founded in the record and was

not an error.

On appeal, Carr’s counsel points out — as trial counsel

pointed out to the jury — there could be innocent explanations for the changes in Carr’s appearance. Whether to

credit those explanations is properly for the jury, however,

not for this court.

C. Sentencing

Carr next argues the district court erred in making his 22–

month sentence on the fifth count of bank robbery consecutive to his concurrent sentences of 240 months on the other

four counts. According to Carr, such ‘‘stacking should not be

permitted when concurrent sentencing will achieve a sentence

within the guideline range,’’ which in this case was 210 to 260

months.* The Government argues the district court was

required by § 5G1.2(d) of the Sentencing Guidelines to sentence Carr as it did.

Carr cites no authority to support his argument, and with

good reason. Section 5G1.2(d) of the Sentencing Guidelines

provides that, because the statutory maximum sentence for

bank robbery (240 months) is less than the total punishment

(of 262 months) ‘‘arrived at for all counts through application

* The district court determined that Carr should be sentenced at

the top of that range, which determination Carr does not dispute.

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of the Guidelines,’’ United States v. Lott, 310 F.3d 1231, 1242

(10th Cir. 2002), the ‘‘sentence imposed on one or more of the

other counts shall run consecutively, but only to produce a

combined sentence equal to the total punishment.’’

Once the district court determined Carr’s total punishment

should be 262 months, the Guidelines required the court to

stack Carr’s sentences in order to reach that duration; the

command of § 5G1.2(d) ‘‘that multiple sentences ‘shall’ run

consecutively in circumstances of this case leaves no room for

district court discretion.’’ United States v. Lafayette, 337

F.3d 1043, 1050 & n.12 (D.C. Cir. 2003); United States v.

Garc ́ıa-Torres, 341 F.3d 61, 75 (1st Cir. 2003) (section

5G1.2(d) ‘‘mandate[s] the imposition of consecutive sentences

in order to achieve (as close as possible) the ‘total punishment’ ’’); United States v. Fuller, 332 F.3d 60, 67–68 (2d Cir.

2003) (noting error where ‘‘total punishment’’ was 151 months’

imprisonment, yet district court stacked only 120– and 30–

month sentences).

D. Ineffective Assistance of Counsel

Finally, Carr argues his trial attorney’s performance was

so deficient as to deprive him of his Sixth Amendment right

to the assistance of counsel. Specifically, he complains that

trial counsel: (1) failed to move for a severance of counts,

either pre-trial or during trial; (2) failed to enter into evidence a prescription that would have shown Carr’s eyeglasses

were medically necessary and not a cosmetic change Carr

made in order to avoid identification at trial; and (3) did not

make ‘‘sufficient efforts’’ to locate two individuals the police

had suspected, before Carr was apprehended, of committing

the first four bank robberies.

To succeed upon a claim of ineffective assistance of counsel

the defendant must show: (1) ‘‘his lawyer made errors so

serious that counsel was not functioning as the ‘counsel’

guaranteed by the Sixth Amendment’’; and (2) ‘‘a reasonable

probability that but for counsel’s unprofessional errors, the

result of the proceeding would have been different.’’ Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 687, 694 (1984). Our

practice in this circuit is to remand an ineffective assistance

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of counsel claim to the district court ‘‘for an evidentiary

hearing unless the trial record alone conclusively shows that

the defendant either is or is not entitled to relief.’’ United

States v. Rashad, 331 F.3d 908, 909–10 (D.C. Cir. 2003)

(citations and internal quotations omitted).

In this case no remand is necessary because it is clear from

the record Carr is not entitled to relief. First, Carr’s counsel

did request a severance of all counts before trial, but the

district court (as we have seen) correctly denied the motion.

Counsel did not renew the motion during the trial, but failure

to renew a non-meritorious motion renders a lawyer’s performance efficient, not deficient. See Vieux v. Pepe, 184 F.3d

59, 64 (1st Cir. 1999).

Second, Carr’s counsel can hardly be faulted for failing to

introduce into evidence Carr’s prescription for eyeglasses

because Carr himself was responsible for it coming to light

only after the close of the evidence. Carr had got the

prescription from the D.C. Department of Corrections while

awaiting trial but he did not bring it to the attention of his

attorney until after the trial record was closed and both sides

had presented their closing arguments to the jury.

Finally, there is ample record evidence that Carr’s trial

counsel did attempt to locate the two men whom the police

had suspected, before Carr was apprehended, of committing

the first four robberies. Carr’s counsel attempted to subpoena both individuals several times at their last known work

and home addresses, but neither man could be found. Counsel next moved to have their photographs admitted into

evidence, which the district court denied. Then, in his crossexamination of an FBI agent who had investigated the bank

robberies, Carr’s counsel elicited testimony that the two men

in question, who also fit the physical description of the bank

robber, had been suspected of committing the other four

robberies prior to Carr’s arrest. Thus did Carr’s counsel do

the best he could, with the resources available to him, to put

before the jury Carr’s defense that one or both of the other

suspects, and not Carr, committed the robberies. Therefore,

the record conclusively shows Carr’s trial attorney did not

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provide Carr with constitutionally ineffective assistance of

counsel.

III. Conclusion

For the foregoing reasons, the judgment of the district

court is

Affirmed.

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