Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca4-11-05193/USCOURTS-ca4-11-05193-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Harold Ford
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

PUBLISHED

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 

Plaintiff-Appellee,

v.  No. 11-5193

HAROLD FORD,

Defendant-Appellant. 

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Eastern District of North Carolina, at Raleigh.

W. Earl Britt, Senior District Judge.

(7:08-cr-00093-BR-1)

Argued: October 26, 2012

Decided: January 4, 2013

Before TRAXLER, Chief Judge, DIAZ, Circuit Judge, and

Catherine C. EAGLES, United States District Judge for the

Middle District of North Carolina, sitting by designation.

Affirmed by published opinion. Judge Eagles wrote the opinion, in which Chief Judge Traxler and Judge Diaz joined.

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COUNSEL

ARGUED: James Edward Todd, Jr., OFFICE OF THE FEDERAL PUBLIC DEFENDER, Raleigh, North Carolina, for

Appellant. Joshua L. Rogers, OFFICE OF THE UNITED

STATES ATTORNEY, Raleigh, North Carolina, for Appellee. ON BRIEF: Thomas P. McNamara, Federal Public

Defender, G. Alan DuBois, Assistant Federal Public

Defender, OFFICE OF THE FEDERAL PUBLIC

DEFENDER, Raleigh, North Carolina, for Appellant. Thomas

G. Walker, United States Attorney, Jennifer P. May-Parker,

Assistant United States Attorney, OFFICE OF THE UNITED

STATES ATTORNEY, Raleigh, North Carolina, for Appellee.

OPINION

EAGLES, District Judge:

A jury found Harold Ford guilty of being a felon in possession of a firearm. We reversed his conviction because of a

post-trial change in law effected by United States v. Simmons,

649 F.3d 237 (4th Cir. 2011) (en banc), and remanded the

case for further proceedings. United States v. Ford (Ford I),

447 F. App’x 484, 485 (4th Cir. 2011) (unpublished). Ford

was again convicted, and he now appeals on double jeopardy

grounds. Finding no error, we affirm.

I.

In September 2009, Ford was tried before a jury in the

Eastern District of North Carolina on one count of unlawfully

possessing a firearm, having been convicted of a crime punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year, in

violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1). J.A. 41-221. The government sought to introduce evidence of Ford’s 2003 North Car2 UNITED STATES v. FORD

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olina conviction for the Class I felony of possession with

intent to distribute marijuana. J.A. 139-140, 142. For that conviction, Ford was sentenced to 8-10 months in prison. J.A.

140. Under North Carolina’s structured sentencing laws at the

time, Ford’s sentence could not have exceeded 12 months

given his prior criminal record, even though a person whose

prior record was more serious could have received a maximum sentence of up to 15 months. Ford objected that the

2003 conviction was inadmissible because it was not for a

crime punishable by more than a year in prison, and therefore

it could not serve as a predicate felony for the § 922(g)(1)

charge. J.A. 140-43. 

While Ford’s objection had support in a Sixth Circuit case,

United States v. Pruitt, 545 F.3d 416 (6th Cir. 2008), it was

foreclosed by our decision in United States v. Harp, 406 F.3d

242, 246 (4th Cir. 2005), overruled by Simmons, 649 F.3d at

241. Harp made clear that in determining "whether a conviction is for a crime punishable by a prison term exceeding one

year, . . . we consider the maximum aggravated sentence that

could be imposed for that crime upon a defendant with the

worst possible criminal history." Id. (emphasis removed). The

district court therefore allowed evidence of the conviction.

J.A. 143. The government did not introduce evidence of any

other convictions.

At the close of the government’s case and again at the close

of all evidence, Ford moved for a judgment of acquittal, each

time asserting that the government had failed to prove he had

a prior felony conviction prohibiting him from possessing a

firearm. J.A. 156-57, 181. The district court denied both

motions, reiterating that Ford’s argument was foreclosed by

Fourth Circuit precedent. J.A. 158, 181. The jury found Ford

guilty, and the district court sentenced him to 78 months in

prison. J.A. 6, 8.

Ford appealed. J.A. 9. We placed his appeal in abeyance

pending an en banc decision in Simmons. J.A. 11. In SimUNITED STATES v. FORD 3

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mons, we overruled Harp and sustained an argument similar

to the one Ford had made before the district court. 649 F.3d

at 247-48. Thereafter, in a per curiam opinion, we reversed

Ford’s § 922(g)(1) conviction and remanded the case to the

district court for further proceedings. Ford I, 447 F. App’x at

484.

On remand, the government moved to retry Ford based on

other previous convictions, each of which was for a crime

indisputably punishable by more than a year in prison. J.A. 260.1

The district court granted the motion, rejecting Ford’s assertion that retrial would violate the Double Jeopardy Clause.

J.A. 300. Ford entered a conditional guilty plea, preserving

for appeal his double jeopardy argument, and the district court

sentenced him to 27 months in prison. J.A. 346-51, 378. Ford

timely appealed, J.A. 388, and we have jurisdiction pursuant

to 18 U.S.C. § 3742(a) and 28 U.S.C. § 1291.

II.

Ford contends that in Ford I we reversed his conviction

because the evidence was legally insufficient to support a

guilty verdict, and that, like an acquittal, such a reversal bars

retrial under the Double Jeopardy Clause of the Fifth Amendment. The Double Jeopardy Clause provides: "[N]or shall any

person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb." We review de novo whether a defendant

will be subject to double jeopardy by retrial on a criminal

charge. United States v. Goodine, 400 F.3d 202, 206 (4th Cir.

2005).

1Ford was convicted in 1973 of aggravated assault and of assault with

a deadly weapon inflicting serious injury. He was convicted in 1983 of

selling controlled substances and of two counts of possession with intent

to sell and deliver a controlled substance. J.A. 260. 

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A.

In general, the Double Jeopardy Clause "forbids a second

trial for the purpose of affording the prosecution another

opportunity to supply evidence which it failed to muster in the

first proceeding." Burks v. United States, 437 U.S. 1, 11

(1978). Thus, the Double Jeopardy Clause prohibits the retrying of a defendant whose conviction is "reversed by an appellate court solely for lack of sufficient evidence to sustain the

jury’s verdict." Id. at 2. On the other hand, the Double Jeopardy Clause "does not prevent the government from retrying

a defendant who succeeds in getting his first conviction set

aside . . . because of some error in the proceedings leading to

conviction." Lockhart v. Nelson, 488 U.S. 33, 38, 40

(1988)(holding that "the Double Jeopardy Clause allows

retrial when a reviewing court determines that a defendant’s

conviction must be reversed because evidence was erroneously admitted against him, and also concludes that without

the inadmissible evidence there was insufficient evidence to

support a conviction.") 

We have held that when a conviction is reversed because

of a post-trial change in law, a second trial is permitted. In

United States v. Ellyson, 326 F.3d 522 (4th Cir. 2003), we

considered the double jeopardy ramifications of such a reversal, concluding it was analogous to one for procedural error

and therefore did not bar retrial. There, defendant Ellyson was

tried on federal child pornography charges. Id. at 526. The

district court instructed the jury that the government was

required to prove that the pornographic materials in question

either involved or appeared to involve minors. Id. After the

jury returned a guilty verdict, Ellyson appealed, in relevant

part contending that the "appeared to involve" prong of the

instructions violated the First Amendment—an argument he

conceded was contrary to existing Fourth Circuit precedent

but was the law in the Ninth Circuit. Id. at 527. His appeal

was held in abeyance until the Supreme Court decided Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition, 535 U.S. 234 (2002), which

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invalidated the statute underlying the challenged instruction

as overbroad. Ellyson, 326 F.3d at 527. Because we could not

conclude that the jury’s verdict was based solely on a finding

that the pornographic materials actually involved minors, we

set the verdict aside. Id. at 531. We then addressed the applicability of the retrial bar associated with reversals for insufficient evidence:

[T]he double jeopardy concerns that preclude the

government from having a second opportunity to

build a case against a defendant when it failed to do

so the first time are not present here. Any insufficiency in the proof was caused by the subsequent

change in law under Free Speech Coalition, not the

government’s failure to muster evidence. . . . Similar

reasoning [to that in Lockhart, 488 U.S. at 34, 42,]

applies here. The government presented its evidence

under the wrong standard, i.e., it presented evidence

correctly believing, based on the law at the time, that

it was enough to prove the images "appeared" to

depict minors. If the evidence in the record is insufficient to support a verdict under Free Speech Coalition, it is not because of the government’s failure of

proof but because of the changes brought by Free

Speech Coalition.

Id. at 533-34. We held, therefore, that there was no double

jeopardy bar to Ellyson’s retrial. Id.2

Other circuits considering this issue agree that where a

reviewing court determines that the evidence presented at trial

2We held, in the alternative, that there was sufficient evidence in the

record to support a guilty verdict for Ellyson even under the revised legal

standard. Ellyson, 326 F.3d at 534-35. Where a court makes alternative

holdings to support its decision, each holding is binding precedent. United

States v. Fulks, 454 F.3d 410, 434-35 (4th Cir. 2006) (citing MacDonald,

Sommer & Frates v. Yolo Cnty., 477 U.S. 340, 346 n.4 (1986)). 

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has been rendered insufficient only by a post-trial change in

law, double jeopardy concerns do not preclude the government from retrying the defendant. E.g., United States v. Robison, 505 F.3d 1208, 1225 (11th Cir. 2007); United States v.

Wacker, 72 F.3d 1453, 1465 (10th Cir. 1996); United States

v. Weems, 49 F.3d 528, 531 (9th Cir. 1995); see also United

States v. Bruno, 661 F.3d 733, 742-43 & n.2 (2d Cir. 2011)

(facing a similar issue and collecting cases, including Ellyson,

but deciding the case on other grounds); United States v.

Green, 139 F.3d 1002, 1004 (4th Cir. 1998) (holding that

vacatur of a judgment based on a post-judgment change in

law is "akin to a reversal for trial error").

B.

Ford’s double jeopardy argument fails in light of Ellyson.

The Harp definition of "punishable by more than a year" was

binding on the district court, notwithstanding the existence at

the time of a Sixth Circuit decision similar to the decision

later rendered in Simmons.

3

 Ford’s 2003 drug conviction was

clearly admissible and sufficient under the Harp standard to

qualify him as a felon, but it was clearly inadmissible and

insufficient under the Simmons standard. Thus, the government, as in Ellyson, "presented evidence correctly believing,

based on the law at the time, that it was enough to prove" that

Ford was a felon. See Ellyson, 326 F.3d at 534. And just as

in Ellyson, "[a]ny insufficiency in the proof" here "was caused

by the subsequent change in the law" effected by Simmons,

"not the government’s failure to muster evidence" under the

legal standard that existed as binding precedent at the time of

the trial. See Ellyson, 326 F.3d at 534. The Ford I decision

was therefore "akin to a reversal for trial error," see Green,

139 F.3d at 1004, and retrial did not run afoul of the Double

Jeopardy Clause.

3

Simmons itself rested heavily on a Supreme Court case postdating

Ford’s trial: Carachuri-Rosendo v. Holder, 130 S. Ct. 2577 (2010). 

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Ford attempts to distinguish Ellyson by noting that the Ellyson court explained why the change in law at issue there rendered jury instructions erroneous, whereas the Ford I court

reversed because, as in Burks, the government did not present

sufficient evidence. This contention is unavailing for at least

two distinct reasons. 

First, in Ford I we reversed Ford’s conviction "[i]n view of

our holding in Simmons" without commenting on evidentiary

sufficiency or the government’s alleged failure of proof. 447

F. App’x at 485.4 We remanded for further proceedings, not

for entry of a judgment of acquittal. Id.; see, e.g., United

States v. Habegger, 370 F.3d 441, 446 (4th Cir. 2004) (reversing for insufficient proof and remanding "with instructions to

enter a judgment of acquittal"); United States v. Grande, 620

F.2d 1026, 1040 (4th Cir. 1980) (same); see also Burks, 437

U.S. at 10-11, 18 (explaining that the only just remedy available to an appellate court determining that the evidence presented at trial was legally insufficient is the direction of a

judgment of acquittal). 

Second, nothing in Ellyson or any of the cases from other

circuits giving a change in law the same effect as a trial error

for double jeopardy purposes suggests their reasoning or holdings are limited to the effect of a change in law on erroneous

jury instructions. Indeed, our decision in Ellyson, by its reliance on the Supreme Court’s reasoning in Lockhart, is implicitly to the contrary, 326 F.3d at 533-34, and the decisions by

our sister circuits are explicitly to the contrary, see Robison,

505 F.3d at 1224-25 (holding that where the trial court made

clear before and during trial it would rely on a definition of

"navigable waters" later held to be incorrect, remand for a

4Ford asserted in his Ford I briefs that an "independent ground for

reversal" was that the district court improperly instructed the jury regarding the definition of a crime punishable by more than a year. Brief for

Appellant, Ford I, 447 F. App’x 484 (10-4176), 2010 WL 2867600, at *35

n.5. 

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new trial was appropriate because the government was

deprived of "any incentive to present evidence that might

have cured any resulting [evidentiary] insufficiency"); accord

Wacker, 72 F.3d at 1465; Weems, 49 F.3d at 531.

III.

Finding no error, we affirm the decision of the district

court.

AFFIRMED

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