United States Court of Appeals

For the Eighth Circuit 

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No. 23-1779

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United States of America

 Plaintiff - Appellee

v.

Daniel Arsenio Rodgers

 Defendant - Appellant

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Appeal from United States District Court 

for the Northern District of Iowa - Eastern

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Submitted: October 20, 2023

Filed: November 2, 2023

[Unpublished]

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Before GRUENDER, STRAS, and KOBES, Circuit Judges. 

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PER CURIAM.

A jury found Daniel Rodgers, a felon, guilty of unlawfully possessing a 

firearm. See 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1). The district court1 denied his motion for 

judgment of acquittal and sentenced him to 120 months’ imprisonment. Rodgers 

1

The Honorable C.J. Williams, United States District Judge for the Northern 

District of Iowa.
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appeals and argues that the evidence was insufficient to support his conviction and 

that the district court erred in applying a sentencing-guidelines enhancement. 

Addressing these arguments in turn, we affirm.

We review de novo the denial of Rodgers’s motion for judgment of acquittal

based on the sufficiency of the evidence. United States v. Trejo, 831 F.3d 1090, 

1093 (8th Cir. 2016). We view the “evidence in the light most favorable to the 

government, resolving conflicts in the government’s favor, and accepting all 

reasonable inferences that support the verdict.” United States v. Sherman, 81 F.4th 

800, 806 (8th Cir. 2023). “We will reverse only if no reasonable jury could have 

found all the elements of the offense proved beyond a reasonable doubt.” Id.

 Rodgers argues that the evidence at trial was insufficient for a reasonable jury 

to conclude beyond a reasonable doubt that he knowingly possessed a Beretta pistol. 

See United States v. Coleman, 961 F.3d 1024, 1027 (8th Cir. 2020) (noting “knowing 

possession of a firearm” as an element of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1)). At trial, the jury 

heard witnesses testify, and saw traffic-camera footage showing, that Rodgers 

committed two drive-by shootings on the day of his arrest. After arresting Rodgers, 

officers found the Beretta in the center console of the car in which Rodgers had been 

riding. Later forensic analysis matched the shell casings and bullet fragments found 

at the two crime scenes to the Beretta found in the car. The Beretta also fit in the 

Beretta gun case found in a different car used by Rodgers. This evidence sufficed

to prove Rodgers’s knowing possession of the Beretta, and the district court did not 

err in denying Rodgers’s motion for judgment of acquittal. 

Rodgers attempts to avoid this conclusion by attacking the credibility of two 

of the Government’s witnesses and by asserting that the Government proved its case 

only by “implication.” These complaints do not disturb our conclusion that the 

evidence was sufficient because it is the jury’s function, not ours, to judge the 

credibility of witnesses. See United States v. Hernandez, 569 F.3d 893, 897 (8th Cir. 

2009). Moreover, a “conviction may be based on circumstantial as well as direct 

evidence.” United States v. Tate, 633 F.3d 624, 628 (8th Cir. 2011).
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Rodgers further argues that the jury’s verdict was “inconsistent” because it 

found that he knowingly possessed the Beretta but not another firearm also found at 

the time of Rodgers’s arrest. Putting aside that inconsistent verdicts are not, on their 

own, sufficient grounds for reversal or a new trial, see United States v. Armstrong, 

253 F.3d 335, 336 (8th Cir. 2001), we agree with the district court that the evidence 

tending to show Rodgers’s knowing possession of the Beretta was different from the

apparently weaker evidence connecting Rodgers to the other firearm. We see no 

inconsistency in the jury’s findings. 

Next, Rodgers challenges his sentence. Over Rodgers’s objection, the district 

court applied a four-level enhancement because the Beretta “had an altered or 

obliterated serial number.” U.S.S.G. § 2K2.1(b)(4)(B). Rodgers argues that the 

sentencing enhancement should not have applied because the Beretta’s serial number 

was “visible to the naked eye” and “required no crime lab procedure to determine 

the serial number.” To address this point, we review the district court’s factual 

findings for clear error and its application of the sentencing guidelines de novo. 

United States v. Thigpen, 848 F.3d 841, 845 (8th Cir. 2017). 

A serial number is “altered or obliterated” when it is “materially changed in a 

way that makes accurate information less accessible.” United States v. Jones, 643 

F.3d 257, 258 (8th Cir. 2011); see also United States v. Carter, 421 F.3d 909, 916 

(9th Cir. 2005) (“[N]othing in . . . § 2K2.1(b)(4) suggests that any defacement must 

make tracing impossible or extraordinarily difficult.”). Here, the Beretta’s serial 

number was stamped at three places on the gun. Each was at least partially scratched 

out, and a police officer testified that law enforcement had difficulty piecing together 

the gun’s serial number because of the scratches. In other words, the scratches 

“materially changed” the serial number and made an accurate reading “less 

accessible.” The district court also examined the gun, noted that someone scratched 

out the serial numbers, and found that “the serial number has been altered or 

obliterated.” This finding is not clearly erroneous, and the district court properly 

applied the enhancement. See Thigpen, 848 F.3d at 845-46 (holding that the 
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enhancement applies even when only one of the three serial-number stamps on the 

firearm was altered or obliterated).

Accordingly, we affirm Rodgers’s conviction and sentence.2

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2

Rodgers also raises several ineffective-assistance-of-counsel claims. As a 

rule, ineffective-assistance claims are better left for post-conviction proceedings, 

and none of the scenarios that would justify early review of the claims are present 

here. See United States v. Ralston, 973 F.3d 896, 914 (8th Cir. 2020); United States 

v. Long, 721 F.3d 920, 926 (8th Cir. 2013). Thus, we do not address the claims in 

this direct appeal.