21-1291 (L)

United States v. Collins

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT

SUMMARY ORDER

RULINGS BY SUMMARY ORDER DO NOT HAVE PRECEDENTIAL EFFECT. CITATION 

TO A SUMMARY ORDER FILED ON OR AFTER JANUARY 1, 2007, IS PERMITTED AND IS 

GOVERNED BY FEDERAL RULE OF APPELLATE PROCEDURE 32.1 AND THIS COURT’S 

LOCAL RULE 32.1.1. WHEN CITING A SUMMARY ORDER IN A DOCUMENT FILED WITH 

THIS COURT, A PARTY MUST CITE EITHER THE FEDERAL APPENDIX OR AN 

ELECTRONIC DATABASE (WITH THE NOTATION “SUMMARY ORDER”). A PARTY 

CITING TO A SUMMARY ORDER MUST SERVE A COPY OF IT ON ANY PARTY NOT 

REPRESENTED BY COUNSEL. 

At a stated term of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, 

held at the Thurgood Marshall United States Courthouse, 40 Foley Square, in the 

City of New York, on the 19th day of January, two thousand twenty-three.

PRESENT:

RICHARD J. SULLIVAN,

ALISON J. NATHAN,

SARAH A. L. MERRIAM,

Circuit Judges.

_____________________________________

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Appellee,

v. Nos. 21-1291(L),

21-1305(Con)

VANCE COLLINS, RAMON RAMIREZ,

Defendants-Appellants.*

__________________________________

* The Clerk of Court is respectfully directed to amend the official case caption as set forth above.
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For Defendant-Appellant

Vance Collins:

ERIC R. BRESLIN (Arletta K. Bussiere, on 

the brief), Duane Morris LLP, Newark, 

NJ.

For Defendant-Appellant

Ramon Ramirez:

BEVERLY VAN NESS, New York, NY.

For Appellee: ADAM S. HOBSON (Jamie Bagliebter, 

Hagan Scotten, on the brief), Assistant 

United States Attorneys, for Damian 

Williams, United States Attorney for 

the Southern District of New York, 

New York, NY.

Appeal from judgments of the United States District Court for the Southern 

District of New York (P. Kevin Castel, Judge).

UPON DUE CONSIDERATION, IT IS HEREBY ORDERED, 

ADJUDGED, AND DECREED that the judgments of the district court are

AFFIRMED. 

Vance Collins and Ramon Ramirez appeal from judgments of conviction

after a jury trial in which both men were found guilty of murder-for-hire and 

conspiracy to commit murder-for-hire, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1958, and Collins 

was found guilty of possessing a firearm after having been previously convicted 

of a felony, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1). The district court sentenced 

Collins to 144 months’ imprisonment, consisting of concurrent sentences of 120
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months’ imprisonment for the murder-for-hire counts and a consecutive term of 

twenty-four months’ imprisonment for the felon-in-possession charge, and 

Ramirez to concurrent terms of 120 months’ imprisonment for the murder-for-hire 

counts. On appeal, Collins and Ramirez raise four principal challenges to their

convictions and sentences, which we address in turn. We assume the parties’ 

familiarity with the underlying facts, procedural history, and issues on appeal. 

I. Sufficiency of the Evidence

Ramirez and Collins challenge the sufficiency of the evidence underlying 

their murder-for-hire convictions in two respects. First, they contend that the 

evidence produced at trial was not sufficient to show that they hired Jakim Mowatt 

to kill Eric Santiago. Second, they contend that the government failed to prove 

that there was a sufficient nexus between the murder plot and the use of a facility 

of interstate commerce. While we generally review the sufficiency of the 

evidence de novo, United States v. Yannotti, 541 F.3d 112, 120–21 (2d Cir. 2008), we 

apply the plain-error standard to this second challenge because the argument 

pressed on appeal was not raised in the district court. See United States v. James, 

998 F.2d 74, 78 (2d Cir. 1993). 
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“A defendant seeking to overturn a jury verdict on sufficiency grounds 

bears a heavy burden,” because we will “uphold the conviction if any rational trier 

of fact could have found the essential elements of the crime beyond a reasonable 

doubt.” United States v. Anderson, 747 F.3d 51, 59 (2d Cir. 2014) (internal quotation 

marks omitted). When considering a sufficiency challenge, we view the evidence 

“in its totality, not in isolation,” United States v. Huezo, 546 F.3d 174, 178 (2d Cir. 

2008) (internal quotation marks omitted), and “in a light that is most favorable to 

the government, . . . with all reasonable inferences resolved in favor of the 

government,” United States v. Persico, 645 F.3d 85, 104 (2d Cir. 2011) (internal 

quotation marks omitted).

Here, there was more than sufficient evidence for the jury to conclude that 

Ramirez and Collins hired Mowatt to kill Santiago. The government adduced 

extensive evidence showing that Ramirez, after learning that Santiago was having 

an affair with his wife, hatched a plan with Collins to “take care” of the situation. 

App’x at 1038. At first, their plan was to hire someone to “beat up” Santiago, but 

the plan escalated to “murder” within months. Id. at 545, 550. The hired hitman, 

Mowatt, testified that he was promised $25,000 (among other benefits) for the job,

and that he, in turn, recruited Barry Johnson to help carry out the hit. The 
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government’s theory of the case was also supported by Ramirez’s post-arrest 

statement, Johnson’s testimony, Santiago’s testimony, telephone records showing 

frequent contact among the co-conspirators and hitmen, and the contents of 

Mowatt’s cell phone, which included Santiago’s home address, photos of Santiago, 

and videos of the trips that Mowatt and Johnson had conducted to surveil 

Santiago. While Defendants maintain that Mowatt was not credible and insist 

that the plan was still to beat up, rather than kill, Santiago, the jury was certainly 

free to credit Mowatt’s testimony that Defendants “wanted [Santiago] dead.” Id.

at 558. Since we must “defer to the jury’s assessment of witness credibility and 

the jury’s resolution of conflicting testimony,” we have no basis for disturbing the 

jury’s verdict on appeal. United States v. Triumph Cap. Grp., Inc., 544 F.3d 149, 159 

(2d Cir. 2008) (internal quotation marks omitted).

Defendants’ next argument – that the government failed to prove that the 

murder plot involved the use of a facility of interstate commerce – fares no better. 

Under section 1958, the government must prove that a defendant “use[d] or 

cause[d] another (including the intended victim) to use . . . any facility of

interstate . . . commerce, with intent that a murder be committed.” 18 U.S.C. 

§ 1958(a). This jurisdictional element can be proven by, among other things,
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showing that an intrastate call in furtherance of the murder plot was made on an 

interstate-telephone network. See United States v. Perez, 414 F.3d 302, 304–05 (2d

Cir. 2005); see also United States v. Francisco, 642 F. App’x 40, 44 (2d Cir. 2016)

(finding sufficient evidence to satisfy section 1958’s jurisdictional element when

pay phone was used to discuss murder plot).

Here, there was ample evidence showing that Defendants used their cell

phones – which they stipulated operated on national networks – in furtherance of 

the plot to murder Santiago. App’x at 880–83. For example, Mowatt testified 

that Collins communicated the plan to kill Santiago by phone “a month or two” 

after the “summer of 2017,” id. at 548, 558, and while Defendants argue that this

call was not corroborated by the call records introduced at trial, the jury was free 

to credit that testimony while making allowances for the possibility that Mowatt

may have been mistaken about the precise timing of the call. See United States v. 

Chavez, 549 F.3d 119, 124 (2d Cir. 2008) (explaining that we must draw “every 

inference that could have been drawn in the government’s favor”). Mowatt also 

testified that he often called Collins with status updates concerning the 

murder-for-hire plot during his surveillance trips. The call records did

corroborate these communications, and the government showed that Collins and 
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Ramirez spoke over the phone immediately after many of Mowatt’s calls to 

Collins. And although there was no testimony as to what Collins and Ramirez 

discussed during these calls, the jury could have reasonably inferred, based on the 

timing of the calls and Mowatt’s testimony, that these calls were made in 

furtherance of the plot to kill Santiago. We thus have no trouble concluding that 

the evidence produced at trial was sufficient to prove the jurisdictional element of 

section 1958.

II. Fourth Amendment

Collins argues that the district court erred in denying his motion to suppress 

the three firearms seized from his home after he requested that officers permit him 

to retrieve a coat from his house following his arrest. “In an appeal from a district 

court’s ruling on a motion to suppress, we review legal conclusions de novo and 

findings of fact for clear error.” United States v. Freeman, 735 F.3d 92, 95 (2d Cir. 

2013). Under the Fourth Amendment, “a search authorized by consent is wholly 

valid.” Schneckloth v. Bustamonte, 412 U.S. 218, 222 (1973). The question of 

whether an individual consented to a search often turns on the credibility of

witnesses. A district court’s “factual determinations [as] to witness credibility” 

are entitled to “special deference.” United States v. Jiau, 734 F.3d 147, 151 (2d Cir. 
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2013). Accordingly, when a district court’s “finding is based on [its] decision to 

credit the testimony of one of two or more witnesses, each of whom has told a 

coherent and facially plausible story that is not contradicted by extrinsic evidence, 

that finding, if not internally inconsistent, can virtually never be clear error.” 

Anderson v. City of Bessemer City, 470 U.S. 564, 575 (1985).

Collins cannot show that the district court erred in determining that he 

consented to permit the officers to enter his residence and then voluntarily 

disclosed the location of three firearms. At the suppression hearing, Detective 

James Menton testified that Collins consented to the search after he was arrested 

outside his home. According to Menton, Collins was shivering from the cold

when he asked if he could grab a jacket from inside his residence, which Menton 

permitted on the condition that Collins agree to let officers accompany him and 

conduct a protective sweep. In crediting Menton’s testimony, the district court 

observed that Menton’s version of events was consistent with several undisputed 

facts, including that Collins was shaking when officers arrested him, that Collins

was not wearing a jacket before officers escorted him inside his house, that Collins 

left his home in a jacket, and that Collins never objected to the officers’ entering 

his home or asked them to leave. Menton’s testimony was also corroborated by 
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Supervisory Special Agent Brendan Kenney, who testified that, before he entered 

Collins’s home, Menton told him that Collins had “requested to go back inside the 

house to grab a jacket.” App’x at 206. Because Menton’s testimony was 

coherent, plausible, and internally consistent, see Anderson, 470 U.S. at 575, we

decline to disturb the district court’s finding that Collins consented to the search. 

Collins further argues that the district court erred in determining that his

consent was voluntary under the totality of the circumstances. When the 

government seeks to justify a search based on consent, it “has the burden of 

proving that the consent was, in fact, freely and voluntarily given.” United States 

v. O’Brien, 926 F.3d 57, 76 (2d Cir. 2019) (internal quotation marks omitted). 

Whether consent to a search “was in fact ‘voluntary’ or was the product of duress 

or coercion, express or implied, is a question of fact to be determined from the 

totality of all the circumstances.” Schneckloth, 412 U.S. at 227. “Consent can be 

found from an individual’s words, acts[,] or conduct.” Krause v. Penny, 837 F.2d 

595, 597 (2d Cir. 1988). 

While Collins argues that the circumstances of his arrest were so 

“harrowing” that they would “intimidate nearly anyone,” Collins Br. at 29, we 

discern no error in the district court’s assessment of the evidence. The district 
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court acknowledged that, at the time Collins consented to the search, some officers 

still “had their weapons drawn” and that Collins “had already been arrested, was 

in handcuffs, and had not been read his Miranda rights.” App’x at 430. But the 

district court also considered that no one had threatened Collins; that “Collins is 

an adult who understands written and spoken English; that he has past experience 

with law enforcement; and that he asked for and received a jacket from inside his 

house after being arrested outside.” Id. After balancing these factors, the district 

court reasonably concluded that his consent was voluntary. We see no error in 

the district court’s conclusion and have upheld findings of voluntariness in similar 

circumstances. See, e.g., United States v. Ansaldi, 372 F.3d 118, 129 (2d Cir. 2004)

(affirming finding of voluntary consent where defendant was arrested outside his 

house at gunpoint, placed in handcuffs, and advised of his Miranda rights), 

abrogated on other grounds by McFadden v. United States, 576 U.S. 186 (2015); United 

States v. Puglisi, 790 F.2d 240, 243–44 (2d Cir. 1986) (affirming finding of voluntary 

consent where defendant had been arrested and handcuffed by officers with 

weapons drawn before signing consent to search forms). Accordingly, the 

district court did not err in denying Collins’s motion to suppress.1

1 We do not reach the question whether the security sweep of Collins’s home, including Menton’s 
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III. Sixth Amendment

Collins next argues that his rights under the Sixth Amendment’s

Confrontation Clause were violated by the introduction of otherwise-inculpatory 

statements by Ramirez in which references to Collins were deleted or replaced by 

neutral pronouns. “Alleged violations of the Confrontation Clause are reviewed

de novo, subject to harmless[-]error analysis.” United States v. Vitale, 459 F.3d 190, 

195 (2d Cir. 2006). In a joint trial, the admission of a non-testifying defendant’s 

confession is prejudicial error in violation of the Confrontation Clause only to the 

extent that it incriminates a co-defendant. See Bruton v. United States, 391 U.S 123, 

135–36 (1968). But prejudice from such a confession may be avoided by a 

“non-obvious redaction” that removes “any references to the [non-testifying]

defendant.” United States v. Lyle, 919 F.3d 716, 733 (2d Cir. 2019). We determine 

whether modifications to the confession satisfy Bruton by considering whether 

they “remove the ‘overwhelming probability’ that a jury will not follow a limiting 

instruction that precludes its consideration of a redacted confession against a 

defendant other than the declarant.” United States v. Jass, 569 F.3d 47, 60 (2d Cir. 

inquiry as to whether Collins had any firearms in the residence, was proper under the 

public-safety exception to Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 439 (1966), because Collins has not 

raised the issue on appeal.
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2009). Our Circuit has held that, in making this determination, we must view the 

redacted statement “separate and apart from any other evidence admitted at trial.” 

Lyle, 919 F.3d at 733.

The redactions to Ramirez’s post-arrest statement do not violate Bruton. In 

line with our precedent, the statement introduced at trial removed all references 

to Collins and replaced his name with either nothing at all or a neutral noun or 

pronoun. See id. (“We have consistently held that the introduction of a 

co-defendant’s confession with the defendant’s name replaced by a neutral noun 

or pronoun does not violate Bruton.”). Collins argues that the repeated use of 

“you guys” and “the other guy” made it obvious that the statement was edited. 

Collins Br. at 35. But the government introduced each phrase into the 

transcript – which already included both of those neutral phrases – only once. As 

a result, it is far more likely that the jury would have concluded that those were 

Ramirez’s and the officer’s actual words, rather than a redacted or modified 

version of them. And while Collins speculates that a “sophisticated juror” 

listening to the statement would necessarily infer that it referred to Collins, Collins 

Br. at 36, the statement on its face – which neither obviously references Collins nor 

introduces awkward syntax – requires no such inference and could just as easily 
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have referred to someone else. See United States v. Tutino, 883 F.2d 1125, 1135 (2d 

Cir. 1989) (approving substitution of “others,” “other people,” and “another 

person” for names of co-defendants in confession of non-testifying defendant, 

“with no indication to the jury that the original statement contained actual 

names”). Considering the redacted statement “separate and apart from any 

other evidence admitted at trial,” Lyle, 919 F.3d at 733, we cannot say that the 

district court erred in admitting Ramirez’s post-arrest statement.2

III. Sentencing

Ramirez challenges the procedural and substantive reasonableness of his 

below-Guidelines sentence of 120 months’ imprisonment. We review Ramirez’s 

procedural-reasonableness challenge for plain error because it was not raised in 

the district court, see United States v. Ramos, 979 F.3d 994, 998 (2d Cir. 2020), and 

2 While our Circuit has held that a co-defendant’s redacted out-of-court confession should be 

assessed in “isolation,” the Supreme Court has recently granted certiorari to determine whether 

such a statement should instead be considered in the context in which it is offered. See Samia v. 

United States, No. 22-196, 2022 WL 17586973 (Dec. 13, 2022). Nevertheless, we need not delay 

this appeal to await the Supreme Court’s resolution of this issue, because even assuming that the 

district court erred in admitting Ramirez’s post arrest statement, any such error was harmless 

beyond a reasonable doubt. See Jass, 569 F.3d at 64. As explained above, the properly admitted 

evidence of Collins’s guilt was nothing short of overwhelming, consisting of the testimony of 

multiple witnesses (including the two hitmen) and a host of cell phone records, photographs, and 

videos that corroborated the murder-for-hire plot, among other evidence. Moreover, any 

prejudice inflicted by admitting Ramirez’s statement was minimized by the fact that the 

statement itself was consistent with Collins’s defense at trial – namely, that the plan was to “beat 

up,” not murder, Santiago. App’x at 1044. 
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his substantive-reasonableness challenge for abuse of discretion, see United States 

v. Thavaraja, 740 F.3d 253, 258 (2d Cir. 2014).

Ramirez first argues that his sentence was procedurally unreasonable 

because the district court failed to fully consider the sentencing factors outlined in 

section 3553(a). Specifically, he argues that the district court, in sentencing him 

and Collins to the same term of incarceration for the murder-for-hire counts, failed 

to consider the differences between Ramirez’s and Collins’s “background[s] and 

characteristics,” and the fact that Ramirez would face deportation after serving his 

sentence. Ramirez Br. at 41–42. But while district courts are encouraged to

consider such factors, they are by no means dispositive. See United States v. Frias, 

521 F.3d 229, 236 (2d Cir. 2008) (noting that “disparities between co-defendants”

is not a required sentencing consideration); United States v. Thavaraja, 740 F.3d 253, 

263 (2d Cir. 2014) (noting that the “impact deportation will have on the defendant” 

is not a required sentencing consideration). At any rate, the record reflects that 

the district did consider this evidence – it simply did not give it the weight that 

Ramirez would have liked. See Ramirez App’x at 67 (“I have considered the 

histor[ies] and characteristics of the defendants.”); id. (“[Ramirez is] a citizen of 

Nicaragua and will be deported following the completion of his sentence.”).
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Ramirez also contends that his sentence was substantively unreasonable. 

But the few lines Ramirez devotes to this section of his opening brief are devoid of 

any legal analysis. Because Ramirez references the substantive reasonableness of 

his sentence in a “perfunctory manner, unaccompanied by some effort at 

developed argumentation,” he has waived this argument. Tolbert v. Queens Coll., 

242 F.3d 58, 75 (2d Cir. 2001) (internal quotation marks omitted). Nevertheless,

even if we were to reach the merits of this argument, we would not be persuaded 

that Ramirez’s sentence is substantively unreasonable. To be substantively 

unreasonable, a sentence must be so “shockingly high, shockingly low, or 

otherwise unsupportable as a matter of law” that it would “damage the 

administration of justice.” United States v. Rigas, 583 F.3d 108, 123 (2d Cir. 2009). 

Far from being “shockingly high,” Ramirez’s sentence is actually well below the 

advisory Guidelines range of 210 to 240 months’ imprisonment. On this record, 

it is “difficult to find that a below-Guidelines sentence is unreasonable.” United 

States v. Perez-Frias, 636 F.3d 39, 43 (2d Cir. 2011). We therefore conclude that the 

district court did not impose a substantively unreasonable sentence.
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* * *

We have considered Ramirez’s and Collins’s remaining arguments and find

them to be without merit. Accordingly, we AFFIRM the judgments of the district 

court.

FOR THE COURT: 

Catherine O’Hagan Wolfe, Clerk of Court