In the

United States Court of Appeals

For the Seventh Circuit ____________________ 

No. 23-1646 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 

Plaintiff-Appellee, 

v.

ZEBULON XAVIER MARZETTE, 

Defendant-Appellant. 

____________________ 

Appeal from the United States District Court for the 

Northern District of Indiana, South Bend Division. 

No. 3:21-cr-00005-DRL-MGG-1 — Damon R. Leichty, Judge. 

____________________ 

ARGUED FEBRUARY 23, 2024 — DECIDED JULY 1, 2024 

____________________ 

Before SCUDDER, JACKSON-AKIWUMI, and PRYOR, Circuit 

Judges. 

SCUDDER, Circuit Judge. Zebulon Marzette appeals his conviction for possessing a firearm as a felon, challenging the district court’s admission of two pieces of evidence at trial. Marzette preserved one of his challenges—a chain-of-custody 

challenge to DNA evidence—but not the other—a hearsay 

challenge to police testimony about the content of a 911 call. 

In the end, the government’s chain-of-custody evidence 
2 No. 23-1646 

sufficed and, under the demanding standards of plain error 

review, Marzette fails to persuade us that any error allowing 

the 911 caller’s statements to come in through police testimony prejudiced him at trial. So we affirm. 

I 

A 

The trial record supplies the operative facts. 

At about 5:30 p.m. on September 20, 2019, a 911 dispatcher 

received a call reporting an incident at the LaSalle Park 

Homes apartment complex on Falcon Street in South Bend, 

Indiana. The caller stated that there were people pounding on 

her door and waving guns. The dispatcher relayed the information to four officers—Sergeant Miranda Baker, Officer 

Bryan Watkins, Officer Chris Butler, and Officer Joshua Lawson. Sergeant Baker and Officer Watkins responded directly 

to the apartment complex to investigate the disturbance, 

while Officers Butler and Lawson checked out the perimeter.

The responding officers encountered a dynamic environment, complicated by the simultaneous occurrence of several 

events. Sergeant Baker and Officer Watkins arrived at the 

complex looking for armed suspects. The officers described 

the scene as “chaotic,” with several people outside yelling at 

them that “the people with guns” ran down an alleyway leading towards the backside of the building. After first ensuring 

no one in front of the building was armed, Sergeant Baker 

then headed for the alleyway in search of the people who 

caused the reported disturbance.

As Sergeant Baker swept the complex’s surroundings, two 

other events unfolded in parallel. Officers Butler and Lawson—who drove directly to the perimeter of the complex—
No. 23-1646 3

pulled over (for reasons unclear from the trial record) a Blue 

Chevy Malibu that they saw driving away from the backside 

of the building. Around the same time, Zebulon Marzette left 

the apartment complex on foot and walked to the location of 

the car stop. What happened next is unclear. At some point, 

the officers handcuffed Marzette and placed him in the back 

of the squad car. We cannot tell what prompted that action.

We are not required to answer this question, however, because Marzette does not challenge any aspect of his detention 

on appeal. 

Later—whether before or after detaining Marzette we cannot say—Officers Butler and Lawson radioed for assistance. 

This led Sergeant Baker and Officer Watkins to head in the 

direction of the car stop. By the time they arrived, the Malibu 

had been stopped, its passenger-side door was open, and one

passenger stood outside of the car while the driver remained 

inside. According to Officer Watkins, a third person—Marzette—was handcuffed in the back of Officer Lawson’s car. 

In the course of these events, Marzette asked to speak with 

Sergeant Baker and proceeded to tell her that his sister had 

called him to the LaSalle Park complex because “people were 

at her apartment waving guns.” He stated that he had come 

to her apartment to help his sister. 

While Marzette was talking to Sergeant Baker, Officer 

Watkins was gathering information from the Malibu’s occupants. The driver did not have any identification on her, and 

initially gave Officer Watkins a fake name and birth date. 

Through continued questioning Officer Watkins eventually 

learned that she was Shawnta Rector, Marzette’s girlfriend. 

During the course of these interactions, Officer Watkins noticed through the open passenger door a softball-sized bag of 
4 No. 23-1646 

a “green leafy substance” next to the passenger seat. This led 

Officer Watkins to arrest Rector. 

As Rector was being handcuffed, the passenger standing 

outside of the Malibu directed Officer Watkins’s attention to 

a gun in a green purse resting on the back seat of the car. Upon 

looking inside, Officer Watkins immediately saw the gun sitting on the top of the purse as if someone had “recently 

placed” it there. The passenger insisted that the purse belonged to Rector. Rector then confirmed that the purse was 

hers and claimed ownership of the gun as well.

As Officer Watkins spoke with Rector, Sergeant Baker 

questioned Marzette. Marzette was within earshot of Officer 

Watkins and Rector and frequently diverted his attention 

away from Sergeant Baker to Rector’s conversation with Officer Watkins. Marzette urged Sergeant Baker not to tow the 

Malibu. He explained that he wanted to drive the car away 

because his brother had rented it from Hertz and listed Marzette’s name on the rental agreement. During this exchange 

about the Malibu, Marzette apparently saw the gun in the 

back seat of the Malibu. He then told Sergeant Baker that he 

was a felon and that “he did not touch the gun so his DNA 

would not be on it.” Marzette does not challenge the admission of these statements on appeal. 

Marzette’s statement proved inaccurate. The officers 

seized the gun and had it tested for DNA evidence. The analysis revealed the presence of Marzette’s DNA on the trigger. 

A federal indictment followed, charging Marzette with one 

count of felony possession of a firearm on or about September 

20, 2019, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1). In time the case 

proceeded to a jury trial.
No. 23-1646 5

B 

The trial was all about whether Marzette possessed the 

gun found in the backseat of the Malibu on September 20, 

2019. Over no objection from Marzette, the government’s first 

two witnesses described the 911 dispatch call to the apartment 

complex, telling the jury that they responded to a report of 

“people pounding at [the caller’s door] waving guns.” The

four officers went on to explain how they handled the traffic 

stop, painting a clear picture of the facts already described. 

With that background in place, the government then 

turned to forensic evidence to show that Marzette possessed 

the gun at some point prior to the police recovering it from 

the Malibu. A forensic DNA analyst testified that the DNA of 

three people was found on the gun and that it was highly 

likely that Rector and Marzette were two of those people. He 

opined that it was at least one trillion times more likely that 

the DNA originated from Marzette, Rector, and an unidentified third person than from three random strangers. Even 

more specifically, the analyst stated that 54% of the DNA on 

the trigger belonged to Marzette, suggesting that he had 

touched the gun the most or at least most recently.

Several witnesses testified to the chain of custody the gun 

followed from the traffic stop to the forensic laboratory. Marzette objected to the introduction of this DNA-related evidence, arguing that each custodian in the gun’s chain of custody needed to come to open court and testify to prove that 

the gun and the DNA evidence were authentic and reliable. 

The district court disagreed and overruled Marzette’s objection, admitting the DNA-related testimony and testing results 

into evidence upon finding that the government laid the 

proper foundation for its admission. 
6 No. 23-1646 

In its closing argument, the government urged the jury to 

find that the evidence proved Marzette’s constructive possession of the firearm on September 20, 2019 beyond a reasonable 

doubt. The government contended that the evidence lent itself 

to the straightforward conclusions about what happened that 

afternoon: the same day the officers received a dispatch call 

of “people pounding at [the caller’s door] waving guns,” Marzette drove the Malibu to his sister’s apartment with the gun 

in the car and tried to protect her from the violent altercation. 

Then, when he heard the officers coming, he left the gun in 

the car and told his girlfriend to drive away. But once he noticed that she was being pulled over, Marzette panicked, 

walked to the traffic stop, and made statements to Sergeant 

Baker connecting himself to the disturbance at the apartment 

and the gun found in the Malibu’s backseat. In short, Marzette 

“injected” himself into the center of the investigation. 

Marzette pressed a different perspective of the evidence. 

In his closing argument, he emphasized that no witnesses, 

photographs, or videos tied him to the gun. Even the DNA 

evidence was thin—found only on the trigger, and people do 

not wield guns strictly by the trigger. He asked the jury to acquit him because the evidence did not prove that he possessed 

the gun, directly or constructively, on September 20, 2019. 

The jury returned a guilty verdict and the district court 

later sentenced Marzette to 36 months’ imprisonment. He 

now appeals.

II

Marzette asks us to resolve two—and only two—issues on 

appeal. We must first determine whether the district court 

abused its discretion when it admitted the DNA evidence 
No. 23-1646 7

from the gun over Marzette’s chain-of-custody objection. Second, we must resolve whether the district court committed 

plain error when it admitted Sergeant Baker’s hearsay testimony about the 911 dispatch call. We address each contention 

in turn.

A 

The district court did not abuse its discretion in rejecting 

Marzette’s chain-of-custody objection. Chain of custody focuses on the sequence and integrity of the movement of evidence, from the time of its recovery to its presentation in 

court. See United States v. Craig, 573 F.2d 455, 478 (7th Cir. 

1977). When the demonstrated chain of custody is “substantially complete” and there is no indication of evidence tampering or wrongdoing by those handling the evidence, we uphold the admission at trial. See United States v. Lott, 854 F.2d 

244, 250–51 (7th Cir. 1988). 

The government’s chain-of-custody testimony cleared this 

low bar. Officer Watkins told the jury that he put on gloves, 

removed the gun from Rector’s purse, then handed the firearm to another officer for evidence packaging and processing. 

An evidence specialist with the South Bend Police Department then testified to swabbing the inside of Marzette’s cheek 

for DNA and providing that sample to the forensic DNA analyst. The analyst testified that Kelly Gorny, a forensics specialist who did not testify, swabbed the gun and tested that 

DNA against the sample collected from Marzette. Throughout their testimony, the officers and DNA specialists identified the appropriate person’s signatures on the packaging and 

evidence logs at each link in the movement and processing of 

the evidence.
8 No. 23-1646 

Marzette objected, contending that the evidence was unreliable because all officers who processed the DNA needed 

to testify to “support a finding that the item is what the [government] claims it is,” thus establishing a complete chain of 

custody. Fed R. Evid. 901(a). The district court disagreed, 

finding that the government provided a substantially complete chain of custody. 

Marzette faces an uphill battle on appeal. Establishing a 

complete chain of custody is a low threshold. See Lott, 854 

F.2d at 250–51. Even more, when the government introduces 

physical evidence in a criminal case, we apply a “presumption of regularity”—by presuming that the officials who handled the evidence sufficiently followed standard procedures 

to ensure a proper chain of custody. United States v. Prieto, 549 

F.3d 513, 524 (7th Cir. 2008) (internal quotation marks omitted). Missing links in the chain, if any, go to the weight a jury 

affords the evidence, not to its admissibility. See id. at 524–25. 

The chain-of-custody evidence presented by the government satisfied these standards. Among its witnesses, the government presented an unbroken chain of custody. The testimony showed that from the moment the police saw the gun 

on top of Rector’s purse in the backseat of the Malibu to the 

final stages of DNA processing, the evidence passed between 

officers according to standard protocols. Nothing at trial 

called the integrity of the chain of custody into question, nor 

did Marzette impeach this evidence through cross examination.

Marzette disagrees, suggesting that the government 

needed to call each custodian involved in the chain of custody. But the presumption of regularity applies even if the 

government does not call each custodian in the chain of 
No. 23-1646 9

custody to testify about their discrete role in processing evidence. See United States v. Turner, 591 F.3d 928, 935 (7th Cir. 

2010), vacated on other grounds, 567 U.S. 947 (2012). That is especially true where, as here, each officer identified the custodian’s signatures on the custody seals and vouched for their 

accuracy. See Fed. R. Evid. 901(b)(2); United States v. Tipton, 

964 F.2d 650, 655 (7th Cir. 1992). Absent any evidence of tampering, the government’s chain-of-custody evidence receives 

a presumption of regularity. On this record, we cannot find 

that the district court abused its discretion.

B 

That brings us to Marzette’s challenge to the admissibility 

of Sergeant Baker’s testimony of the 911 dispatch call describing the “people pounding at [the caller’s door] waving guns.” 

In Marzette’s view, the government offered this testimony for 

the impermissible hearsay purpose of proving its truth—that 

in fact people pounded on an apartment door waving guns. 

See Fed. R. Evid. 802. Marzette concedes that he did not object 

to this testimony and therefore that our review is only for 

plain error. See Puckett v. United States, 556 U.S. 129, 134 (2009) 

(“If a litigant believes that an error has occurred ... during a 

federal judicial proceeding, he must object in order to preserve the issue.”). 

Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 52(b) provides us with 

“a limited power to correct errors that were forfeited because 

not timely raised in district court.” United States v. Olano, 507 

U.S. 725, 73 (1993). On plain error review, Marzette must 

demonstrate that the admission of Sergeant Baker’s statement 

was an error that is clear, and not subject to reasonable dispute. See Puckett, 556 U.S. at 135. Next, Marzette must show 

that the admission affected his substantial rights, meaning it 
10 No. 23-1646 

affected the outcome of his trial. See id. Finally, if these criteria 

are satisfied, we have the discretion to remedy the error only 

if it “seriously affect[ed] the fairness, integrity, or public reputation of judicial proceedings.” Id. (citing United States v. Atkinson, 297 U.S. 157, 160 (1936)). 

The parties devoted substantial portions of their briefs to 

debating whether the first two criteria were met—whether allowing Sergeant Baker to recount the content of the 911 

caller’s statement was error, and, if so, whether the error was 

plain. Marzette presses the point on appeal because of the emphasis that the government placed on the 911 dispatch call at 

trial and implicated him in the disturbance at the apartment 

complex. The government, on the other hand, sees the statement as properly admitted for the non-hearsay purpose of 

merely explaining why the police officers were at the apartment complex in the first place. In its view, the 911 call provides helpful context for the jury’s understanding of why the 

police pulled over the Chevy Malibu in the first place. 

Both arguments have something to say for themselves, 

and, in the end, we do not need to resolve whether the district 

court committed error in admitting the 911 call through the 

backdoor of Sergeant Baker’s testimony. Even if we assume 

the admission was error, we cannot conclude that Sergeant 

Baker’s testimony about the 911 call affected the outcome of 

Marzette’s trial. See Olano, 507 U.S. at 732–34. 

Marzette’s argument on appeal is very limited. He is not 

contesting that the government’s evidence sufficed to show 

that he possessed the gun recovered from the backseat of the 

Malibu. Rather, his contention is that the district court’s allowing Sergeant Baker to recount the 911 caller’s request for 

help reflected such a substantial evidentiary error as to affect 
No. 23-1646 11

the outcome of the trial and, even more, to seriously call into 

question the fairness and integrity of his trial. Marzette sees 

the 911 call as all but putting himself in the middle of armed 

confrontation at the LaSalle Park Homes complex on the 

evening of September 20, 2019.

We disagree. The jury had before it ample evidence showing that Marzette put himself in the middle of everything that 

led both to the police recovering the gun from the Malibu and 

the jury finding that he constructively possessed the gun. Yes, 

the jury heard the 911 caller’s report, but it also heard Marzette’s own statement that he showed up at the apartment 

complex because his sister had told him that people were outside her building waving guns. Marzette then made things 

worse for himself by continuing to make ill-advised, voluntary statements to the police. He tied himself to the Malibu by 

walking to the location of the car stop and then telling the police that he wanted to drive the car home because his name 

was on the rental agreement. And, going even further, he then 

told the police that they would not find his DNA on the gun—

a statement that proved false. 

All of this allowed the jury to find beyond any reasonable 

doubt that Marzette constructively possessed the gun recovered from the Malibu. That finding easily follows, the jury 

could have concluded, from the clear inferences available 

from the evidence: Marzette responded to his sister’s call for 

help at her apartment by driving (or riding) there in the Malibu with his gun with him inside the car. Why take the gun? 

Because, as the jury could have determined, he may have 

needed it in confronting the armed contingent outside his sister’s apartment. 
12 No. 23-1646 

Even if the district court should not have allowed Sergeant 

Baker to recount the 911 dispatch report, the jury had to look 

no further than Marzette himself and the results of the DNA 

testing to connect enough dots to return a guilty verdict. So 

even if it was an error to admit the dispatch call, the government could have presented effectively the same case with its 

exclusion. See United States v. Marchan, 935 F.3d 540, 546 (7th 

Cir. 2019) (holding that cumulative hearsay statements are 

harmless). Marzette thus failed to meet the demanding standards of plain error review. See Puckett, 556 U.S. at 135. 

Based on the evidence before the jury, allowing Marzette’s 

conviction to stand would not so detrimentally affect his 

rights as to call the entire fairness and integrity of the trial into 

question. We have little choice here but to AFFIRM.