United States Court of Appeals

For the Eighth Circuit

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No. 17-1446

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United States of America

lllllllllllllllllllll Plaintiff - Appellee

v.

Anthony Maurice Walls

lllllllllllllllllllll Defendant - Appellant

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Appeal from United States District Court 

for the Southern District of Iowa - Davenport

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 Submitted: December 14, 2017

 Filed: March 13, 2018

[Unpublished]

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Before WOLLMAN, LOKEN, and MURPHY, Circuit Judges.

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PER CURIAM.

A jury convicted Anthony Maurice Walls of being a felon in possession of a

firearm in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 922(g)(1) and 924(a)(2). The district court

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The Honorable Rebecca Goodgame Ebinger, United States District Judge,

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United States District Court for the Southern District of Iowa.
sentenced Walls to the statutory maximum of 120 months’ imprisonment. Walls

appeals, arguing that the evidence at trial did not support the verdict, that the district

court erred in admitting crack cocaine evidence, and that his counsel wasineffective. 

Walls also challenges his sentence. We affirm.

Shortly after midnight on October 24, 2015, police officers in Burlington,

Iowa, responded to a 911 call reporting that a black man wearing a gray sweatshirt

and black pants was carrying a gun in a residential neighborhood. Officers arrested

a suspect matching the caller’s description and recovered on the ground nearby a

shotgun along with red shotgun shells and a plastic bag containing small bags of

crack cocaine. Police later identified the suspect as Walls.

Jacob Williams and Cody Neff testified during trial that Walls retrieved a

shotgun from Williams’s house, where Walls had been earlier in the evening. Neff

testified that before Walls left the house he loaded the shotgun with red shotgun

shells; grabbed a clear, plastic bottle of vodka; and gave Williams and Neff a couple

of bags of crack cocaine. Keith Davis, Allen Brown, and Officer Blake Cameron, all

testified that they saw Walls in the neighborhood where he was arrested and that he

had been carrying a shotgun and a clear bottle of alcohol at the time.

Defense counsel’s trial strategy was to discredit the government’s witnesses. 

Counsel cross-examined the eye-witnesses about their alcohol and drug use the night

of the arrest and the testifying officers about their ability to perceive that evening. 

Defense counsel also moved to exclude all references to the crack cocaine evidence. 

Following Walls’s conviction, the district court denied his motion for judgment of

acquittal and new trial.

The district court determined that Walls had a criminal history category of VI,

a total offense level of 30, and a resultant sentencing range of 168 to 210 months’

imprisonment under the United States Sentencing Guidelines Manual (Guidelines). 

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As indicated earlier, the district court imposed the statutory maximum sentence of

120 months’ imprisonment.

Walls argues that the district court abused its discretion when it denied his

motion for a new trial based on his claim that the verdict was against the weight of

the evidence. United States v. Knight, 800 F.3d 491, 505 (8th Cir. 2015) (standard

of review). “Upon the defendant’s motion, the court may vacate any judgment and

grant a new trial if the interest of justice so requires.” Fed. R. Crim. P. 33(a). When

ruling on the motion, the district court “can weigh the evidence, disbelieve witnesses,

and grant a new trial even where there is substantial evidence to sustain the verdict.” 

Knight, 800 F.3d at 504 (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). This remedy,

however, “is reserved for exceptional cases in which the evidence preponderates

heavily against the verdict,” to such an extent that “a miscarriage of justice may have

occurred.” Id. at 504-05 (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). 

To prove that Walls was a felon in possession of a firearm, the government

needed to show “(1) [a] previous conviction of a crime punishable by a term of

imprisonment exceeding one year, (2) knowing possession of a firearm, and (3) [that]

the firearm was in or affecting interstate commerce.” United States v. Montgomery,

701 F.3d 1218, 1221 (8th Cir. 2012) (citing 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1)). Although Walls

argues that the government failed to prove the second element, eye-witness testimony

fromfive witnesses confirmed that he had a shotgun in his possession. The testimony

set forth a consistent description of items that were both in Walls’s possession and

found near the scene of his arrest. This testimony, coupled with Walls’s proximity

to the shotgun, provided ample support for the verdict.2

To the extent that Walls argues that the district court erred in denying his

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motion of acquittal, we disagree, given the weight of the evidence against him.

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Walls also argues that the district court should have granted his motion for a

new trial because it erred in overruling his objection to the admission of the crack

cocaine evidence. Under Federal Rule of Evidence 403, “[t]he court may exclude

relevant evidence if its probative value is substantially outweighed by a danger of . . .

unfair prejudice,” which is defined as an “undue tendency to suggest decision on an

improper basis, commonly, though not necessarily, an emotional one.” Fed. R. Evid.

403 and advisory committee’s notes. We review the district court’s evidentiary

rulings for abuse of discretion, giving great deference to the “district court’s

balancing of the relative value of a piece of evidence and its prejudicial effect.” 

United States v. Jiminez, 487 F.3d 1140, 1145 (8th Cir. 2007) (citations omitted). 

Walls argues that the crack cocaine evidence had no probative value and that it was

prejudicial because it “implied he was a bad person[] and a drug dealer.” The district

court rejected this argument, explaining that the evidence was “‘inextricably

intertwined’ with the circumstances surrounding Walls’s charge for felon in

possession of a firearm.” We agree. The crack cocaine evidence served as a link

between the place where the shotgun was retrieved and the area where it was found,

which implicated Walls.

Walls further argues that a new trial is warranted because his trial counsel was

ineffective. To establish this claim, Walls must show that his “counsel’s performance

fell below an objective standard of reasonable competence, and that the deficient

performance prejudiced [him].” United States v. Villalpando, 259 F.3d 934, 938 (8th

Cir. 2001) (citing Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 687 (1984)). When a

defendant raises a claim of ineffective assistance of counsel in a motion for a new

trial, we review the district court’s ruling for abuse of discretion. Id.

Although the appropriate vehicle for raising an ineffective assistance of

counsel claimtypically is a collateral, post-conviction action under 28 U.S.C. § 2255,

a district court may consider the “motion for new trial if it has developed an adequate

record on the issue.” Villalpando, 259 F.3d at 938 (citing United States v. Stevens,

149 F.3d 747, 748 (8th Cir. 1998)). The district court here addressed Walls’s claim,

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which was limited to his attorney’s failure to call Guy Williams to testify that Walls

did not “mess with firearms” and that Brown did “not like Walls.” In light of the

overwhelming evidence establishing that he possessed the shotgun, Walls has failed

to establish that he was prejudiced by his attorney’s decision not to call Williams.

Walls argues that the district court committed procedural error during

sentencing and that it imposed a substantively unreasonable sentence. When

considering whether a district court has procedurally erred, “‘[w]e do not require [the]

court to provide a mechanical recitation of the § 3553(a) factors . . . . Rather, it

simply must be clear from the record that the district court actually considered the

§ 3553(a) factors in determining the sentence.’” United States v. Feemster, 572 F.3d

455, 461 (8th Cir. 2009) (quoting United States v. Walking Eagle, 553 F.3d 654, 659

(8th Cir. 2009)). Walls argues that the district court “failed to acknowledge or state

that it had considered any sentence between 59 and 120 months.” The district court

explained, however, that “I have considered all [the Section 3553 sentencing factors]

in determining the appropriate sentence” and that “[u]ltimately, the sentence I impose

must be sufficient but not greater than necessary to serve the purposes ofsentencing.” 

Implicit in the district court’s explanation is the fact that it had considered shorter

terms of imprisonment but found that they would not achieve the desired ends of

sentencing.

As for the claim that the sentence is substantively unreasonable, the district

court considered Walls’s criminal history and the circumstances of his arrest in

imposing a Guidelines range sentence, which we may presume to be reasonable. See

Feemster, 572 F.3d at 461 (quoting Walking Eagle, 553 F.3d at 659) (stating that we

may presume a defendant’s sentence is reasonable if it is within the Guidelines

range).

The judgment is affirmed.

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