2010 Decisions

Opinions of the United

States Court of Appeals

for the Third Circuit

11-24-2010

USA v. Phillips

Precedential or Non-Precedential: Non-Precedential

Docket No. 06-2561

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Recommended Citation

"USA v. Phillips" (2010). 2010 Decisions. Paper 205.

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NOT PRECEDENTIAL

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT

_______________

No. 06-2561

_______________

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 

v.

RAHEEM PHILLIPS,

Appellant

_______________

On Appeal from the United States District Court

For the Eastern District of Pennsylvania

(D.C. Criminal Action No. 05-cr-00491)

District Judge: Honorable Timothy J. Savage

_______________

Submitted Under Third Circuit LAR 34.1(a)

November 16, 2010

_______________

Before: AMBRO, FISHER, and WEIS, Circuit Judges

(Opinion filed November 24, 2010)

_______________

OPINION

_______________

AMBRO, Circuit Judge

Raheem Phillips was found guilty of one count of possession of a firearm by a 

convicted felon in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1). He received a sentence 

enhancement under the Armed Career Criminal Act (ACCA), 18 U.S.C. § 924(e), and 
2

was sentenced to 186 months of imprisonment, a five-year term of supervised release, 

and a special assessment of $100. Phillips challenges the sufficiency of the evidence 

supporting the jury‟s guilty verdict under Rule 29(a) of the Federal Rules of Criminal 

Procedure. We affirm his conviction.

While driving in West Philadelphia on the evening of December 22, 2004, Phillips 

was stopped by two Philadelphia police officers who noticed that his registration sticker 

was expired. Phillips pulled over, but when the officers pulled up next to him, he got out 

of his car and began to run up the street. The officers testified that Phillips pulled a 

handgun from his jacket pocket as he was running, eventually stumbled to the ground,

and lost control of the firearm. The officers handcuffed him while he was on the ground 

and recovered the handgun from a grassy area near to where Phillips had fallen. The 

handgun was described on a property receipt submitted to the Philadelphia Police 

Department Firearms Identification Unit. 

Phillips was found guilty of possession of a firearm by a convicted felon after a 

one-day jury trial. His only basis for appealing his conviction is his claim that there was 

insufficient evidence to support the jury‟s verdict finding him guilty. 

In determining whether there was legally sufficient evidence to support a jury 

verdict, we ask whether “viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the 

prosecutor, any rational trier of fact could have found the essential elements of the crime 

beyond a reasonable doubt.” Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 319 (1979) (emphasis in 

original). We must be “ever vigilant . . . not to usurp the role of the jury by weighing 

credibility and assigning weight to the evidence, or by substituting [the court‟s] judgment 
3

for that of the jury.” United States v. Boria, 592 F.3d 476, 480 (3d Cir. 2010) (internal 

citation omitted). See also United States v. Dent, 149 F.3d 180, 187 (3d Cir. 1998) (“We 

apply a particularly deferential standard of review when deciding whether a jury verdict 

rests on legally sufficient evidence. „It is not for us to weigh the evidence or to determine 

the credibility of witnesses.‟”) (internal citation omitted). 

The statute under which Phillips was charged, § 922(g)(1), has three elements: (1) 

the defendant knowingly possessed a firearm; (2) it had passed in interstate commerce; 

and (3) the defendant had been convicted in court of a crime punishable by imprisonment 

for a term in excess of one year. We conclude that the Government introduced evidence 

that, “in the light most favorable to the prosecution,” was sufficient to prove “the 

essential elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt.” Jackson, 443 U.S. at 319. 

First, two police officers testified that Phillips possessed the gun at the time of his 

arrest. According to their testimony, Phillips had the gun in his hand immediately prior 

to his arrest and he dropped the gun as he tripped and fell to the ground while running 

from the officers. Although Phillips denied possession of the gun when he testified in his 

defense at trial, the jury was entitled to credit the officers‟ testimony and discredit that of 

Phillips.1 It is not for us to re-evaluate a credibility determination made by the jury 

unless the “credibility determination was incredible as a matter of law.” United States v. 

Saulter, 60 F.3d 270, 275 (7th Cir. 1995). That is not so here. 

 

1 The Government did not have to prove that Phillips owned the firearm, but simply that 

it was in his possession. See United States v. Mains, 33 F.3d 1222, 1228 (10th Cir. 

1994).
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Second, experts from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives 

and the Philadelphia Police Department Firearms Identification Unit testified regarding 

the gun. It was confirmed to be an Israeli Military Industries Desert Eagle, manufactured 

in Israel and imported into the United States by a company located in Minnesota. The 

Government only had to prove that the gun seized had been in U.S. interstate commerce 

at some time in the past. See Scarborough v. United states, 431 U.S. 563, 575 (1977); 

United States v. Singletary, 268 F.3d 196, 200 (3d Cir. 2001) (“the transport of a weapon 

in interstate commerce, however remote in the distant past, gives its present intrastate 

possession a sufficient nexus to interstate commerce to fall within the ambit of the

statute”). The jury had sufficient evidence before it to conclude that the gun Phillips 

possessed had traveled in foreign and interstate commerce, satisfying the second element 

of the statute.

Third, Phillips stipulated to his status as a felon, satisfying the final element of the 

statute. He does not dispute that this element was proven at trial. 

Phillips asks us to upset the jury‟s verdict based on his view of the credibility of 

the witnesses at trial. However, the jury was entitled to credit the prosecution‟s witnesses 

and had sufficient evidence before it to find that the Government proved all three 

elements of the statute beyond a reasonable doubt. Phillips has presented no other 

arguments on appeal. Therefore, his challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence fails and 

we affirm his conviction.