2015 Decisions

Opinions of the United

States Court of Appeals

for the Third Circuit

7-6-2015

USA v. Jace Edwards

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Recommended Citation

"USA v. Jace Edwards" (2015). 2015 Decisions. Paper 693.

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PRECEDENTIAL

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT 

_____________

No. 14-4088

_____________

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

v.

JACE EDWARDS,

 Appellant 

_____________

 

On Appeal from the District Court

of the Virgin Islands

District Court No. 3-14-cr-00007-001

District Judge: The Honorable Curtis V. Gomez 

Argued May 20, 2015

Before: McKEE, Chief Judge, SMITH, and SCIRICA,

Circuit Judges

(Filed: July 6, 2015)
2

Nelson L. Jones [ARGUED]

Ronald Sharpe

Office of United States Attorney

5500 Veterans Building, Suite 260

United States Courthouse

St. Thomas, VI 00802

Counsel for the Appellee

Alvin E. Entin [ARGUED]

Entin & Della Fera

110 Southeast Sixth Street

Suite 1970

Fort Lauderdale, FL 33301

Counsel for the Appellant

_____________________

OPINION

_____________________

SMITH, Circuit Judge.

Defendant Jace Edwards was convicted of attempted 

possession with intent to distribute cocaine in violation of 21 

U.S.C. § 841(a)(1) and 21 U.S.C. § 846, but was acquitted of 

an accompanying conspiracy charge under § 846. Edwards 

argues that the Government violated his Fifth Amendment 

rights by repeatedly referring to Edwards’s post-arrest, post-
3

Miranda silence in the Government’s case-in-chief and 

during closing arguments. We agree. Because the error was 

not harmless, we will vacate Edwards’s conviction and 

remand for a new trial consistent with this opinion.

I.

In the early morning of October 23, 2011, law 

enforcement arrested Edwards while he was in possession of 

a suitcase containing several packages of apparent cocaine. 

Edwards had acquired the suitcase from a motel room 

occupied by Thomas Bruce. Bruce had been arrested the 

previous day in Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson Airport after 

arriving from the Virgin Islands with several packages of 

cocaine stashed in his carry-on bag. Upon his arrest, Bruce 

agreed to participate in a controlled delivery. At law 

enforcement’s direction, Bruce informed co-conspirator 

Michael Samuels by phone that Bruce would be waiting in a 

nearby motel. Samuels told Bruce to expect an individual by 

the name of “Mr. Dred.”

Soon thereafter, Edwards arrived at Bruce’s motel 

room. Testifying at trial pursuant to a plea deal, Bruce 

claimed that Edwards identified himself as Dred. Edwards 

stated that he was there for six kilograms of cocaine. Bruce 

further testified that Edwards spoke with Samuels by phone 

upon Edwards’s arrival. Bruce then showed Edwards six 

kilograms of apparent cocaine in Bruce’s suitcase.1 Edwards 

 

1 Law enforcement replaced the actual cocaine in Bruce’s 

suitcase with an imitation substance before conducting the 

controlled delivery.
4

took the suitcase and exited the motel room, whereupon law 

enforcement arrested him.

Edwards, testifying in his own defense, presented a 

very different story of what happened in Bruce’s motel room. 

By Edwards’s account, he received two calls from an 

associate asking Edwards to move an individual from the 

motel to a different hotel.2 Upon arriving at Bruce’s room, 

Edwards told Bruce that “Dred” had sent him. Edwards did 

not identify himself as Dred, but on cross examination, 

Edwards acknowledged that others had referred to him as 

Dred in the past. Nevertheless, according to Edwards, he had 

exited the motel room with Bruce’s suitcase at Bruce’s 

direction without observing the suitcase’s contents and 

without any other knowledge of the drugs.

After issuing him a Miranda warning, law 

enforcement questioned Edwards. Agents opened Bruce’s 

suitcase and showed Edwards its contents, but Edwards did 

not respond. Instead, Edwards invoked his right to remain 

 

2 Our review of Edwards’s testimony revealed that the 

District Court may have erroneously excluded Edwards’s 

descriptions of what he was told on these phone calls. The 

District Court considered these out-of-court statements to be 

inadmissible hearsay. But a statement is hearsay only if it is 

offered “to prove the truth of the matter asserted.” Fed. R. 

Evid. 801(c)(2). To the extent Edwards was offering the 

statements made to him to explain why he went to Bruce’s 

motel room—that is, for the statements’ effect on the 

listener—those statements were not offered for their truth. 

Therefore, they were admissible for a non-hearsay purpose.
5

silent. At trial, the Government repeatedly sought to use 

Edwards’s silence after he was Mirandized as substantive 

proof of guilt as well as for impeachment purposes. Over 

Edwards’s objection, the Government emphasized in its 

closing that Edwards had remained silent after law 

enforcement showed him the contents of the suitcase, 

suggesting a culpable state of mind. The Government in its 

brief and at oral argument concedes that this was error under 

Doyle v. Ohio, 426 U.S. 610 (1976), but urges that the error 

was harmless.3

II.

“Miranda warnings carry the Government’s ‘implicit 

assurance’ that an arrestee’s invocation of the Fifth 

Amendment right to remain silent will not later be used 

against him.” Gov’t of the V.I. v. Martinez, 620 F.3d 321, 335 

(3d Cir. 2010) (quoting Gov’t of the V.I. v. Davis, 561 F.3d 

159, 163–64 (3d Cir. 2009)). Therefore, it is a violation of 

the Fifth Amendment and due process “for a prosecutor to 

cause the jury to draw an impermissible inference of guilt 

from a defendant’s post-arrest silence” after a defendant is 

Mirandized. Id. (quoting Hassine v. Zimmerman, 160 F.3d 

941, 947 (3d Cir. 1998)); see also United States v. Shannon, 

766 F.3d 346, 354 (3d Cir. 2014) (“[T]he rights secured by 

Doyle apply in equal effect ‘to federal prosecutions under the 

Fifth Amendment.’” (quoting United States v. Agee, 597 F.2d

350, 354 n.11 (3d Cir. 1979))). But Doyle errors can be 

 

3 The District Court had jurisdiction pursuant to 18 U.S.C. 

§ 3231. We have jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1291 

and 18 U.S.C. § 3742.
6

harmless if the Government “prove[s] beyond a reasonable 

doubt that the error complained of did not contribute to the 

verdict obtained.” Davis, 561 F.3d at 165 (quoting Chapman 

v. California, 386 U.S. 18, 24 (1967)). This analysis requires 

an examination of “the totality of the circumstances” to 

determine whether Edwards’s guilty verdict “was surely 

unattributable to the error,” or instead whether there was a 

“reasonable possibility” that the error contributed to the jury’s 

decision. Martinez, 620 F.3d at 337–38 (quoting Davis, 561 

F.3d at 165–66).

Here, the Government has failed to meet its burden. 

The Government’s references to Edwards’s silence were not 

made in passing. Indeed, after first seeking to elicit testimony 

in its case-in-chief regarding Edwards’s post-Miranda 

silence, the Government in closing asked the jury directly to 

draw the very inference of guilt that Doyle and its progeny 

forbid. Despite some evidence suggesting that Edwards’s 

exculpatory story was not plausible, the Government’s case 

depended in large part on Bruce’s recounting of what 

happened in his motel room. Thus, the credibility of 

Edwards’s competing story was crucial to the outcome of the 

case. That credibility was undermined by the Government’s 

insistence that if Edwards was truly unaware of the contents 

of Bruce’s suitcase, he would have waived his Fifth 

Amendment rights. Under these circumstances, a new trial is 

required.

Nor did the District Court’s belated and ineffective

curative instruction after the parties’ closings had been 

completed mitigate the effects of the Government’s conduct. 

The District Court instructed the jury that “[t]o the extent 
7

there is an inclination of any defendant to not say something, 

you cannot hold that against the defendant for not saying 

something.” SA-0393. But this instruction came only after 

the District Court had overruled Edwards’s contemporaneous 

objection to the Government’s use of his post-Miranda 

silence during its closing statement.

4

 Thus, the District 

Court’s instructions were not the “proper and immediate 

action” necessary to avoid a Doyle violation in this case. See 

Greer v. Miller, 483 U.S. 756, 764 n.5 (1987).

Further, the District Court had previously given 

contradictory instructions to the jury before closings that

“what a person does, says or fails to say or do may indicate 

the state of mind in which the person did the act.” SA-0343. 

And the District Court instructed the jury that it could 

“consider any statements made and acts done or omitted by 

the defendant” to determine whether Edwards acted with the 

requisite knowledge of the contents of Bruce’s suitcase. SA0344. In this case, “[i]t is rather easy to see” how the District 

Court’s instructions “might, in fact, have contributed to the 

jury’s verdict: in the face of equivocal evidence of 

[Edwards’s] intent, the jurors were invited by the District 

Court to consider the statements that he failed to make.” See 

United States v. Waller, 654 F.3d 430, 439 (3d Cir. 2011). 

Considering the Government’s emphasis on Edwards’s postMiranda silence and “the manifest importance of immediate 

curative instructions whenever a defendant’s post-Miranda

 

4 Edwards did not renew his objection after the District Court 

sua sponte issued its curative instruction. But the 

Government does not argue that we should review this case 

for plain error, so we apply harmless-error review.
8

warning silence is mentioned before the jury,” Martinez, 620 

F.3d at 339 n.15, we hold that the violation of Edwards’s 

Fifth Amendment rights was not harmless.

III.

For these reasons, we will vacate Edwards’s 

conviction and remand for a new trial. We need not reach the 

remaining issues Edwards raises on appeal.5

 

5

In that regard, Edwards argues that the District Court 

erroneously admitted Bruce’s testimony as to statements 

Edwards made in Bruce’s motel room, and erroneously 

declined to grant Edwards minimal-participant status at 

sentencing. We note, however, that a statement “offered 

against an opposing party” that “was made by the party in an 

individual or representative capacity” is not hearsay, 

regardless whether the statement was also “made by the 

party’s coconspirator during and in furtherance of the 

conspiracy.” Fed. R. Evid. 801(d)(2)(A), (E). Further, if the 

District Court at sentencing is again faced with determining 

whether Edwards is entitled to a downward departure for a 

mitigating role, the District Court should consider the factors 

we outlined in United States v. Headley, 923 F.2d 1079, 1084 

(3d Cir. 1991) (citing United States v. Garcia, 920 F.2d 153 

(2d Cir. 1990)), in exercising its “broad discretion.” United 

States v. Isaza-Zapata, 148 F.3d 236, 238–39 (3d Cir. 1998).