UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

v. 

ASA LEA,

Defendant. 

Case No. 19-cr-89 (CRC)

MEMORANDUM OPINION

In November 2019, a jury convicted Asa Lea of unlawful possession of a firearm and 

ammunition by a felon. Mr. Lea now moves for a judgment of acquittal and a new trial, arguing 

that the evidence presented at trial was insufficient to convict him of the crime. Finding ample 

evidence to support the conviction, the Court will deny the motions.

On March 5, 2019, Lea was approached by two Metro Transit Police Department 

officers, Lemuel Woods and Karroll Wooley, who suspected that he was smoking marijuana at a 

bus stop. The officers eventually arrested Mr. Lea and recovered a gun from his front coat 

pocket. At his trial in November 2019, the government presented testimony from both arresting

officers and the crime scene recovery officer as well as physical evidence recovered from Mr. 

Lea, including the firearm, ammunition, a digital scale, and $1,782 in currency. The defense 

presented testimony from a chemist employed by the D.C. Department of Forensic Sciences and 

Metro Transit Police Officer Justin Guida. On November 21, 2019, the jury convicted Mr. Lea 

of unlawful possession of a firearm and ammunition by a person convicted of crime punishable 

by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1).

Mr. Lea now moves for a judgment of acquittal under Federal Rule of Criminal 

Procedure 29 and a new trial under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 33 based on insufficiency of 

the evidence. The Court should grant a Rule 33 motion on the ground that the verdict is against
2

the weight of the evidence “only in the extraordinary circumstances where the evidence 

preponderates heavily against the verdict.” United States v. Rogers, 918 F.2d 207, 213 (D.C. 

Cir. 1990) (quoting United States v. Ashworth, 836 F.2d 260, 266 (6th Cir. 1988)). “[The 

relevant question” with respect to a Rule 29 motion “is whether, after viewing the evidence in 

the light most favorable to the prosecution, 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). Mr. Lea has not satisfied either of these high bars.

His sole argument is that the only trial evidence that tended to show his possession of the 

firearm at issue—the testimony of Officers Wood and Wooley—was “inherently incredible”

because the officers testified that they observed Lea smoking a hand-rolled cigarette, but that

cigarette was not among the items seized from him.

1

 Def. Mot. 4-5. Not so. As the government 

points out, the officers’ testimony about the cigarette bears only on the irrelevant issue of 

whether they credibly believed that Lea was smoking marijuana when they initially approached 

him.

2

 The absence of physical evidence of the cigarette hardly makes the officers’ testimony 

that they saw and recovered a firearm from Lea’s front jacket pocket “inherently incredible.” 

That consistent firsthand testimony from both officers—in conjunction with the physical 

evidence of the gun, ammunition, digital scale, and currency recovered from Mr. Lea—was 

sufficient to convince any rational juror that he possessed a firearm on March 5, 2019. 

Accordingly, the Court sees no basis for ordering a new trial or entering a judgment of acquittal.

 

1 At trial, the parties stipulated that the firearm had traveled through interstate commerce

and that Mr. Lea had been and knew that he had been convicted of a crime punishable by 

imprisonment for a term exceeding one year.

2 The Court addressed Mr. Lea’s Fourth Amendment challenges at a suppression hearing

on August 12, 2019.
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For the foregoing reasons, the Court will deny [56] Defendant’s Motion for Judgment of 

Acquittal and New Trial. A separate Order shall accompany this memorandum opinion.

CHRISTOPHER R. COOPER

United States District Judge

Date: January 15, 2019