UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA ,

v.
ASA LEA , Defendant

. Case No. 1 9

- cr - 89 ( CRC )

MEMORANDUM OPINION
In November 2019 , a jury c onvicted Asa Lea of un lawful 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 supp ort the conviction, the Court will deny the motion s
. On March 5, 2019, Lea was approached by two Metro T ransit Police Department
offi cers , Le m uel 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 fro m his front coat pocket . At his trial in November 2019 , the gove rnment presented testimony from both arres ting
officers and the crime s cene re covery officer as well as physical evidence recovered from Mr.
Lea , including the firearm, ammuniti on, a digital s c a le, and $1,782 in currency
. The de fense presented testimony from a chemist employed by the D.C. Department of Fore nsic Sciences and
Metro Tr ansit Police Of ficer Justin Guida. On November 21, 2019, the jury convicted M r. 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 1 8 U.S.C. § 922(g) ( 1). Mr. Lea now moves for a judgment of ac quittal 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 Rul e 33 motion on the ground that the verdict is against2 the weight of the evidence “ only in the extraordinary circumstance s 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) ). “[T he relevant question ” with respect to a Rul e 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 be yond a reasonable doubt. ” Jackson v. Virginia , 443 U.S. 307,
319 (1979)

. Mr. L ea has not s atisfied either of these high bars.
His sole argument is that the only trial eviden ce that t ended to show his possession of the
firearm at issue

— the testimony of Officer s Wood and Wooley

— was “ inhe rently incredible ” because the officers testified that they observed Lea smoking a hand

- rolled cigarette, but that
ci gare tte was not among the items seized from him

. 1 Def. Mot. 4

- 5

. Not so. As the government points out, the officer s ’ testimony about the ci garett e bears only on the i rrelevant issue of
whether they credibly believed that Lea was smok ing ma rijua na when they initially approached
him

. 2 Th e absence of physical evidence of the ci garette hardly makes the officers ’ testimony that they s aw a nd recovered a firearm from Lea ’s front jacket pocket “inherently incredible

. ”
That consiste nt firsthand testimony from both officers

— in conjunction with the physical
evidence of the gun, ammunition, digi tal scale, and currency re covered f r o m M r
. L e a

— was

s ufficient to conv i nce a ny r ational 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 t rial, the parties stipulated that th e firearm had traveled through interstate commerce and that Mr. Lea had been and knew that he had been convicted of a crime punishable by impri sonment for a term exceeding one year
.
2 The Court a ddress ed Mr. Lea ’ s Fourth Amendment chall enge s at a sup pression hearing on August 12, 2019

.3 F or the foregoing reasons, the Court will deny [ 56 ] Defendant’s Motion for Judgment of Acquittal and New Trial

. A separate Order shall acc ompany this memorandum opinion

.

CHRISTOPHER R. COOPER United States District Judge
Date: J anuary 15 , 2019