Source: https://casetext.com/case/us-v-james-96
Timestamp: 2020-08-12 10:17:03
Document Index: 84082465

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 841', '§ 841', '§ 841', '§ 841', '§ 841', '§ 841', '§ 841', '§ 841', '§ 841', '§ 3', '§ 3']

U.S. v. James, 257 F.3d 1173 | Casetext Search + Citator
United States v. Laneham
Response at 2 (quoting United States v. Hernandez-Chaparro, 357 F. App'x 165, 166 (10th Cir. 2009)). The…
The selective enforcement claim is an Equal Protection challenge alleging that law enforcement officials…
Full title:UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Thomas Conne JAMES…
Date published: Jul 16, 2001
257 F.3d 1173 (10th Cir. 2001)
holding that the defendant, who raised the entrapment defense, was not entitled to a lesser included instruction because entrapment is a complete defense
Summary of this case from United States v. Brazil
Nos. 00-3292, 00-3344, 00-3363.
Appeal from the United States District of Kansas, Dale E. Saffels, J.
Melody Evans, Assistant Federal Public Defender, (David J. Phillips, Federal Public Defender, with her on the briefs), Topeka, Kansas, for the appellants.
James E. Flory, Assistant United States Attorney, (Jackie N. Williams, United States Attorney, and Nancy Landis Caplinger, Assistant United States Attorney, with him on the brief), Topeka, Kansas, for the appellee.
The government opposed the discovery motions, and the district court held a separate evidentiary hearing for each defendant. Davis and James offered essentially the same witnesses and exhibits at their evidentiary hearings. The court denied Davis' motion by published order, United States v. Davis, 194 F.R.D. 688 (D.Kan. 2000) ( Davis I), and then denied James' motion for the reasons set forth in that order, ROA Vol. 1, Doc. 36 (No. 00-3292). Another judge conducted Green's hearing, at which Green introduced the complete record from James' hearing and additional exhibits. The court adopted the Davis I opinion by reference and similarly denied Green's motion in a published order, United States v. Green, 108 F.Supp.2d 1169 (D.Kan. 2000).
After the district court denied their discovery motions, James pled guilty to one count of distribution of crack cocaine and Green pled guilty to two counts of possession with intent to distribute crack cocaine, both in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1). Davis, however, pled not guilty to three counts of distribution of crack cocaine within 1,000 feet of a university and two counts of possession with intent to distribute crack cocaine within 1,000 feet of a university, all in violation of 21 U.S.C. §§ 841(a)(1) and 860. Davis later admitted at trial that he possessed and distributed crack cocaine but argued the government entrapped him on the school zone element. At the end of the trial, the district court instructed the jury on the elements of the offenses under Section 860, but refused to give a lesser included instruction under Section 841, which would not include the school zone element. The jury returned a guilty verdict on all five counts. In calculating Davis' sentence, the district court denied his request for an acceptance of responsibility reduction. United States v. Davis, No. 99-40091-DES, 2000 WL 1665261, at *4 (D.Kan. Oct.16, 2000) ( Davis II).
Each defendant contends the district court erred in denying his selective prosecution discovery motion. The parties agree that the threshold standard for obtaining such discovery is set forth in United States v. Armstrong, 517 U.S. 456, 116 S.Ct. 1480, 134 L.Ed.2d 687 (1996), but they disagree as to the standard of review we should apply on appeal.
This court has not adopted a standard for reviewing a selective prosecution discovery order. The defendants argue the district court's decision should not be given any deference on appeal, and they urge us to follow the Fourth Circuit and adopt the de novo standard. See United States v. Olvis, 97 F.3d 739, 743 (4th Cir. 1996). The government, on the other hand, advocates the abuse of discretion standard. As support, it invokes United States v. Gonzalez-Acosta, 989 F.2d 384, 388 (10th Cir. 1993), for the broad proposition that we review criminal discovery rulings for an abuse of discretion. It also notes we applied this standard to review a selective prosecution discovery order in an unpublished opinion, United States v. McMillan, Nos. 96-1054 96-1076, 1997 WL 413252, at *2 (10th Cir. July 23, 1997).
"Unpublished orders and judgments of this court are not binding precedents, except under the doctrines of law of the case, res judicata, and collateral estoppel." 10th Cir.R. 36.3.
Olvis, 97 F.3d at 743. We find this reasoning persuasive. Although other circuits have continued to review selective prosecution discovery orders for an abuse of discretion even after Armstrong was decided, see, e.g., United States v. Jones, 159 F.3d 969, 977 (6th Cir. 1998); United States v. Quinn, 123 F.3d 1415, 1425 (11th Cir. 1997); United States v. Candia-Veleta, 104 F.3d 243, 246 (9th Cir. 1996), we decline to follow those circuits because their decisions lack any analysis of Armstrong with respect to the standard of review and instead simply cite pre- Armstrong case law (or other post- Armstrong cases citing pre- Armstrong case law) in which the abuse of discretion standard was applied. Similarly, we decline to follow our prior application of the abuse of discretion standard in McMillan because that non-binding opinion relied solely on United States v. Furman, 31 F.3d 1034, 1037 (10th Cir. 1994), a pre- Armstrong case in which the defendant sought dismissal — rather than discovery — based on selective prosecution. We therefore review the district court's denial of the defendants' selective prosecution discovery motions de novo.
A defendant who claims he was targeted for prosecution because of race is entitled to discovery on that claim only if he presents " some evidence tending to show the existence of the essential elements of the [selective prosecution] defense, discriminatory effect and discriminatory intent." Armstrong, 517 U.S. at 468, 116 S.Ct. 1480 (internal quotations omitted) (emphasis added). With the exception of James, the defendants on appeal focus entirely on the investigative aspect of their prosecutions in attempting to show some evidence of discriminatory effect and discriminatory intent. Specifically, all three defendants assert that TPD and HUD investigators target only black crack cocaine dealers and ignore similarly-situated white crack cocaine dealers. James additionally claims the U.S. Attorney's Office treats black crack cocaine defendants differently than similarly-situated white methamphetamine defendants.
In light of Armstrong's seemingly less stringent "some evidence tending to show" standard, the defendants need not establish a prima facie case of selective prosecution to obtain discovery on these issues. Jones, 159 F.3d at 978; United States v. Bin Laden, 126 F.Supp.2d 256, 262 n. 12 (S.D.N.Y. 2000); United States v. Tuitt, 68 F.Supp.2d 4, 14-15 (D.Mass. 1999). Nevertheless, given the heavy burden that discovery can impose on the government, see Armstrong, 517 U.S. at 468, 116 S.Ct. 1480, the showing necessary to obtain discovery for a selective prosecution defense must "itself be a significant barrier to the litigation of insubstantial claims," id. at 464, 116 S.Ct. 1480. Keeping this admonition in mind, we conclude the district court properly denied the defendants' discovery motions because the evidence does not satisfy the threshold discriminatory effect requirement.
To prove discriminatory effect in a race-based selective prosecution claim, a defendant must make a credible showing that a similarly-situated individual of another race could have been prosecuted for the offense for which the defendant was charged, but was not. Armstrong, 517 U.S. at 465, 116 S.Ct. 1480. If such a claim is based on the investigative phase of the prosecution, however, the defendant must instead make a credible showing that a similarly-situated individual of another race could have been, but was not, arrested or referred for federal prosecution for the offense for which the defendant was arrested and referred. Jones, 159 F.3d at 977. The defendant may satisfy the "credible showing" requirement by identifying a similarly-situated individual or through the use of statistical evidence. Chavez v. Illinois State Police, 251 F.3d 612, 636 (7th Cir. 2001).
Of course, a defendant cannot satisfy the discriminatory effect prong by providing statistical evidence which simply shows that the challenged government action tends to affect one particular group. Rather, the proffered statistics must address the critical issue of whether that particular group was treated differently than a similarly-situated group. Chavez, 251 F.3d at 638. For example, the Armstrong Court concluded that a study which stated that 100% of the 21 U.S.C. §§ 841 and 846 cases handled by the Los Angeles Federal Public Defender's Office in 1991 involved black defendants did not tend to show discriminatory effect because the study failed to identify non-black persons who could have been prosecuted for those same offenses, but were not. 517 U.S. at 470, 116 S.Ct. 1480.
As in Armstrong, the statistical evidence offered here does not tend to show discriminatory effect because the statistics do not suggest that a similarly-situated crack cocaine dealer of another race evaded arrest. Although the evidence seems to indicate that the high percentage of blacks who were arrested for dealing crack cocaine was disproportionate to the roughly equal percentage of whites and blacks who were addicted to — and thus purportedly sold — crack cocaine, we consider these statistics to be unreliable as a matter of law for two reasons.
Although we assume that methamphetamine defendants could be similarly situated to crack cocaine defendants under certain circumstances, the evidence upon which James relies does not tend to show that these two groups are similarly situated by reason of his own "mandatory five-year federal sentence" definition. In particular, James fails to explain whether any of the sixteen cases referred to state court involved pure methamphetamine or a mixture containing methamphetamine. This distinction is important because it takes fifty grams of a mixture containing methamphetamine to trigger the mandatory five-year federal sentence applicable to five grams of pure methamphetamine. 21 U.S.C. § 841(b)(1)(B)(viii). The evidence here does not suggest that any case sent to state court involved pure methamphetamine, and the number of grams charged in each of those cases was insufficient to trigger the mandatory five-year federal sentence under the mixture rule. Although two cases seem to satisfy the mixture rule's mandatory sentence requirement because they each involved fifty-five grams, both cases were prosecuted before October 21, 1998 — the date Congress lowered the mandatory sentence threshold for mixtures of methamphetamine from one hundred to fifty grams. See Pub.L. 105-277, 112 Stat. 2681-759 (1998). Therefore, because there is no reason to believe that any of the methamphetamine defendants referred to state court would have received a mandatory five-year federal sentence, James' evidence does not tend to show that those defendants are similarly situated to the crack cocaine cases prosecuted in federal court.
Implicitly acknowledging this problem, James argues that the sixteen cases probably involved at least five grams of pure methamphetamine because a recent study by the United States Sentencing Commission found that most street-level methamphetamine has a high amount of purity. Unfortunately, this is yet another misrepresentation of the evidence. The study acknowledged that the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy had previously described the purity of street-level methamphetamine at approximately 50% or more, but it explained that more recent information suggests that purity levels have dropped to around 30%. ROA Vol. 3, Ex. 433 at 15 n. 41 (No. 00-3292). We reject James' argument.
Because the defendants' failure to satisfy the discriminatory effect prong is fatal to their attempt to obtain discovery on their selective prosecution claims, see Armstrong, 517 U.S. at 470, 116 S.Ct. 1480, we need not consider whether their evidence tends to show discriminatory intent. The district court properly denied discovery.
Defendant Davis raises three additional arguments on appeal. He contends (1) that 21 U.S.C. § 841 is unconstitutional on its face; (2) that the jury should have been given a lesser included offense instruction; and (3) that his sentence should have been reduced based on his acceptance of responsibility.
Davis first argues that the recent decision in Apprendi v. New Jersey, 530 U.S. 466, 120 S.Ct. 2348, 147 L.Ed.2d 435 (2000), rendered 21 U.S.C. § 841 facially unconstitutional. Because he did not raise this argument in the district court, our review is for plain error. United States v. Svacina, 137 F.3d 1179, 1186 (10th Cir. 1998). Under this standard, reversal is warranted only when there is: (1) an error; (2) that is plain or obvious; (3) that affects substantial rights; and (4) that seriously affects the fairness, integrity or public reputation of judicial proceedings. United States v. Hishaw, 235 F.3d 565, 574 (10th Cir. 2000). However, we apply this rule less rigidly when reviewing a potential constitutional error. United States v. Easter, 981 F.2d 1549, 1557 (10th Cir. 1992).
In Apprendi, the Supreme Court held that "[o]ther than the fact of a prior conviction, any fact that increases the penalty for a crime beyond the prescribed statutory maximum must be submitted to a jury, and proved beyond a reasonable doubt." 530 U.S. at 490, 120 S.Ct. 2348. Applying that rule, the Apprendi Court struck down as a violation of the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment a New Jersey sentencing scheme which authorized a sentencing enhancement beyond the prescribed statutory maximum if the trial judge found by a preponderance of the evidence that the crime was racially motivated.
For several years, we "interpreted § 841(a) as setting forth the elements of the substantive offenses . . . and § 841(b)(1) as setting forth applicable sentencing ranges based on factors such as the quantity of drugs involved." United States v. Jones, 235 F.3d 1231, 1234 (10th Cir. 2000) (citing pre- Apprendi case law). But after the Supreme Court decided Apprendi, we held that
According to Davis, our post- Apprendi analysis of Section 841 represents the wrong approach. Rather than re-interpreting Section 841(b) as setting forth the elements of a drug offense, he argues, we should follow our prior interpretation of Section 841(b) as setting forth only sentencing factors that are to be decided by the district court. Davis relies on our prior interpretation to assert that the statute is unconstitutional under Apprendi because it does not permit the jury to decide facts that could increase the penalty for a conviction beyond the prescribed statutory maximum set forth in 21 U.S.C. § 841(b)(1)(C).
At trial, Davis admitted his involvement in the underlying possession and distribution charges but claimed the government entrapped him into committing those crimes in a school zone — the single element which elevates a Section 841 offense to a Section 860 offense. Specifically, Davis testified he did not want to sell drugs in that area of Topeka and did so only because the informant insisted that the transactions had to occur at the house which was located across from Washburn University. After learning that the district court intended to instruct the jury under Section 860, Davis asked the court to give a lesser included offense instruction under Section 841. He asserted that this would permit the jury to convict him on the underlying crimes and acquit him on the school zone crimes, in recognition of his testimony and the government's responsibility for luring him to a sting operation that was intentionally set up across from a university. The district court denied Davis' request.
A defendant is entitled to a lesser offense instruction if four conditions are met: (1) there is a proper request; (2) the lesser included offense contains some, but not all, of the elements of the offense charged; (3) the element differentiating the two offenses is a matter in dispute; and (4) a jury could rationally convict on the lesser offense and acquit on the greater offense. United States v. Joe, 831 F.2d 218, 219 (10th Cir. 1987). "Failure to meet any part of the test is fatal for the defendant." Id. According to Davis, he satisfied each of these elements and the jury should have been instructed under Section 841.
According to Davis, he should have received a reduced sentence based on acceptance of responsibility because he took the stand and freely admitted to the jury that he possessed and distributed crack cocaine. Section 3E1.1 authorizes a two-point sentence reduction if a defendant clearly demonstrates acceptance of responsibility for his criminal conduct. "This adjustment is not intended to apply to a defendant who puts the government to its burden of proof at trial by denying the essential factual elements of guilt, is convicted, and only then admits guilt and expresses remorse." U.S.S.G. § 3E1.1, commentary n. 2. However, the fact that a defendant is convicted at trial does not automatically preclude such a reduction:
In United States v. Garcia, 182 F.3d 1165, 1173 (10th Cir. 1999), we concluded that an entrapment defense may present "one of those `rare situations' contemplated by the Sentencing Guidelines in which a defendant may go to trial and still receive an acceptance of responsibility reduction" because the defense challenges the applicability of a statute to the defendant's conduct. However, we emphasized that our holding in Garcia did "not mean that the simple assertion of the entrapment defense coupled with acknowledgment of the underlying criminal activity automatically entitles a defendant to a two-point acceptance of responsibility reduction." Id. Instead, the defendant must still demonstrate "acceptance of responsibility, primarily though pre-trial statements and conduct, before an acceptance of responsibility reduction would be warranted." Id. at 1174 (citing U.S.S.G. § 3E1.1, commentary n. 2).
In this case, the district court found that Davis was not entitled to an acceptance of responsibility reduction in part because he "did not confess, cooperate with the police, or engage in conduct that would otherwise demonstrate an acceptance of responsibility prior to trial." Davis II, 2000 WL 1665261, at *4. The court also observed that Davis admitted his involvement only after the government presented its case in chief — during which Davis refused to stipulate to anything and "put the government to the task of proving every element, every fact, every videotape and audiotape, every chemical composition, and every geographic detail." Id. Based on these combined circumstances, the court found that Davis had not shown "a clear acceptance of responsibility for his offenses." Id.
holding that a district court's decision to grant or deny a selective prosecution discovery motion is not entitled to any deference on appeal
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declining to consider evidence of discriminatory intent because defendants failed to establish discriminatory intent