Source: http://openjurist.org/136/f3d/176
Timestamp: 2013-05-24 21:41:31
Document Index: 184636419

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 841', '§ 841', '§ 2', '§ 2', '§ 841', '§ 2', '§ 22', '§ 2', '§ 3', '§ 3', 'art, 98', 'art, 98', 'art, 98', '§ 924']

136 F3d 176 United States v. Toms | OpenJurist
136 F. 3d 176 - United States v. Toms	Home136 f3d 176 united states v. toms
136 F3d 176 United States v. Toms 136 F.3d 176
329 U.S.App.D.C. 33, 48 Fed. R. Evid. Serv. 1346
UNITED STATES of America, Appellee,v.Ronald James TOMS, a/k/a Block, Appellant.
No. 97-3047.
Argued Jan. 22, 1998.Decided Feb. 27, 1998.Rehearing Denied April 17, 1998.
On November 9, 1993, a grand jury returned a thirteen-count superseding indictment against Toms and two codefendants, Jimmy Thomas, Jr. ("Thomas"), and Keith Donnell Bradley ("Bradley"). All three men were charged with conspiracy to distribute and possess with intent to distribute 50 grams or more of cocaine base from 1987 to October 1993 in the Paradise and Mayfair housing complexes in northeast Washington, D.C. (21 U.S.C. §§ 841(a)(1), (b)(1)(A)(iii), 846 (1994)). Toms and Thomas were also charged with distributing cocaine base on two dates in 1993 (21 U.S.C. §§ 841(a)(1), (b)(1)(A)(iii), (b)(1)(B)(iii) (1994); 18 U.S.C. § 2 (1994)), and Toms and Bradley were charged with possession of 50 grams or more of cocaine base with intent to distribute (18 U.S.C. § 2 (1994); 21 U.S.C. §§ 841(a)(1), 841(b)(1)(A)(iii) (1994)); using or carrying a firearm during and in relation to a drug trafficking crime (18 U.S.C. §§ 2, 924(c) (1994)); and carrying a pistol without a license (D.C.CODE ANN. §§ 22-3204(a), 105 (1996)). Thomas and Bradley both pled guilty.1
The presentence report assigned to Toms a base offense level of 38 under the Guidelines based on Thomas's testimony that he had received at least 28 grams of cocaine base from Toms on "hundreds" of occasions. See Tr. 1/13/95 at 123-24; U.S. SENTENCING GUIDELINES MANUAL [hereinafter "U.S.S.G."] § 2D1.1(c)(1) (1997). On April 7, 1995, Toms moved for a hearing, seeking to question Thomas and Bradley and gain access to their presentence reports and alleging that Thomas's testimony was unreliable. The district court denied Toms's motion on March 4, 1997, crediting Thomas's testimony and concluding that even taken at its most conservative (28 grams on each of one hundred occasions), Thomas's testimony supported a finding that Toms had distributed 2.8 kilograms of cocaine base, resulting in a base offense level of 38. The district court also adopted the report's recommendation that Toms's base offense level be enhanced by four levels for his role in the conspiracy, see U.S.S.G. § 3B1.1(a), and by two levels for obstruction of justice, see U.S.S.G. § 3C1.1, yielding a total offense level of 44.3 Because Toms had reached the Guidelines' sentencing cap of level 43, see U.S.S.G. Ch. 5, Pt. A, intro. comment (offense level greater than 43 to be treated as offense level of 43), he was sentenced to concurrent terms of life imprisonment for the conspiracy and possession convictions, to be followed by concurrent, five-year terms of supervised release. Toms also received a consecutive five-year term for using or carrying a firearm, to be followed by three years of concurrent supervised release, and a concurrent, one-year term for carrying a pistol without a license.
A. The Weapon Convictions
The government need not show that the defendant actively employed the firearm or that the firearm was fired. It is sufficient to show the defendant actually or constructively possess[ed] a firearm in order to prove that he used it.
Tr. 1/24/95 at 128 (emphases added). As the government concedes, Bailey v. United States, 516 U.S. 137, 116 S.Ct. 501, 133 L.Ed.2d 472 (1995), which the Supreme Court decided after Toms's conviction, renders the district court's instruction on "use" error. See id. at 141-43, 116 S.Ct. at 505 (conviction for "use" of a firearm under section 924(c) "requires evidence sufficient to show an active employment of the firearm by the defendant, a use that makes the firearm an operative factor in relation to the predicate offense").
Toms, unremarkably, did not object to this instruction, as it was consistent at the time with the prevailing law in this circuit. See, e.g., United States v. Bailey, 36 F.3d 106 (D.C.Cir.1994), rev'd, 516 U.S. 137, 116 S.Ct. 501, 133 L.Ed.2d 472 (1995). In United States v. Smart, 98 F.3d 1379 (D.C.Cir.1996), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 117 S.Ct. 1271, 137 L.Ed.2d 349 (1997), under similar circumstances, we noted that we would, under the supervening-decision doctrine,5 apply Bailey retroactively "to vacate any prior conviction in which such an instruction was given where it might have caused the jury to conclude that the defendant's awareness of and proximity to a gun nearby in a drug transaction constituted a forbidden 'use' of the gun"--in other words, if the error could not be said to be harmless. Smart, 98 F.3d at 1393.6 The evidence introduced at trial was that the gun was found in the seat where Bradley had been sitting after he was removed from the car, a decidedly nonactive [329 U.S.App.D.C. 38] employment. Thus, if Toms'ssection 924(c) conviction rested wholly on the jury's conclusion that he "used" a firearm during the drug trafficking incident, that conviction would have to be vacated.
Nevertheless, as we noted in Smart, any error in the "use" instruction would be harmless if the jury necessarily found that Toms "carried" the firearm within the meaning of section 924(c).7 Smart, 98 F.3d at 1393. The "necessarily" is crucial, for "a verdict [is required] to be set aside in cases where the verdict is supportable on one ground, but not on another, and it is impossible to tell which ground the jury selected." Yates v. United States, 354 U.S. 298, 312, 77 S.Ct. 1064, 1073, 1 L.Ed.2d 1356 (1957), overruled on other grounds by Burks v. United States, 437 U.S. 1, 98 S.Ct. 2141, 57 L.Ed.2d 1 (1978); see also United States v. Washington, 106 F.3d 983, 1013 (D.C.Cir.), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 118 S.Ct. 446, 139 L.Ed.2d 382 (1997). In Washington, for example, we upheld the convictions of the defendant police officers under section 924(c) because the only evidence in support of their convictions showed that the officers were wearing service pistols on their persons during the drug trafficking incidents; as a result, the jury could not have found that they "used" the pistols without also finding that they "carried" the weapons. Toms now argues that the jury could not have reached a similar conclusion in his case.
We can easily reject this contention. As in Smart, the jury also convicted Toms of carrying a pistol without a license in violation of section 22-3204(a) of the D.C.Code.8 The jury was instructed that in order to obtain a conviction on this charge, the government had to prove, inter alia, (1) that Toms carried a pistol openly or concealed on or about his person; and (2) that he carried the pistol knowingly and intentionally. See Tr. 1/24/95 at 130; see also Butler v. United States, 614 A.2d 875, 885 (D.C.1992). Under the prevailing law of this circuit and of the District, "carry" is interpreted identically for both section 924(c) and section 22-3204(a): the weapon must be convenient of access and within reach. See, e.g., United States v. Anderson, 881 F.2d 1128, 1141 (D.C.Cir.1989); Henderson v. United States, 687 A.2d 918, 920-21 & n. 6 (D.C.1996); see also Tr. 1/24/95 at 128 (jury instruction). Thus, in order to find that Toms "carried" the gun under section 22-3204(a), the jury had to credit the officers' testimony regarding the location of the gun--on the passenger's seat of the car Toms was driving--and conclude that Toms was aware of the gun's presence. These are the same findings the jury would have had to make in order to find that Toms "carried" the gun for purposes of section 924(c). Thus, by returning a guilty verdict on the section 22-3204(a) charge, the jury necessarily concluded that Toms also carried the gun under section 924(c). The district court's instruction on "use" was harmless error.
Notwithstanding this conclusion, however, Toms argues that he was wrongly convicted of both of the weapon charges because there was insufficient evidence to support a finding that he had the requisite knowledge that the gun was in the car.9 As [329 U.S.App.D.C. 39] the government notes, trial counsel did move for a judgment of acquittal on this basis as to "the gun charge" at the close of the government's evidence,10 but he failed to renew this motion at the close of all evidence. As a result, Toms's challenge would normally be reviewed for plain error. See, e.g., United States v. White, 1 F.3d 13, 17 (D.C.Cir.1993). However, Toms has claimed that this failure constituted ineffective assistance of counsel, which, as the government concedes, requires that his challenge be analyzed under the two-part test of Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 104 S.Ct. 2052, 80 L.Ed.2d 674 (1984). Under that test, Toms must show both (1) that trial counsel's performance was deficient--that counsel's representation "fell below an objective standard of reasonableness"--and (2) that the deficient performance prejudiced the client--"that there is a reasonable probability that, but for counsel's unprofessional errors, the result of the proceeding would have been different." Id. at 687-88, 694, 104 S.Ct. at 2064, 2068. Because ineffective assistance claims typically require an evidentiary hearing, we "normally do not resolve them on direct appeal, instead remanding to the district court." United States v. Gaviria, 116 F.3d 1498, 1512 (D.C.Cir.1997), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 118 S.Ct. 865, 139 L.Ed.2d 763 (1998). However, this tendency to remand has two exceptions: "when the trial record alone conclusively shows that the defendant is entitled to no relief and when the record conclusively shows the contrary." Id. (internal quotes omitted). Thus, we need not decide whether Toms's trial counsel was deficient if, upon reviewing the record, we can conclude that there is no reasonable probability that Toms would have prevailed on a motion for judgment of acquittal even if one had been made--in other words, we arrive at Toms's insufficient evidence argument by an alternate route. We thus review "the evidence de novo, in [the] light most favorable to the Government, in order to determine whether a rational trier of fact could have found the essential elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt." United States v. Moore, 97 F.3d 561, 563-64 (D.C.Cir.1996) (internal quotes and citations omitted). Our review is deferential and draws no distinction between direct and circumstantial evidence. United States v. Moore, 104 F.3d 377, 381 (D.C.Cir.1997); United States v. Harrison, 931 F.2d 65, 71 (D.C.Cir.1991).
Because the gun was not found on Toms's person, the government's case necessarily rested on a theory of constructive possession. In order for the government to prove that Toms constructively possessed the gun discovered in the Land Cruiser, it needed to establish that he "knowingly [was] in a position to exercise dominion and control over the object possessed, either personally or through others." Harrison, 931 F.2d at 71; see also Brown v. United States, 546 A.2d 390, 394 (D.C.1988). The government offers two theories as to Toms's knowledge. First, it contends that the jury's return of a verdict of guilty as to the section 924(c) charge must necessarily be interpreted to mean that the jury discredited Toms's testimony that he knew nothing of the gun and instead found that he knowingly possessed it. Second, the government argues that the jury could infer knowledge by looking to the evidence that Toms and Bradley were involved in an ongoing drug-selling operation and concluding that Toms therefore controlled the gun either directly or through Bradley. The first of these arguments is not a sufficient basis upon which to affirm Toms's conviction. In United States v. Zeigler, 994 F.2d 845 (D.C.Cir.1993), we declined to allow the jury's discrediting of the defendant's testimony to make up for a shortfall in the sufficiency of the government's evidence. "There is no principled way of deciding," we noted, "when the government's proof, less than [329 U.S.App.D.C. 40] enough to sustain the conviction, is nevertheless enough to allow adding negative inferences from the defendant's testimony to fill the gaps." Id. at 850. To be sure, the jury is free to discredit any witness before it on the stand and even to believe the exact opposite of the matter to which the witness has testified. Our review as an appellate court, however, would be frustrated if we were to allow such discrediting to constitute an essential part of the government's case--we cannot tell, from the lifeless words on the printed page of the transcript, whether the testimony memorialized therein is worthy of belief. The government therefore cannot rely on the jury's discrediting of Toms's testimony to prove an element of its case.
The government's second argument, however, ultimately proves more compelling, although viewed as an argument for co-conspirator liability--that because Toms was engaged in a drug distribution conspiracy, he is responsible for any acts committed by his co-conspirators in furtherance of the conspiracy, see, e.g., Pinkerton v. United States, 328 U.S. 640, 646-48, 66 S.Ct. 1180, 1183-85, 90 L.Ed. 1489 (1946)--it fails. As the indictment makes clear, and as the government concedes, the gun charges stemmed only from the September 10th incident and were not predicated on the conspiracy. In order for it to obtain a conviction on the gun charges, then, the government had to present evidence that could lead a jury to conclude that Toms himself was aware of the presence of the gun in the car, not simply that he was involved in a conspiracy with the person under whom the gun was found. Cf. In re Sealed Case (Sentencing Guidelines' "Safety Valve"), 105 F.3d 1460, 1464-65 (D.C.Cir.1997) ("Linking participation in an ongoing drug trafficking enterprise to constructive possession of a gun requires an additional inferential step, one that we think should not be made ... without some additional evidence supporting that step.").
As the second prong of the government's argument suggests, however, there was sufficient evidence of Toms's drug-selling activities such that the jury could have concluded that Toms was aware of the gun's presence in the Land Cruiser on September 10th and thus constructively possessed the gun.11 As we have noted elsewhere, although "mere proximity" to a gun is insufficient to establish constructive possession, evidence of an additional factor establishing that the defendant was in a position to exercise dominion or control over the gun--" 'including connection with a gun [or] proof of motive' "--coupled with proximity may be sufficient. Moore, 104 F.3d at 381 (quoting United States v. Gibbs, 904 F.2d 52, 56 (D.C.Cir.1990)); see also United States v. Jenkins, 981 F.2d 1281, 1283 (D.C.Cir.1992). Where, as here, the gun is found in a place occupied by more than one person, the sufficiency of the evidence analysis depends on whether the evidence plausibly suggests " 'the likelihood that in some discernible fashion the accused had a substantial voice vis-a-vis the [gun].' " United States v. Foster, 783 F.2d 1087, 1089 (D.C.Cir.1986) (quoting United States v. Staten, 581 F.2d 878, 884 (D.C.Cir.1978)) (emphasis in Foster).
The government introduced evidence both as to connection and as to motive to show that Toms, because of his drug activities, was accustomed to keeping a gun nearby for protection. Thomas, for example, one of Toms's co-conspirators, testified that he had seen Toms carrying a gun "[a] lot of times" and that Toms often kept a gun hidden in his car. Tr. 1/13/95 at 139. In addition, the wealth of testimony that connected Toms to drug dealing--credited by the jury in its conviction of Toms for the conspiracy as well as for the drugs recovered from the Land Cruiser--provided a motive for Toms to have a gun close at hand, namely, protection of the drugs and money in the car.12 Admittedly, [329 U.S.App.D.C. 41] the government's case was not as overwhelming as it would have been had the gun been located under Toms's seat or on his person rather than on Bradley's seat; we have noted that "[o]ther factors being equal, it is less likely that one exercises a right of control over an item physically held by another than over an item in some common area readily accessible to all present." Harrison, 931 F.2d at 72. Nonetheless, given the evidence presented, the jury was entitled to conclude that despite the fact that the gun was found where Bradley had been sitting, it was there for Toms's benefit--in other words, that Toms knew of the gun's presence and intended to use it, or direct that it be used, should it become necessary to do so. We reached much the same conclusion in Harrison, which also involved the discovery of guns and drugs in a vehicle stopped by the police. Although the only guns recovered in that case were found on the persons of the other occupants of the vehicle, we held that because the jury found that the defendant intended to distribute the drugs recovered from the vehicle, the jury could reasonably have concluded that if it became necessary, the defendant would either "use one of his confederates' guns to shoot back, or else instruct one of them to do so"--in other words, the jury could have inferred that the defendant had " 'some appreciable ability to guide the destiny' of the weapons." Id. at 73 (quoting Staten, 581 F.2d at 883). We see no reason to reach a different conclusion in this case.
We should note, to begin, that we have several times disapproved of the method of questioning used by the government in this case. Although in earlier cases we held that an expert is permitted to state "that certain conduct fits a specific role in a criminal enterprise--even though the conduct described exactly parallels conduct that other evidence explicitly links to a defendant," United States v. Mitchell, 996 F.2d 419, 422 (D.C.Cir.1993), we have more recently, beginning in 1995, recognized that mirroring hypotheticals often present " 'a line that expert witnesses may not cross.' " United States v. Boyd, 55 F.3d 667, 671 (D.C.Cir.1995) (quoting Mitchell, 996 F.2d at 422). The danger, as we noted in Boyd, is that even when an expert does not explicitly identify the defendant in her answer, her testimony in response to such a hypothetical will suggest that the expert possesses knowledge of the defendant's mental state, which may be used by a jury "to cure the ambiguity that they face." Id. at 672. Because it is the job of the jury to decide whether a defendant has a particular mental state, such mirroring hypotheticals often violate Rule 704(b): Although framed as a hypothetical, they call for the expert essentially to testify as to the mental state of the defendant.
C. Toms's Sentence
Our review of the district court's sentence is guided largely by our decision in United States v. Lam Kwong-Wah, 966 F.2d 682 (D.C.Cir.1992). In Lam, we noted that in United States v. Patrick, 959 F.2d 991 (D.C.Cir.1992), this circuit had joined the majority of other circuits in holding that because the quantity of drugs involved in a conspiracy or distribution charge "is not a basic element of the offense," its determination is relevant only to the issue of punishment and thus is "a sentencing factor to be determined by the judge." Lam, 966 F.2d at 685 (citing cases). Toms does not dispute this conclusion but argues that because his case constituted an "extraordinary upward departure," Lam requires that the judge's factual determinations be supported by clear and convincing evidence, rather than by simply a preponderance of the evidence.
While we acknowledged in Lam the possibility that "extraordinary circumstances" might call for the application of a higher standard, we concluded that no such circumstances were present in Lam's case. Lam, 966 F.2d at 688. Lam had been convicted of conspiracy to distribute heroin; the district court, concluding that Lam "knew or reasonably could have foreseen" that 3.4 kilograms were slated for the first delivery, id. at 685, based Lam's sentence on that amount. In rejecting Lam's claim that a higher standard of proof was required in his case due to the impact of that finding on his sentence, we distinguished United States v. Kikumura, 918 F.2d 1084 (3d Cir.1990), in which the Third Circuit required a heightened burden of proof, by noting that while Kikumura's sentence was based in part on conduct for which he was not charged (namely, terrorist acts), Lam's sentence "was determined solely on the basis of conduct of which he was actually convicted"--the conspiracy to distribute heroin. Lam, 966 F.2d at 687-88. We also noted that Lam's counsel had conceded that Lam had scienter as to enough heroin to support a base offense level of 28; the 3.4 kilogram quantity assigned him a base offense level of 34. "While a six-level increase [was] not insignificant," we noted, it did not present the "enormous" twenty-two level disparity involved in Kikumura that [329 U.S.App.D.C. 44] warranted the satisfaction of a higher burden of proof. Id. at 688.
Toms next argues that the district court's reliance on Thomas's testimony was reversible error. He contends that Thomas's estimate of the amount of cocaine base he had received from Toms was inconsistent with other portions of his testimony--for example, the amount of money Thomas stated that he, as a dealer, had made during the course of the conspiracy15--and that Thomas admitted on the stand that certain statements he had previously made to an undercover officer were untrue.16 Given these indicia of unreliability, Toms argues, the district court erred in using Thomas's testimony as the basis for determining Toms's sentence.
We noted in Lam that in reviewing factual determinations supporting a Guidelines sentence, we give substantial deference to the findings of the district court. Lam, 966 F.2d at 688. We reverse the district court's conclusions "only if we are left with a definite and firm conviction that it is mistaken" and give full recognition to the fact that determining credibility and weighing evidence is a job for the factfinder, not for this court on review. Id. at 689 (internal quotes omitted). In light of these principles, we reject Toms's challenge. In its memorandum opinion denying Toms's motion, the district court found Thomas to be a credible witness for several reasons. First, the court noted that Thomas had told a cooperating witness and an undercover officer in mid-1993 about the amount of drugs Toms could supply him for sale, a point in time before Thomas was himself charged with any crime and thus might have had a reason to shift the blame to another participant. Thomas's information proved to be accurate when the witness and the undercover officer successfully purchased 84.58 grams of cocaine base from him. Second, the court noted that future attempts by the undercover officer to purchase drugs from Thomas after Toms was arrested were unsuccessful, further lending credibility to Thomas's testimony that Toms was his supplier. And finally, the court noted that additional evidence presented at trial, including a tally sheet found on Toms's person, bolstered Thomas's credibility as to the amount of drugs involved in the conspiracy. Toms, for his part, does not point to any evidence in the record that directly contradicts Thomas's testimony as to the amount of drugs involved; rather, he simply asserts that Thomas was not to be believed given the doubtful nature of some of his other testimony. Whether that testimony--or, indeed, any of Thomas's testimony--was open to question, however, is not for us to decide, given that Thomas's credibility can be assessed only by judging his demeanor on the witness stand. As we have already noted, such a determination in a sentencing proceeding properly belongs to the district court that participated in the trial, and we see no reason in this case to disturb its judgment.17III. CONCLUSION
Section 924(c) prohibits the use or carrying of a firearm "during and in relation to any crime of violence or drug trafficking crime." 18 U.S.C. § 924(c)(1)
See, e.g., United States v. Washington, 12 F.3d 1128, 1139 (D.C.Cir.1994) (court will consider issue not raised at trial "where a supervening decision has changed the law in appellant's favor and the law was so well-settled at the time of trial that any attempt to challenge it would have appeared pointless")
The government cites Johnson v. United States, 520 U.S. 461, 117 S.Ct. 1544, 137 L.Ed.2d 718 (1997), for the proposition that where a defendant fails to object to a jury instruction later rendered erroneous by a supervening decision, the instruction is reviewed for plain error rather than for harmless error. The fact that the instruction given in this case survives even a harmless error analysis makes consideration of this contention unnecessary
Both the section 924(c) charge and the section 22-3204(a) charge require proof that the defendant possessed the weapon knowingly and intentionally. See, e.g., United States v. Powell, 929 F.2d 724, 727 (D.C.Cir.1991); Butler, 614 A.2d at 885. Toms does not challenge the sufficiency of the evidence on the remaining elements of either charge (i.e., that the weapon was within his reach, that his possession was "during and in relation to a drug trafficking crime," that the pistol was operable, and that he was not licensed to carry a pistol in the District of Columbia), and, in any event, there was ample evidence that these elements were satisfied. See, e.g., United States v. Eyer, 113 F.3d 470, 476 (3d Cir.1997) (gun within reach inside passenger compartment of car satisfies "carry" element of section 924(c)); United States v. Range, 94 F.3d 614, 617 (11th Cir.1996) (same); Henderson, 687 A.2d at 921 n. 6 (same with regard to section 22-3204(a))
As we have often noted, the modus operandi of drug dealers is a suitable topic for expert testimony because it is "not within the common knowledge of the average juror." United States v. Boney, 977 F.2d 624, 628 (D.C.Cir.1992)
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