Source: https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-2nd-circuit/1411489.html
Timestamp: 2020-08-15 11:32:05
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UNITED STATES v. BURRELL | FindLaw
UNITED STATES of America, Appellee, v. Stanley BURRELL, Michelle Miles, Brian Burrell, a/k/a B-Wop, and Darryl Banks, a/k/a Pop, Defendants-Appellants.
Docket No. 00-1259-62.
Before: OAKES, STRAUB, and POOLER, Circuit Judges. Thomas H. Nooter,Freeman, Nooter & Ginsberg, New York, NY, for Defendant-Appellant Stanley Burrell. George Sheinberg, Brooklyn, NY, for Defendant-Appellant Michelle Miles. Steve Zissou, Bayside, NY, for Defendant-Appellant Brian Burrell (Randall D. Unger, on the brief). Ellyn I. Bank, New York, NY, for Defendant-Appellant Darryl Banks. Michelle Delong, Emily Berger, Assistant United States Attorneys, of counsel to Loretta E. Lynch, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, Brooklyn, N.Y. (Kenneth Breen, Assistant United States Attorney, on the brief) for Appellee.
Stanley Burrell, Michelle Miles, Brian Burrell, and Darryl Banks appeal from their convictions and resulting sentences for a variety of narcotics related offenses. In a summary order also filed today, we rejected all of defendants' objections to their convictions except (1) Stanley Burrell's argument that he could not be convicted both of participation in a continuing criminal enterprise (“CCE”) and of conspiracy to possess and distribute narcotics and (2) Darryl Banks' contention that juvenile adjudications were wrongly used against him. We vacated Stanley Burrell's conspiracy conviction in the summary order and will consider Darryl Banks' argument in this opinion. As to the defendants' sentences, we rejected Stanley Burrell's argument that the district court wrongly enhanced his sentence for possession of a gun as well as Brian Burrell's objection to the use of two felony convictions occurring during the course of the conspiracy to enhance his sentence. We left for consideration in this opinion defendants' claim that the district court erred by determining the quantity of drugs attributable to each of them rather than requiring that the indictment charge and the jury find drug quantity.
Stanley Burrell organized and operated a cocaine base (“crack”) and heroin distribution network at Marcy Houses, a public housing project in Brooklyn, New York from approximately 1990 to 1997. At first, the Burrell Organization sold crack in plastic vials with gold caps (“goldtops”) and heroin in gold glassine bags (“goldbags”) close to a Chinese restaurant near Marcy Houses. During 1993, the organization began selling from a courtyard in front of several of the project buildings and from a nearby parking lot and changed the packaging for its crack from goldtops to blacktops. Although the organization continued to sell goldbag heroin, it also sold heroin in glassine bags with the word “Romance,” on a slip of paper inside. Miles produced these labels. At its new location, the organization sold drugs twenty-four hours a day and seven days a week.
By superseding indictment filed February 26, 1998, a grand jury charged the Burrell brothers, Miles, and Banks with conspiracy to distribute heroin and crack in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 846. The indictment also charged Miles with one count of possession and distribution of crack and Stanley Burrell with being the organizer of a CCE in violation of 21 U.S.C §§ 848(a) & (c) and with being a felon in possession of ammunition in violation of 18 U.S.C § 922(g)(1). The indictment did not specify the quantity of drugs allegedly sold by the conspirators. Following a trial in February 1999, the jury returned a guilty verdict on all counts except possession of ammunition, on which it acquitted Stanley Burrell.
I. Evidence of Banks' Prior Convictions.
II. Apprendi Issue.
Pursuant to Apprendi v. New Jersey, 530 U.S. 466, 120 S.Ct. 2348, 147 L.Ed.2d 435 (2000), defendants argue that they received sentences beyond the maximum the district court had the authority to impose because the amount of narcotics was not specified in the indictment and the court rather than the jury calculated the drugs attributable to each defendant. We recently interpreted Apprendi in the context of sentencing for narcotics offenses and held (1) a jury finding on drug quantity is necessary to sentence a defendant to more than twenty years of imprisonment, the statutory maximum for an unspecified quantity of certain drugs including cocaine and heroin, see 21 U.S.C. § 841(b)(1)(C); (2) where, as will usually be true for convictions prior to Apprendi, the defendant failed to demand jury findings on drug quantity or to object to an indictment that did not state drug quantity, we will apply a plain error analysis; (3) sentencing above an otherwise applicable statutory maximum based on facts that were neither pleaded in an indictment nor proved to a jury beyond a reasonable doubt is plain error; and (4) we should exercise our discretion to notice and correct this plain error in pre-Apprendi cases at least where the defendant did not stipulate to the drug quantity and objected to the standard of proof used by the sentencing court. United States v. Thomas, 274 F.3d 655, 673 (2d Cir.2001) (en banc ).
Because Banks was not sentenced to more than twenty years of imprisonment, he is not entitled to a reduction in his sentence. United States v. Garcia, 240 F.3d 180, 183 (2d Cir.) (holding that calculations of drug quantity by a judge that do not result in a sentence above the maximum sentence for an indeterminate quantity of narcotics raise no constitutional issue), cert. denied, 533 U.S. 960, 121 S.Ct. 2615, 150 L.Ed.2d 769 (2001). Stanley Burrell also does not benefit from Thomas. The district court sentenced Stanley Burrell to concurrent life sentences on the CCE and narcotics conspiracy charges. Even in the absence of a jury finding on narcotics quantity, the court properly could have sentenced Stanley Burrell to life imprisonment on the CCE count. 21 U.S.C. § 848(a); Santana-Madera v. United States, 260 F.3d 133, 141 (2d Cir.2001), cert. denied, 534 U.S. 1083, 122 S.Ct. 817, 151 L.Ed.2d 701 (2002). Both of Michelle Miles' convictions were for narcotics offenses. The court found that her total offense level was 42, requiring that it impose a minimum sentence of thirty years under the Guidelines. Where, as here, a defendant is convicted of two crimes and the sentence to be imposed on the count carrying the maximum penalty is less than the total punishment mandated by the Guidelines, the court must run the sentences consecutively to the extent necessary to achieve the Guidelines punishment. U.S.S.G. § 5G1.2(d). In Miles' case, this requirement would have resulted in the same sentence she actually received, thirty years. Therefore, the court's plain error did not affect Miles' substantial rights, and we need neither notice nor correct it. United States v. McLean, 287 F.3d 127, 136 (2d Cir.2002). Brian Burrell received a life sentence based both on the quantity of drugs the court attributed to him and on his status as a career criminal offender. Without the court's finding of drug quantity, Burrell is subject to a thirty-year maximum sentence if he has even one felony drug conviction prior to the charged narcotics conspiracy. 21 U.S.C. § 841(b)(1)(C). Therefore, we vacate his sentence and remand for resentencing to no more than thirty years of imprisonment.