Opinion ID: 2798232
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: sufficiency of the evidence

Text: We review a sufficiency of the evidence claim do novo and will reverse only if no reasonable jury could have found Thibeaux guilty, viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the jury’s verdict. See, e.g., United States v. Cowling, 648 F.3d 690, 700 (8th Cir. 2011), cert. denied, 132 S. Ct. 1905 (2012). Thibeaux stipulated that he had previously been convicted of a crime punishable by a term of imprisonment exceeding one year, and that the firearm in question was manufactured in Argentina. Thus, as in many felon-in-possession cases, the issue at trial was whether Thibeaux knowingly possessed the firearm. See id. The government’s first witness at the August 2013 trial was Geraldine Scott. She testified that she awoke to the sound of a woman’s screams outside her home on Montgall Avenue at 2:00 a.m. on February 22, 2013, the night of a heavy snowstorm. She called 911, looked out her bedroom window, and reported that two men and a woman were running around a vehicle in the street. One man, wearing “like a black and white jacket,” was pointing a handgun at the other man. Scott testified the trio went into a house across the street, then the other man and the woman came out, got in the vehicle, and backed it down Montgall Avenue, a one-way street, until it got stuck in the snow at a nearby intersection. “The guy in the white jacket came out later” and went to the intersection where the car was. Scott viewed the police officers’ dash cam video of the events after the officers arrived, listened to her recorded call to the 911 operator, and positively identified Thibeaux as the man in the white jacket she saw with a gun. On cross examination, Scott testified that she was first asked if she could make an identification a few weeks before trial. -2- The next witness, Field Training Officer Ryan Kaighen of the Kansas City Police Department, testified that he drove the lead patrol car to the scene of the reported disturbance involving a person armed with a gun. Kaighen’s passenger was his probationary police officer trainee, Kameron Hylton, who was put in charge of the scene under Officer Kaighen’s direction. Their patrol car was equipped with a stationary dash camera that recorded the subsequent events. As the Officers approached, they observed a maroon SUV stuck in the snow at the intersection of Montgall Avenue and 25th Street, facing to their right down Montgall. Two males and one female were outside the passenger side of the vehicle. The two males were later identified as Mario Thibeaux and Jermaine Murray. Thibeaux was wearing a bright neon safety vest. Murray was wearing a heavy beige coat over a black shirt or jacket. As the patrol car neared, Murray and Thibeaux moved to the front of the SUV. The Officers exited the car and commanded everyone to place their hands in the air and approach. The woman complied immediately. Murray moved around the front of the vehicle to the driver’s side with a shovel and paused near the driver’s side front tire. Thibeaux came forward and initially put his hands in the air, then put his right hand into his front pocket, turned his back on the Officers, and moved along the rear of the vehicle. Kaighen testified that, alarmed by Thibeaux’s actions, he drew his weapon and moved to the left from the driver’s side of the patrol car to a snowbank, where he had a full view of Thibeaux at the rear of the SUV. Kaighen saw Thibeaux reach into his pocket and toss a “black object” along the driver’s side of the SUV. The dash cam video, taken from the right side of the patrol car’s front windshield, shows Thibeaux making a tossing motion as he moved away from the Officers along the rear of the SUV, but what Thibeaux tossed (if anything) cannot be seen. When all three persons had been secured, Kaighen walked to the driver’s side of the SUV and found a handgun laying “on top of the snow with no snow covering it, right next to the -3- driver’s side of the vehicle near the front wheel,” near where Murray briefly stood when the officers first arrived. Kaighen testified that he could only see that Thibeaux threw a black object, but there were no other items on the ground. Kaighen left the gun in the snow for Hylton to recover. Hylton testified that when he exited the patrol car on the passenger side, he kept his eyes on Murray, had an unobstructed view of Murray’s hands as he came from the far side of the SUV, and did not see him drop or throw anything. At Kaighen’s direction, Hylton recovered the black gun lying on top of the snow on the driver’s side of the SUV and unloaded it. Hylton testified that he did not know who had thrown the gun but understood from their conversation that Kaighen believed Thibeaux had thrown the gun. On cross exam, Hylton was shown the video and agreed he recovered the gun where Murray had been standing. Hylton’s incident report did not include the fact that Murray had moved to the driver’s side of the vehicle, paused there, and did not comply with the Officers’ commands for twenty or thirty seconds. When Murray was later searched, a glass vial containing PCP was found in his left front pocket. The recovered gun was a Bersa Piccola Thunder Semiautomatic .380, loaded with one live round and a magazine containing fifteen rounds. A forensic expert testified that he took two swabs from the firearm but was unable to match the genetic profiles to Murray or Thibeaux, which was not uncommon. After the government rested, the defense called Police Officer Elizabeth Clark, who testified that on March 30, 2013 she initiated a traffic stop of a vehicle registered to Ashley Robinson. The only occupant, a black male with dreadlocks, drove off, crashed the vehicle into a fence, and fled. Officer Clark searched the vehicle, finding a glass vial believed to contain PCP, a nine millimeter Bersa Thunder 9 Compact Pro handgun, and a driver’s license belonging to Jermaine Murray. The government’s rebuttal witness testified -4- that Bersa handguns are available at most gun shops in Kansas City and throughout the United States. On appeal, Thibeaux argues the evidence was insufficient because the dash cam video shows Murray at the place where the firearm was recovered, Murray had a motive to drop the gun because he was a felon then in possession of PCP, and Murray was involved in a similar incident involving PCP and a Bersa handgun a few weeks later. Thibeaux argues no one saw him throw a gun, and the gun’s position lying on top of the snow suggests it was dropped and not thrown. He challenges Geraldine Scott’s credibility because she was not contacted until a few weeks before trial and did not mention Thibeaux’s conspicuous neon safety vest to the 911 operator. Thibeaux in effect asks us to re-assess Geraldine Scott’s credibility and Officer Kaighen’s description of the events. But this would be contrary to the standard governing our review of a jury verdict. “We do not weigh the evidence or assess the credibility of the witnesses. The jury has the responsibility of resolving conflicts or contradictions in testimony, and we resolve any credibility issues in favor of the verdict.” United States v. Augustine, 663 F.3d 367, 373 (8th Cir. 2011). During its deliberations, the jury twice asked to review the most relevant segments of the dash cam video before returning a guilty verdict. The video confirmed that Thibeaux ignored the Officers’ commands by putting his hand in his pocket, walking away from the Officers, and making a throwing motion. The jury heard Kaighen testify that he positioned himself for a clearer view than the video and saw Thibeaux throw a black object in the direction where the gun was found. They heard Hylton testify he watched Murray’s hands. Particularly in light of Geraldine Scott’s positive identification, this was sufficient evidence from which a reasonable jury could find beyond a reasonable doubt that Thibeaux had been in possession of the gun found in the snow. The jury rejected Thibeaux’s plausible argument that the evidence pointed more strongly to Murray being the one who discarded the handgun. -5- “Where a reasonable-minded jury could have found evidence sufficient to convict, we will not disturb the verdict just because a different jury might have reached a different conclusion.” United States v. Peters, 462 F.3d 953, 958-59 (8th Cir. 2006); see United States v. Walker, 393 F.3d 842, 847 (8th Cir.), cert. denied, 546 U.S. 953 (2005); United States v. Anderson, 78 F.3d 420, 422 (8th Cir. 1996).