Opinion ID: 1208474
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: James's Appeal

Text: James first argues that the district court should have granted the motion he made to dismiss his case with prejudice under the Speedy Trial Act, 18 U.S.C. § 3161. In federal prosecutions, the Speedy Trial Act provides that a defendant's trial must commence within seventy days of the filing date of the information or indictment, or of the defendant's initial appearance, whichever comes later. 18 U.S.C. § 3161(c). James initially appeared on January 19, 2007 and his trial commenced on September 24, 2007, so he maintains that a Speedy Trial Act violation occurred. We review James's challenge de novo. See United States v. Rollins, 544 F.3d 820, 829 (7th Cir.2008). Although James's trial commenced more than seventy calendar days after his initial appearance, the Speedy Trial Act specifically excludes certain periods of delay from the time within which a trial must begin. 18 U.S.C. § 3161(h) (2008). Two of these exceptions are particularly relevant in our case. First, the Act specifically excludes: A reasonable period of delay when the defendant is joined for trial with a codefendant as to whom the time for trial has not run and no motion for severance has been granted. 18 U.S.C. § 3161(h)(6); see also Rollins, 544 F.3d at 829 (An excludable delay of one defendant may be excludable as to all defendants, absent severance.). After James's initial appearance, the grand jury returned a superseding indictment on March 8, 2007 that added additional defendants and charged them, as well as James, with conspiring to sell crack cocaine. Codefendant Harris made his initial appearance on May 1, 2007. Therefore, under § 3161(h)(6), the time from January 19 to May 1 is excluded from the speedy trial computation if it was reasonable, and James makes no argument that the three and one-half month delay until Harris's appearance was unreasonable. Cf. Rollins, 544 F.3d at 829 (stating that five and one-half month period until codefendant's initial appearance not unduly long). Our decision in United States v. Asubonteng, 895 F.2d 424, 426 (7th Cir.1990), does not direct otherwise. We did not exclude time in Asubonteng between the initial and superseding indictment from the speedy trial computation, but we did not do so because that case involved only a single defendant. Here, though, because the superseding indictment added additional defendants, the relevant document that marks the beginning of the speedy trial calculation is the superseding indictment, not the initial indictment. See Henderson v. United States, 476 U.S. 321, 323 n. 2, 106 S.Ct. 1871, 90 L.Ed.2d 299 (1986); see also United States v. Farmer, 543 F.3d 363, 368 (7th Cir.2008) (When more than one defendant is charged in an indictment, the Speedy Trial clock begins to run on the date of the last co-defendant's initial appearance, which is usually arraignment.). The days through May 1, 2007 did not count against the seventy-day limit. The continuances James himself requested further kept the speedy trial clock from running. The Speedy Trial Act also specifically excludes from the time computation: Any period of delay resulting from a continuance granted ... at the request of the defendant or his counsel ..., if the judge granted such continuance on the basis of his findings that the ends of justice served by taking such action outweigh the best interest of the public and the defendant in a speedy trial. 18 U.S.C. § 3161(h)(3)(7)(A). If the district court is inclined to grant a continuance under this provision, it must also set forth its reasons for finding that the ends of justice served by the granting of such continuance outweigh the best interests of the public and the defendant in a speedy trial. Id. On April 18, 2007, even before Harris made his initial appearance, James filed a motion to continue his trial. In support of the motion, counsel stated that he needed additional time to review discovery, confer with James and prepare his defense. The district court granted James's motion and continued the trial until July 2, 2007. Before July 2 arrived, James filed another motion to continue his trial. The district court granted that motion as well and continued the trial until August 20. [1] The district court specifically found during each grant that a failure to grant the motion would likely result in a miscarriage of justice and that the ends of justice warranted the continuances. Therefore, the additional time resulting from James's own requests to continue the trial are excluded. The days after August 20 counted toward the seventy-day limit, but the trial's commencement on September 24 meant that it fell within the time allowed under the Act. No Speedy Trial Act violation occurred.
James also argues that insufficient evidence supports his conviction for conspiring to distribute crack cocaine. When reviewing a challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence supporting a verdict, we ask 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 beyond a reasonable doubt. United States v. Seymour, 519 F.3d 700, 714 (7th Cir.2008). We will overturn the jury's guilty verdict only if `the record contains no evidence, regardless of how it is weighed,' from which the jury could have found beyond a reasonable doubt that James was guilty of conspiring to sell crack cocaine. United States v. James, 540 F.3d 702, 706 (7th Cir.2008) (quoting United States v. Gougis, 432 F.3d 735, 743-44 (7th Cir.2005)). James does not dispute that he was a crack cocaine dealer. Instead, he maintains that he was not a member of a conspiracy to sell crack. The essence of a conspiracy is an agreement between two or more people to engage in criminal activity. United States v. Zaragoza, 543 F.3d 943, 947 (7th Cir.2008). Simple buy-sell transactions are not enough to constitute the separate criminal object necessary for a conspiracy conviction, so the fact that James sold crack is not enough. See id. In this case, sufficient evidence supports the jury's conclusion that James conspired with Morrow, Harris, and others to distribute crack cocaine. The jury could have concluded that James and the other indicted co-conspirators depended on each other to further their drug-trafficking goals. See James, 540 F.3d at 707. That evidence included that members of the conspiracy obtained their crack cocaine together, from Morrow's sources in Memphis and St. Louis. Morrow also referred customers to Harris when he ran out of crack cocaine. See id. (referring customers to others' houses if supply was low supports conclusion that conspiracy existed). The jury also heard evidence of James's participation in the conspiracy and of how he worked to further the conspiracy. In United States v. Haywood, 324 F.3d 514, 517 (7th Cir.2003), we found sufficient evidence supported a conspiracy conviction where two alleged coconspirators pooled their money and shared rides ... in order to buy inexpensive crack, meaning that each could run a cheaper operation  and earn higher profits  if the other succeeded. That is true here as well. The jury heard that James pooled his money with that of Harris, Morrow, and the other alleged co-conspirators to buy larger amounts of crack cocaine from outside the state for resale. As in Haywood, James and the others pooled their money and shared rides to buy cheaper crack, meaning that each could earn more if the others succeeded. The out of state purchases happened at least biweekly, if not more, for several years, with all involved knowing that the crack cocaine would be resold. Although it is not clear from the record exactly how long James was involved with the other defendants, it is clear that it was far from a onetime occurrence. Notably, he tried to recruit others to join Morrow, Harris, and the others who were pooling their money together. A dealer who had been obtaining his crack from another source testified that James tried to talk him into going in with Morrow, Harris, and James to purchase crack in Memphis, saying he could get it for a better price than the other dealer's current supplier. James referred to his group as the Memphis crew. Although the offer was declined, a few weeks later, James, with Morrow present, again unsuccessfully tried to persuade the same dealer to join his team. Also, from another witness's testimony that Harris's response to a request to buy crack cocaine was that he needed to wait for Morrow and James to return with the drugs, the jury could have concluded that James at least occasionally went along on the drug-purchasing trips. The jury therefore had sufficient evidence to find that James was a member of a conspiracy to distribute crack cocaine. James emphasizes a statement in one of our previous cases that to find a conspiracy, we are looking for evidence of a prolonged and actively pursued course of sales coupled with the seller's knowledge of and a shared stake in the buyer's illegal venture. United States v. Contreras, 249 F.3d 595, 599 (7th Cir.2001) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). In Contreras, we were distinguishing a conspiracy from a mere buyer-seller relationship, the latter meaning a situation where one person merely buys drugs from another, which is insufficient to find a conspiracy. See id. at 598-99. As we discussed, James and his co-conspirators put their money and transportation resources together for an extended period of time, thereby having a stake in each other's success, see Haywood, 324 F.3d at 517, and knowing that the others intended to resell the crack cocaine. James may have had only a buyer-seller relationship with his customers, but the jury could have found he was involved in a conspiracy with Morrow, Harris, and the other indicted coconspirators rather than a simple buyerseller relationship. See United States v. Williams, 298 F.3d 688, 692 (7th Cir.2002). Sufficient evidence supports James's conspiracy conviction.
James's final argument is that we should remand his case to ensure that the district court understood its ability to fashion a sentence in light of the Supreme Court's decision in Kimbrough v. United States, 552 U.S. 85, 128 S.Ct. 558, 169 L.Ed.2d 481 (2007), which the Court decided before James's sentencing hearing. We decline to do so because any disagreement with the crack cocaine guidelines would not have impacted James's sentence. Had there not been an applicable statutory minimum, James's advisory guidelines imprisonment range would have been 188 to 235 months. This range was calculated using guidelines for crack cocaine offenses and was higher than the range for powder cocaine offenses involving similar quantities. But, because his offense involved more than 50 grams of cocaine base and he had a prior felony drug conviction, James was subject to a statutory minimum of 240 months' imprisonment on his conspiracy conviction. See 21 U.S.C. §§ 841(b)(1)(A)(iii), 846, 851. After Kimbrough, sentencing courts are still bound by the minimum sentences set forth in the United States Code, Kimbrough, 128 S.Ct. at 573, so the district court had to sentence James to at least 240 months. During the sentencing hearing, the district court recognized the statutory minimum and then explained why it decided to sentence James to 295 months' imprisonment, nearly five years above the minimum. This explanation included a discussion of James's past, which contained a state-court murder conviction, multiple problems with the law, and a history of disobeying court orders. In that light, the district court concluded that a 295-month sentence was necessary to deter James from committing future crimes and to protect the public. Any disagreement the district court might have had with the crack cocaine guidelines would not have impacted James's sentence. The crack and powder guidelines ranges were both below the statutory minimum. So even if the district court had been inclined to treat a crack cocaine offense equivalent to a powder cocaine one, it would not have made a difference here as the higher 240-month statutory minimum took precedence and the district court explained why it decided to impose a sentence well above that minimum. Cf. United States v. Padilla, 520 F.3d 766 (7th Cir.2008) (vacating above-minimum sentence and remanding where sentencing took place before Kimbrough and it was unclear whether court would have sentenced differently in its wake). Therefore, James is not entitled to the limited remand under United States v. Taylor, 520 F.3d 746 (7th Cir.2008), that he seeks. Finally, we note that James filed a pro se statement with undeveloped claims. If James wishes to pursue his ineffective assistance of counsel claim, it would best be brought in a proceeding under 28 U.S.C. § 2255. See United States v. Chavers, 515 F.3d 722, 726 (7th Cir.2008); United States v. Turcotte, 405 F.3d 515, 537 (7th Cir.2005).