Opinion ID: 714835
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Mr. Mills' conviction on Count XXV

Text: 20 Mr. Mills was convicted on Count XXV of the indictment which alleged that, on May 11, 1993, he possessed crack cocaine with the intent to distribute. 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1). The only evidence supporting his conviction, he argues, is the uncorroborated confession he gave following his arrest. According to testimony presented at trial, Mr. Mills confessed that on May 11, 1993, while trying to elude police, he threw from his car a gym bag containing a half kilogram of crack cocaine. 21 Mr. Mills submits that this uncorroborated evidence is insufficient to support his conviction on Count XXV. As he notes, the officers who chased him never saw anything thrown from the car, and the bag was never recovered. Furthermore, at the suppression hearing, Mr. Mills denied making the incriminating statement. 22 Although Mr. Mills correctly points out that a conviction may not rest on the uncorroborated confession of the accused, Wong Sun v. United States, 371 U.S. 471, 488-89, 83 S.Ct. 407, 417-18, 9 L.Ed.2d 441 (1963), the confession given by Mr. Mills was supported by adequate, corroborating evidence from which a rational jury could conclude that he was guilty of the crime charged in Count XXV. The prosecution introduced into evidence a phone conversation among Mr. Banks (who was incarcerated), Mr. Shipp and Ms. Boguille that had been recorded on May 11, 1993, the date of the crime alleged in Count XXV. 4 In that recording, Mr. Mills' codefendants can be heard discussing the circumstances surrounding his arrest and the whereabouts of the candy--a phrase that served as a code word for the crack cocaine sold by the conspiracy. Furthermore, the officer who arrested Mr. Mills on May 11 testified concerning Mr. Mills' reckless driving during the car chase; the government argued in its closing argument that Mr. Mills' driving, following only a minor traffic violation, indicated that he was attempting to elude the police and get rid of the drugs in his possession. With this corroboration, we cannot hold that the jury's verdict was unsupported by the evidence. Mr. Mills' conviction on Count XXV is upheld. 23