Opinion ID: 6496058
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Farmer’s Pro Se Arguments

Text: We now attend briefly to Farmer’s pro se arguments. For the sake of organization, we group these arguments by the applicable standard of review.
We can quickly resolve several of Farmer’s pro se bases for appeal under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 12(c)(3). Defendants must move to suppress evidence in a pretrial motion. Fed. R. Crim. P. 12(b)(3)(C). Failure to “meet the deadline for making a Rule 12(b)(3) motion” renders the motion untimely. Fed. R. Crim. P. 12(c)(3). Rule 12(c)(3) permits conditional, plain error review of untimely suppression motions on appeal provided the defendant “shows good cause” for failing to make those arguments below. Id.; see also United States v. Murdock, 491 F.3d 694, 698–99 (7th Cir. 2007). Failure to establish good cause precludes appellate review of new suppression arguments. United States v. Sands, 815 F.3d 1057, 1061 (7th Cir. 2015). Three of Farmer’s pro se arguments are new suppression arguments he failed to present to the district court. First, Farmer claims that, because a state police officer served as an affiant for a federal warrant, “all evidence that was derived from” that “search should have been suppressed as fruits No. 20-3119 17 from a poisoness [sic] tree.” Second, Farmer argues officers told Holodick his name while she was viewing the photographic identification array in 2001, which rendered the identification process “unduly suggestive.” Third, Farmer seeks to suppress evidence obtained from the execution of the May 2001 search warrant. Farmer neither moved to suppress Holodick’s identification or the evidence obtained from the May 2001 search nor, in the case of the search, objected to its admission into evidence at trial. On appeal, Farmer points to no cause, good or otherwise, why he failed to raise these arguments in a timely manner and preserve them for appeal, thus we are precluded from reviewing this issue. Id.
For the first time on appeal, Farmer claims (1) the government engaged in prosecutorial misconduct by characterizing Chris Gootee as a federal agent at trial; (2) the government’s closing argument was improper; (3) the government improperly constructively amended the indictment after trial; and (4) the district court erroneously applied a leadership enhancement at sentencing. Farmer forfeited each of these arguments by failing to present them to the district court and thus we review for plain error. United States v. Jones, 22 F.4th 667, 675 (7th Cir. 2022); United States v. Garcia-Avila, 737 F.3d 484, 491 (7th Cir. 2013). To prevail on plain error review, Farmer must show (1) an error, (2) that is plain, (3) that affected his substantial rights, and (4) that seriously affected the fairness, integrity, or public reputation of the proceedings. Jones, 22 F.4th at 675. Farmer fails to do so here. “When reviewing a claim of prosecutorial misconduct, we first consider whether the remark was improper; then we consider whether it prejudiced the defendant.” Garcia-Avila, 737 18 No. 20-3119 F.3d at 491. “Ultimately, the inquiry turns on whether the improper statement so infected the trial with unfairness as to make the resulting conviction a denial of due process.” Id. (internal quotations omitted). At the start of trial, the government described Gootee as a “federal agent” who would sit at the table with the prosecution. This description was not improper. Although Gootee is an officer with the Hammond Police Department, he is assigned to the Gang Response Investigative Team, an FBI task force which consists of multiple FBI agents and local police officers. Given Gootee’s role on the federal task force, characterizing him as a “federal agent” is not clearly incorrect, and certainly did not “so infect[] the trial with unfairness as to make the resulting conviction a denial of due process.” Id. Even supposing the government’s characterization was improper, Farmer does not explain how he was prejudiced or how his substantial rights were implicated. As to the government’s closing argument, Farmer “must establish not only that the remarks denied him a fair trial, but also that the outcome of proceedings would have been different absent the remarks.” United States v. Turner, 651 F.3d 743, 751 (7th Cir. 2011) (internal quotations omitted). “Improper statements made during closing argument are rarely reversible error.” Garcia-Avila, 737 F.3d at 491 (internal quotations omitted). Apart from listing the pages of the trial transcript containing the government’s closing argument, Farmer fails to articulate what, specifically, he considers improper. Nor does Farmer explain how the closing impacted the outcome of proceedings, other than baldly asserting “[t]he Government improperly lead[] the jury to convict.” Farmer has failed to meet his burden of identifying an error in the government’s closing argument. No. 20-3119 19 Regarding the indictment, constructive amendment occurs when “either the government … , the court … , or both, broadens the possible bases for conviction beyond those presented by the grand jury.” United States v. Perez, 673 F.3d 667, 669 (7th Cir. 2012) (internal quotations omitted). Narrowing an indictment by dropping allegations unnecessary to an offense “clearly contained” within the indictment does not amount to unconstitutional amendment and, indeed, is a common, desirable practice which avoids potential jury confusion. Id. at 669–70 (citing United States v. Miller, 471 U.S. 130, 144 (1985)). That is precisely what occurred here. At the conclusion of evidence, the district court asked the government to redact the names of co-defendants and acts left unmentioned at trial to avoid confusing the jury. The government did not err in doing so. At sentencing, the district court applied a 4-level leadership enhancement to Farmer’s base offense level under U.S.S.G. § 3B1.1(a). Such an enhancement is appropriate if Farmer “was an organizer or leader of a criminal activity.” U.S.S.G. § 3B1.1(a). Sentencing courts must “find by a preponderance that the facts support a sentencing enhancement.” United States v. Colon, 919 F.3d 510, 517 (7th Cir. 2019). Although trial evidence supports such an enhancement, the factual basis at sentencing does not. While the PSR describes the leadership structure of the Latin Kings generally, it does not state Farmer was himself a leader, nor does any of the activity ascribed to Farmer in the PSR hint at his leadership role. At sentencing, the district court adopted the PSR wholesale and did not make independent factual findings as to Farmer’s leadership status. 20 No. 20-3119 Any error, however, is harmless and does not implicate Farmer’s substantial rights. Farmer’s base offense level was 43, the maximum possible under the Guidelines. See U.S.S.G. § 5A n.2 (“In rare cases, a total offense level of … more than 43 may result from application of the guidelines. … An offense level of more than 43 is to be treated as an offense level of 43.”). The § 3B1.1 leadership enhancement, then, had no impact on Farmer’s Guidelines range or his substantial rights. See United States v. Thomas, 897 F.3d 807, 817 (7th Cir. 2018) (“[A] guideline error that does not actually affect the final guideline range calculated by the court … d[oes] not affect [the defendant’s] substantial rights or undermine confidence in the proceedings and their final result.”).
Farmer challenges the district court’s refusal to instruct the jury on the corroboration rule. We review such arguments for abuse of discretion with deference to “the broad discretion of the district court to accept or reject a proposed jury instruction so long as the essential points are covered by the instructions given.” United States v. McDowell, 687 F.3d 904, 912 (7th Cir. 2012) (internal quotations omitted). While it is “well established that a defendant cannot be convicted based solely on his own uncorroborated statement[,]” “the district court is not obligated to instruct the jury on the requirement of corroboration.” Id. That decision is “better left to the trial judge” as “the standard instructions regarding the government’s burden of proof and the presumption of innocence are generally sufficient.” Id. First, the district court properly instructed the jury on the presumption of innocence and the government’s burden of proof, giving the Seventh Circuit pattern criminal jury No. 20-3119 21 instructions almost verbatim. See The William J. Bauer Pattern Criminal Jury Instructions of the Seventh Circuit, Presumption of Innocence/Burden of Proof (2020 Ed.). Second, as the district court observed, Farmer’s conviction did not turn on a single, uncorroborated admission of criminal activity. Instead, Farmer confessed to multiple people multiple times he killed Lowry and Siegers in service of his Latin Kings affiliation. In this context, the district court’s decision to rely upon the pattern jury instructions is not an abuse of its discretion.
Farmer disputes the district court’s denial of his motion to suppress Holodick’s composite sketch. Broadly, Farmer claims the sketch resulted from “unduly suggestive” procedures, the police should have solicited input from multiple eyewitnesses, and Holodick did not enjoy a sufficiently clear view of his face to generate a reliable identification. We review a district court’s denial of a motion to suppress an identification de novo with “due deference to the district court’s findings of historical fact.” United States v. Vines, 9 F.4th 500, 506 (7th Cir. 2021). Eyewitness identifications “tainted by police arrangement” violate the due process clause and must be suppressed. Perry v. New Hampshire, 565 U.S. 228, 238 (2012). To determine whether suppression is necessary, courts first evaluate whether officers used a procedure “that is both suggestive and unnecessary.” Id. at 238–39. Second, courts “assess, on a case-by-case basis, whether improper police conduct created a substantial likelihood of misidentification.” Sexton v. Beaudreaux, 138 S. Ct. 2555, 2559 (2018) (internal quotations omitted). In evaluating whether such a likelihood exists, courts consider “the opportunity of the witness to view the 22 No. 20-3119 criminal at the time of the crime, the witness’ degree of attention, the accuracy of his prior description of the criminal, the level of certainty demonstrated at the confrontation, and the time between the crime and the confrontation.” Id. Farmer fails at the first step to demonstrate the procedure used to generate Holodick’s composite sketch was “suggestive and unnecessary.” First, Ellis did not know of Farmer and no officer suspected Farmer or showed Holodick a picture of Farmer when the sketch was created. Second, although Farmer argues other witnesses should have contributed to creating the sketch, Holodick was the only witness who saw any part of his face. Third, Holodick and Ellis testified to a long, iterative process to create the sketch where Holodick had the ultimate control over the final product. The district court properly declined to suppress Holodick’s composite sketch.