Opinion ID: 3062152
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: sufficiency of the evidence

Text: Patterson next raises two challenges to the sufficiency of the evidence used by the government at various stages of its case against him. First, he challenges the district court’s finding at a pretrial James hearing that the government had established, by a preponderance of the evidence, the existence of a conspiracy to distribute cocaine, such that statements made between the co-conspirators in furtherance of the conspiracy could be admitted under this exception to the hearsay rule. See Fed. R. Evid. 801(d)(2)(E). Patterson alleges this finding was clearly erroneous. Second, Patterson challenges the sufficiency of the evidence used to convict him of the cocaine conspiracy charge. Our evaluation of these two claims implicates different standards of review. First, as to the challenge related to the James hearing, in order to admit statements under the co-conspirator exception to the hearsay rule, the district court had to determine: “(1) by a preponderance of the evidence, a conspiracy existed, (2) the declarant and the defendant were both members of the conspiracy, and (3) the statements were made in the course of and in furtherance of the conspiracy.” United States v. Urena, 27 F.3d 1487, 1490 (10th Cir. 1994) (citation omitted). We review the district court’s findings of fact with respect to these three matters for clear error. United States v. Caro, 965 F.2d 1548, 1557 (10th Cir. 1992). -14- Second, as to the evidence used to convict Patterson of the cocaine conspiracy charge, the government was required to show: (1) Patterson and at least one other person agreed to distribute cocaine, (2) Patterson knew the essential objectives of the conspiracy, (3) Patterson knowingly and voluntarily became a part of the conspiracy, and (4) there was interdependence among the members of the conspiracy. See, e.g., United States v. Hernandez, 509 F.3d 1290, 1295 (10th Cir. 2007). Because Patterson was convicted on this charge, we review the evidence presented at trial in the light most favorable to the government to determine if a reasonable juror could find beyond a reasonable doubt from the evidence, along with reasonable inferences therefrom, that Patterson was guilty. See, e.g., United States v. Earls, 42 F.3d 1321, 1324 (10th Cir. 1994). The evidence presented at the James hearing comprised testimony from Special Agent Smith, who discussed both his interpretation of a number of wiretapped phone calls between various co-conspirators and his surveillance of the co-conspirators’ movements during the course of the conspiracy. From this evidence, the district court made the following factual finding: By a preponderance of the evidence, the intercepted calls demonstrate the existence of an agreement among Redd, Patterson and others to obtain and distribute narcotics. Redd, Patterson and other persons worked together to obtain drugs, obtain payment or financing for the sale of drugs, discussed how to use cell phones and coded language to avoid police investigations, how the drugs should be priced, and identif[ied] unreliable customers. Contrary to the -15- suggestions of Patterson, the telephone calls are neither the innocuous conversations of casual acquaintances, nor unnecessarily redundant or repetitive, since the collective nature of the evidence is necessary to demonstrate the nature, context, and duration of the conspiratorial agreement. R., Vol. I, at 265. Our review of the record, especially the detailed evidence regarding coded exchanges submitted by the government at the James hearing, convinces us that this factual finding as to the existence of a conspiracy was not clearly erroneous. Patterson’s attacks on this finding mainly involve conclusory allegations about how the above finding was a foregone conclusion and how Agent Smith’s testimony was unsubstantiated. He also renews the suggestions he made in the district court that the only possible interpretation of the wiretapped conversations is that they were unrelated to drug dealing. None of these contentions persuade us that the district court reached the incorrect result, especially on review for clear error. Patterson also suggests the government failed to disprove that the conspiracy only involved a mere buyer-seller relationship between Redd and Patterson. As Patterson notes, in United States v. McIntyre, 836 F.2d 467 (10th Cir. 1987), we reversed a conviction for a drug distribution conspiracy where the government failed to show that a defendant was not merely at the end of a drug distribution chain and had no intention to distribute the cocaine for profit. Yet McIntyre is distinguishable from the facts of this case: in contrast to the defendant in McIntyre, there is substantial evidence that Patterson was -16- involved in and knew about the wider drug conspiracy scheme and intended to further distribute the drugs. For example, Patterson contacted Redd and attempted to arrange to purchase large quantities of cocaine, on credit, to finance continued drug-dealing operations. Moreover, unlike in McIntyre, Patterson was also convicted for his involvement in a related marijuana distribution scheme, a conviction he does not challenge on appeal. In any case, it was not clearly erroneous for the district court to conclude that Patterson was more than a buyer of cocaine. See also United States v. Cornelius, 696 F.3d 1307, 1330 n.5 (10th Cir. 2012) (distinguishing McIntyre on similar grounds). Likewise, Patterson’s attack on the sufficiency of the evidence used to convict him of the cocaine conspiracy charge also fails. As noted above, the evidence presented at trial against Patterson comprised much of the same evidence used at the James hearing, including many of the same wiretapped conversations and similar testimony from Special Agent Smith. In addition, the government offered the testimony of two cooperating witnesses and a jailhouse informant who all provided testimony implicating Patterson in the cocaine distribution operation. Patterson resists this conclusion mainly by attempting to reassert the same arguments that failed to convince the jury: he attacks the credibility of Agent Smith and the cooperating witnesses, he selectively cites the record in an attempt to point to purported weaknesses in the government’s case, he alleges myriad -17- injustices visited upon him by the DEA and prosecutors, and he suggests that all of these abuses undermined his due process rights. None of these largely conclusory allegations convince us to disturb the jury’s verdict. Viewed in the light most favorable to the government, a rational juror could draw the conclusion from this evidence that Patterson was involved in a conspiracy to distribute cocaine. 6