Opinion ID: 1188928
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: sufficiency of the evidence

Text: A defendant attacking the sufficiency of the evidence used to convict him `faces a nearly insurmountable hurdle.' United States v. Pulido, 69 F.3d 192, 205 (7th Cir.1995) (quoting United States v. Teague, 956 F.2d 1427, 1433 (7th Cir. 1992)). To succeed, Morris must show that, based on the evidence presented at trial, no rational juror could find guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. United States v. Luster, 480 F.3d 551, 555 (7th Cir.2007); United States v. Hach, 162 F.3d 937, 942 (7th Cir.1998) (Only if the record is devoid of evidence from which a jury could find guilt will we reverse.). In conducting this analysis, we view the evidence in the light most favorable to the government. United States v. Richardson, 208 F.3d 626, 631 (7th Cir.2000). Morris's initial sufficiency of the evidence arguments relate to his possession of the drugs and firearm. His remaining challenge is that the evidence was insufficient to find that he possessed the firearm in furtherance of a drug trafficking crime.
All three counts on which the jury convicted Morrispossessing heroin with intent to distribute, see 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1); possessing a firearm in furtherance of a drug trafficking crime, see 18 U.S.C. § 924(c)(1)(A); and possessing a firearm as a convicted felon, see id. § 922(g)(1)involve one common element: possession. Morris now challenges this element with respect to each of his three convictions. For each of these offenses, possession can be either actual or constructive. See United States v. Irby, 558 F.3d 651, 654 (7th Cir.2009) (applying § 841(a)(1)); United States v. Castillo, 406 F.3d 806, 812 (7th Cir.2005) (applying § 924(c)(1)); United States v. Caldwell, 423 F.3d 754, 757-58 (7th Cir.2005) (applying § 922(g)(1)). Constructive possession is a legal fiction whereby an individual is deemed to possess contraband items even when he does not actually have immediate, physical control of the objects, i.e., the individual does not possess them in a literal sense. United States v. Windom, 19 F.3d 1190, 1200 (7th Cir.1994); see also United States v. Kitchen, 57 F.3d 516, 524 n. 2 (7th Cir. 1995) (defining actual possession). Because the government does not contend that Morris actually possessed either the drugs or the gun, we confine our discussion to constructive possession. To determine constructive possession of both the drugs and the gun, we apply the same test. See, e.g., United States v. Kelly, 519 F.3d 355, 361 (7th Cir.2008). Compare Irby, 558 F.3d at 654 (requiring proof of ownership, dominion, or control to demonstrate constructive possession of drugs), with Caldwell, 423 F.3d at 758 (requiring that a person ha[ve] the power ... to exercise dominion and control over a gun). In either case, the government must prove a nexus between the defendant and the relevant item to separate true possessors from mere bystanders. Richardson, 208 F.3d at 632. Proximity to the item, presence on the property where the item is located, or association with a person in actual possession of the item, without more, is not enough to support a finding of constructive possession. Windom, 19 F.3d at 1200 (citing United States v. DiNovo, 523 F.2d 197, 201 (7th Cir.1975)). Instead, the defendant must exercise dominion and control over the item. Irby, 558 F.3d at 654; Kelly, 519 F.3d at 361. The government may prove constructive possession through direct as well as circumstantial evidence. Kelly, 519 F.3d at 361. We turn first to the question of whether Morris constructively possessed the heroin found in the basement at 707 Albert. We then consider whether Morris constructively possessed the heroin and the pistol found in the door of the Chrysler Cirrus.
Upon executing the search warrant at 707 Albert, authorities discovered 23.6 grams of heroin in the basement. Morris argues that the evidence was insufficient to prove the requisite nexus connecting him to these drugs. Such a nexus is typically shown in one of two ways. First, if the government demonstrates that the defendant had exclusive control over the property where the drugs were discovered, one may infer that the defendant constructively possessed the items, including drugs, found on that property. Castillo, 406 F.3d at 812. In this case, however, the government did not rest its arguments at trial on whether Morris possessed such control. Instead, the government focused on the second means of proving a nexus between Morris and the drugs in the basement: substantial connection. In the absence of exclusive control, evidence that a defendant had a substantial connection to the location where contraband was seized is sufficient to establish the nexus between that person and the drugs. See Richardson, 208 F.3d at 632; see also United States v. Brown, 328 F.3d 352, 355 (7th Cir.2003). As we will discuss, we have found a substantial connection in a variety of circumstances, and we conclude that such a connection existed here. In Richardson, 208 F.3d 626, for example, we found the defendant to be substantially connected to a residence when he kept clothes and medicine at the house, received mail there, and admitted that he was the caretaker and landlord of the address. Id. at 632. Similarly, in Kitchen, 57 F.3d 516, we held that the jury was right to find constructive possession when the defendant had received calls at the home where weapons were found, had stated that he lived at that address, and had been seen at the address on numerous occasions. Id. at 520. In addition, investigators located the defendant's clothing, jewelry, and mail at the residence. Id. Finally, the defendant had spent substantial amounts of money repairing the house. Id. The facts of the instant case are not as straightforward as those in Richardson and Kitchen. During the search of 707 Albert, the police did not recover any tangible items linking Morris to the premises. They found no clothing, no personal items, and no mail sent to Morris at that address. Morris claims that the government's case was founded on mere proximity alone and that the absence of tangible evidence linking him to 707 Albert is determinative. In support, Morris relies principally on two cases, Windom, 19 F.3d 1190, and United States v. Herrera, 757 F.2d 144 (7th Cir.1985). In Windom, the government produced no evidence linking the defendant to drugs found in a backpack that was recovered from a house belonging to the defendant's niece. 19 F.3d at 1201. The defendant was in the house when the backpack was discovered, but the court held that his presence alone was not enough to support the jury's conviction. Id. at 1200-01. We reached the same conclusion in Herrera. There, the defendant was arrested after he left a house carrying a brown bag that contained heroin. 757 F.2d at 147. A search of the house he was leaving revealed a locked footlocker containing numerous packages of heroin, a gun, money, a scale, and plastic bags. Id. The district court convicted the defendant of possessing the heroin found in the footlocker. Id. at 148. On appeal, we overturned the conviction related to these drugs, concluding that the government had not shown that the defendant had the ability to exercise dominion and control over them. Id. at 150. The footlocker was locked, the defendant had no key, and the purity of the heroin seized on the defendant's person did not match the purity of the heroin found inside the locker. Id. The only evidence of the defendant's possession of the drugs in the footlocker was his presence on the property where it was located, and that was insufficient. Id. We agree with Morris that his case bears some semblance to Windom and Herrera. There is a dearth of tangible evidence linking Morris to 707 Albert, and we recognize that much of the government's case at trial rested on Morris's proximity to the drugs in the basement. As we mentioned, however, the government may use circumstantial evidence to demonstrate the substantial connection sufficient to prove constructive possession. Kelly, 519 F.3d at 361. And, although proximity alone is not enough to establish constructive possession, the requisite additional evidence, circumstantial though it may be, need not take the form of physical, tangible items that link an individual to a given location. The D.C. Circuit, in words that we find persuasive, has said that proximity coupled with evidence of some other factorincluding connection with [an impermissible item], proof of motive, a gesture implying control, evasive conduct, or a statement indicating involvement in an enterprise is enough to sustain a guilty verdict. United States v. Richardson, 161 F.3d 728, 732 (D.C.Cir.1998) (quotations omitted); see also United States v. Gibbs, 904 F.2d 52, 57 (D.C.Cir.1990). We find that there was ample evidence of these other factors. We begin with Morris's flight from the basement. We have previously identified a defendant's flight as the something more sufficient to overcome the mere presence doctrine. See United States v. Starks, 309 F.3d 1017, 1025 (7th Cir.2002). In Starks, police raided a house and discovered the two defendants in a room with a table full of drugs. Id. at 1019. The men fled, hiding in a closet. Id. at 1020. The house itself was largely devoid of possessions, resulting in no tangible evidence to link the defendants to the house. Id. The defense argued on appeal that mere presence was insufficient to support a finding of possession by one of the defendants. Id. at 1022. In upholding the conviction, we identified the defendant's flight as one factor supporting the jury's verdict. Id. at 1025 (From the very infancy of criminal litigation, juries have been permitted to consider flight as evidence of consciousness of guilt and thus of guilt itself. (quotations omitted)). In the present case, the inference of guilt drawn from Morris's flight is only strengthened when the area from where he was fleeing contained nothing of any substance but the drugs and accompanying paraphernalia. [1] Morris's flight was not the only circumstantial evidence of his substantial connection to 707 Albert. His own words provided more. Morris made two statements indicating a connection with the house. First, following his arrest, Morris told Detective Gambini: This case is dropped. You had no probable cause to get in my house  (emphasis added). Next, according to a written statement provided by Donte Webb, one of Morris's cousins, Morris told Webb that the police had raided one of [Morris's] houses. Such statements certainly give rise to the inference that Morris was substantially connected to 707 Albert. See Starks, 309 F.3d at 1024 (discussing that a link distinguishing mere presence from participation could include the giving of incriminating statements); cf. Richardson, 208 F.3d at 632 (denying a sufficiency-of-the-evidence challenge in part because the defendant admitted to being the landlord of the property); Richardson, 161 F.3d at 732 (indicating that a statement intimating involvement would be enough to support a conviction); Kitchen, 57 F.3d at 520 (denying a sufficiency-of-the-evidence challenge in part because the defendant admitted to living at the address). Other evidence supporting the jury's finding of the requisite connection between Morris and 707 Albert included the frequency of Morris's presence at the house during previous weeks, see Kitchen, 57 F.3d at 520 (noting that the defendant had been seen at the house on numerous occasions), and the Lincoln Town Car parked in the house's garage, which contained a document addressed to Morris and whose key Morris possessed during the traffic stop four days after the search. In addition, police recovered his fingerprint on the money bag that was found in the Town Car. Also, in a search of 707 Albert's garbage, police discovered mail to Morris, albeit not sent to that address. In sum, although the evidence might not have been as persuasive as Morris's name on the lease, his clothes in the closet, or his letters in the mailbox, it provided sufficient circumstantial support for the jury's finding that Morris had a substantial connection to 707 Albert. This connection gave rise to the permissible inference that Morris constructively possessed the drugs contained in its basement. See Starks, 309 F.3d at 1021-22 ([T]he trier of fact is entitled to employ common sense in making reasonable inferences from circumstantial evidence.). Thus, we reject Morris's challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence related to the 23.6 grams of heroin found in 707 Albert, and we turn to the sufficiency of the evidence pertaining to the drugs and firearm found in the Chrysler Cirrus parked in the driveway.
The search warrant executed at 707 Albert also authorized the search of two vehicles, one of which was the Chrysler Cirrus that Morris drove to the house the day of the raid. From storage areas in the Cirrus's driver's-side door, police recovered two small bags of an off-white powdery substance, later identified as 0.09 grams of a mixture containing heroin; a handgun; and a document with Morris's name on it. Again, because the government does not claim that Morris was ever seen handling either the drugs or the gun, Morris challenges the sufficiency of the evidence demonstrating that he constructively possessed the items found in the car. We find this to be a much simpler question than Morris's initial challenge concerning the drugs in 707 Albert's basement. Morris's arguments again rest on the mere presence doctrine. The car was registered in another person's name, and there was evidence that other people drove the vehicle during the days and weeks preceding the search on June 2. Morris's fingerprints were found on neither the firearm nor the bags containing the drugs. That, however, is where the evidence favorable to Morris ends. Detective Gambini testified that he had seen Morris driving the Cirrus on multiple occasions during his surveillance of 707 Albert. On June 2, the day of the raid, Gambini observed Morris in the Cirrus near the house. As Gambini watched, Morris engaged in three separate exchanges with individuals approaching the car, the third of which occurred in 707 Albert's driveway. After the final exchange, Morris exited the car and entered 707 Albert, which authorities raided shortly thereafter. Gambini testified that no one else accessed the car in the interim. This evidence is sufficient to sustain the jury's finding that Morris constructively possessed both the drugs and the firearm found in the Cirrus. Although Gambini did not see what Morris exchanged with his three visitors, it was reasonable for the jury to conclude, particularly given the drugs, the gun, and the document in Morris's name later found in the car, that Gambini witnessed three drug transactions. See Brown, 328 F.3d at 355 (noting that authorities need not catch a defendant red-handed to satisfy the possession requirement); Starks, 309 F.3d at 1021-22 (commenting that juries may use common sense to reach reasonable inferences from circumstantial evidence). That Morris was dealing drugs from the Cirrus and possessed the drugs and gun found in the car is certainly a reasonable inference jurors could draw from these facts. This case bears notable similarity to United States v. Garrett, 903 F.2d 1105 (7th Cir.1990), where we upheld a conviction on a firearms charge when police apprehended a man who was suspected of soliciting a prostitute. Id. at 1107, 1110. The man was arrested just before he entered a vehicle that contained both drugs and a gun; neither the car nor the gun was registered to the defendant. Id. at 1107-08. That the defendant had keys to the car, and that the gun and drugs were on the floor of the driver's side, were facts sufficient to support the conviction. Id. at 1110-12; cf. United States v. Moralez, 964 F.2d 677, 680 (7th Cir.1992) (finding facts even more incriminating than [those] in Garrett  when the defendant, who was apprehended driving a car containing nearly thirty pounds of marijuana, was in complete control and possession of the vehicle). Here, where Morris was seen driving the vehicle on multiple occasions in the days prior to the raid, where he was seen conducting probable drug transactions from the car on the day of the raid, and where he was the vehicle's last known driver, the evidence was sufficient to find that he constructively possessed the heroin and the firearm found in the storage compartments of the car's door. Given these circumstances, that the car was not registered in Morris's name, that other people occasionally had access to the vehicle, and that there were no fingerprints found on the drugs or the gun do nothing to change that conclusion.
Having concluded that Morris constructively possessed the firearm and the drugs, it is a small step, given the facts, to link the two together and conclude that there was ample evidence to convict Morris of possessing that firearm in furtherance of a drug trafficking crime. See 18 U.S.C. § 924(c)(1)(A). Morris argues that the evidence failed to establish a  specific nexus between the particular weapon and the particular drug crime at issue, quoting Castillo, 406 F.3d at 815. Such a nexus is certainly required, but we fail to see what additional evidence the government could have shown short of Morris having had the gun on his person which, as we have made clear, is not necessary. See id. at 812 (noting that a § 924(c) violation can be shown through either actual or constructive possession). To address Morris's claim, we first reiterate the particular drug crime that the jury found furthered by his possession of the firearm. It was described in Count One of the indictment, which alleged possession, with intent to distribute, 23.7 grams of heroin. This amount encompassed both the 23.6 grams of heroin authorities found in 707 Albert and the 0.09 grams of heroin recovered from the Cirrus. Morris attempts to distinguish between the drugs found in the car and those found in the house. In his eyes, the small amount of heroin from the car was not enough to imply any intent to distribute, only to use. The gun, therefore, which the government could link only to that smaller quantity, was not furthering any drug trafficking activity whatsoever. But Morris's argument misses the mark. It is true that 0.09 grams is well below the quantities that the government's expert testified would generally be considered a distributable amount. But such testimony is meant only as a guideline; it is incontrovertible that any amount is distributable when, as here, there is circumstantial evidence that the quantity of drugs, no matter how small, was in fact intended for distribution. That is what the jury must have concluded in this casea reasonable conclusion given that police had just observed Morris engage in three probable drug transactions and later found additional drugs, packaged for resale, in the car from which those transactions occurred. Furthermore, as we just noted, the indictment, which charged Morris with the total amount of heroin discovered from both the house and the car, made no distinction between the two locations where the drugs were located. Implicit in the jury's guilty verdict on Count One was its finding that Morris possessed the quantity of heroin specified thereinwhich included the 0.09 grams from the carfor distribution, not personal use. Cf. United States v. Luciano, 329 F.3d 1, 6 (1st Cir.2003) (concluding that a jury inescapably found that the defendant possessed heroin discovered both on his person and inside his house when the jury's findings as to quantity mathematically mandated such a conclusion); Castillo, 406 F.3d at 818 (discussing Luciano ). Thus, the particular drug crime involved both the drugs from the car and the house, and the statute requires only that the firearm be linked to this crime, not that it be linked to all, or any particular subset of, the underlying drugs. See 18 U.S.C. § 924(c)(1)(A). We turn, then, to the evidence tying the gun to that crime. It was substantial. To begin, the government's expert, Sergeant Marc Welsh, testified that firearms were commonly used by drug dealers for protection from both police and other dealers. [2] The evidence presented comported with Welsh's testimony. The gun, partially concealed by a document bearing Morris's name, was in the driver's door. Morris was the driver. Police watched Morris engage in three exchanges that the jury could reasonably have concluded were drug transactions, the last of which occurred in 707 Albert's driveway, where Morris parked and exited the car. Searches of the house where the car was parked and the car itself revealed 23.6 and 0.09 grams of heroin, respectively. It was entirely reasonable for the jury to conclude that Morris possessed the gun to protect either himself, his drugs, or his money while he trafficked the drugs in the car and the house. Our case law, bolstered by cases from our sister circuits, leaves no room to question the jury's conclusion under such facts. See United States v. Seymour, 519 F.3d 700, 715 (7th Cir.2008) (listing factors useful in analyzing the in furtherance of question, including the type of drug activity being conducted, the firearm's accessibility and proximity to the drugs, and the circumstances under which the firearm was found); Castillo, 406 F.3d at 815 (giving as an example of the required nexus that the specific weapon at issue ... [was] available for the protection of the drug dealer or his drugs); United States v. Gaston, 357 F.3d 77, 83 (D.C.Cir.2004) (concluding that weapons were possessed in furtherance of when they were strategically located for quick and easy accessibility); Luciano, 329 F.3d at 3-4, 6 (upholding an in furtherance of conviction when the defendant was caught dealing drugs outside his apartment but firearms and additional drugs were found inside the apartment). Having reached the end of Morris's arguments relating to the sufficiency of the evidence, we turn to his remaining claims, beginning with his challenge to the court's decision not to instruct the jury on the meaning of in furtherance of.