Opinion ID: 722508
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Argument for Specific Instruction About Suppliers

Text: 72 Williams-Davis, Nugent, and Darryl Williams argue that the district court should have instructed the jury that it could not consider various drug suppliers--Alvin Buckhalter, Sonny Knox, Jaime (Jimmy) and Billy Bynoe, a man named Young Lew, and Claude Juggins--among those that they supervised or managed for purposes of triggering liability under the Continuing Criminal Enterprise statute, 21 U.S.C. § 848. Their basic theory is that suppliers cannot, in the nature of things, occupy the sort of subordinate or managee position necessary under the statute. Section 848 defines continuing criminal enterprise as follows: 73 For purposes of subsection (a) of this section, a person is engaged in a continuing criminal enterprise if-- 74 (1) he violates any provision of this subchapter or subchapter II of this chapter the punishment for which is a felony, and 75 (2) such violation is a part of a continuing series of violations of this subchapter or subchapter II of this chapter-- 76 (A) which are undertaken by such person in concert with five or more other persons with respect to whom such person occupies a position of organizer, a supervisory position, or any other position of management, and 77 (B) from which such person obtains substantial income or resources. 78 21 U.S.C. § 848(c) (emphasis added). Because appellants did not object to the instruction on this issue (indeed, their proposed instruction differed only slightly from what the trial court gave), review is for plain error only. 79 On its face the language of § 848(c) does not seem to suggest that suppliers are per se excluded from the circle of possible managees. If a supplier appears generally to take specific direction from his customer, in a manner indistinguishable from that of other subordinates, we do not see why the role of supplier should make a difference. Certainly we do not think Congress intended the courts to limit the managerial relationship to persons in the same firm as the defendant. Vertical relationships in the world of criminal enterprises do not seem as readily divisible among the various possibilities--single firm (with an employer-employee relation), longterm agency relations, longterm contracting and spot contracting--as are those of the lawful economy. If the defendant specifies a person's activities in adequate detail, cf. United States v. Delgado, 4 F.3d 780, 785 (9th Cir.1993), that should be enough. 80 Appellants' theory excluding suppliers turns on what strikes us as too broad a reading of two cases from the Ninth Circuit, United States v. Jerome, 942 F.2d 1328 (9th Cir.1991), and Delgado. In Jerome, 942 F.2d at 1331, the court sensibly read the statutory language or any other position of management to mean that an organizer must exercise some sort of managerial responsibility. The later decision in Delgado explained the outcome as a matter of syntax. Applying a [319 U.S.App.D.C. 286] sort of reverse ejusdem generis (where the general term reflects back on the more specific rather than the other way around), it said that the phrase A, B, or any other C indicates that A is a subset of C, so that the reference in § 848(c) to an organizer or a holder of a supervisory position requires some sort of managerial capacity. Delgado, 4 F.3d at 786. Jerome went on to say that a defendant does not qualify as a manager simply by setting up a system of supply, and that [t]o be an organizer within the sense of the statute more is required than simply being a steady customer. 942 F.2d at 1331. On the evidence presented in that case, two suppliers proffered by the government as managees could not count as such. Similarly, in Delgado, the court held that a dealer's customers could not count toward the five without further evidence of a defendant's management, but emphasized that an organizer did not have to control others--just manage them. 4 F.3d at 785. 81 Thus Jerome and Delgado simply require an actual managerial relationship, a requirement that the Ninth Circuit said was not displaced for suppliers or customers. Just so. Cases in this circuit and another agree. United States v. Mitchell, 49 F.3d 769, 772 (D.C.Cir.1995); United States v. Ward, 37 F.3d 243, 248 (6th Cir.1994). But the analysis does nothing to preclude suppliers from counting if their conduct is managed closely enough. Cf. United States v. Phibbs, 999 F.2d 1053, 1086 (6th Cir.1993) (finding no error in trial court's refusal to charge that mere buyer-seller relation was not enough to establish management relation, as none of the people the government said defendant had managed were mere buyers or sellers). Indeed, the evidence shows that Juggins may well have been managed by at least Williams-Davis and Nugent. Juggins testified that he would get money from Williams-Davis and Nugent to give to Jimmy Bynoe for cocaine, and would typically hold the cocaine at his apartment for either of the two to pick up. On occasion, however, he would take the drugs to them or to someone else at their direction. He was paid as Williams-Davis directed. 82 Appellants also argue that the district court should have given the jurors a specific instruction requiring them to agree unanimously on the identity of each of the five people whom any defendant managed. Our circuit has rejected any such requirement. United States v. Harris, 959 F.2d 246, 254-55 (D.C.Cir.1992). In Jerome the court applied a different rule in different circumstances, requiring such an instruction where the prosecutor had submitted a specific list of names to the jury, some of whom could not properly have been found to be managees. 942 F.2d at 1331. As that circumstance is not present here, we needn't consider whether we would distinguish Harris on that ground. 83 Appellants object that the potential for juror confusion was increased by references in the prosecutor's closing statement that, appellants say, invited the jurors to find suppliers to be managees, and by the length and complexity of the trial. In fact the references that appellants regard as inviting such a finding seem much more naturally understood as referring to defendants' local flunkies, not to their remote suppliers: 84 It is the entire group I told you about at the start. From the runners to the lieutenants to the people who ran the stash houses to the people who brought the drugs in to the people who banked the money to the people who bought the cars to the people who brought the weapons in to the people who did the murders. Ladies and gentlemen, this is what shows they were a large drug conspiracy; that they were a continuing criminal enterprise operating here in the streets of Washington, D.C. 85 (Emphasis added.) As to the length and complexity of the trial, it is hardly the government's fault that the appellants chose to run a large, complex drug operation for at least seven years. In its brief, the government points to 43 people identified at trial as either lieutenants, runners, packagers, or transporters, all of whom could be considered managees. Under the circumstances, the likelihood that any of the jurors relied on a non-managed supplier to reach the number five is remote indeed.[319 U.S.App.D.C. 287] B. Ex Post Facto Claim 86 Appellants argue that the trial court's refusal to give a requested charge on the timing of their violation of the CCE statute's Super CCE section violated their rights under the ex post facto clause. Because there was no possibility that the jury finding could have rested solely on conduct preceding the critical date, we reject the claim. 87 Congress added the Super CCE clause to the CCE statute in 1986. Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986, Pub.L. No. 99-570, § 1253, 100 Stat. 3207. While § 848(a), the normal CCE clause, permits life imprisonment upon conviction of its violation, the new § 848(b) mandates it if additional requirements are met. That clause, which took effect October 27, 1986, states: 88 (b) Life Imprisonment for engaging in continuing criminal enterprise 89 Any person who engages in a continuing criminal enterprise shall be imprisoned for life and fined in accordance with subsection (a) of this section, if-- 90 (1) such person is the principal administrator, organizer, or leader of the enterprise or is one of several such principal administrators, organizers, or leaders; and 91 (2) [various quantitative thresholds, relating to the volume of drugs and gross receipts of the enterprise, are met]. 92 21 U.S.C. § 848(b). In a trial brief on the CCE statute, Darryl Williams argued that, to avoid offending the ex post facto clause, U.S. Const. art. I, § 9, cl. 3, the prosecution must prove that the defendant satisfied all super CCE elements after October 27, 1986. In his Requested (Jury) Instruction No. 2 (concerning continuing criminal enterprise), Williams included the sentence, All of these requirements must have been satisfied by actions taking place after October 27, 1986, the day the law went into effect. Counsel for Williams made the point again orally to the district court. We assume arguendo that the similarly situated defendants can free ride on Williams's motion, which they would be able to do if the trial court told counsel that an objection by one defendant would be considered on behalf of all unless disclaimed. See Charles A. Wright, Federal Practice and Procedure § 499, at 805 (1982). 93 In its instructions on CCE (which included Super CCE), the district court did not mention a required time frame (or any time frame at all) for a CCE violation. But it did instruct that in order to find a CCE violation (charged in count 4 of the indictment), the jury had to first find a conspiracy among the defendants to distribute drugs in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 846 (charged in count 3). 3 In turn, in the instructions on the conspiracy count, the court told the jury that to convict they must find that the conspiracy existed beginning in or about May of 1983 and continuing thereafter until and including March 26, 1991, a period nearly five full years beyond the start of liability under Super CCE. In addition, the court gave the jurors a form on which they could indicate which two other predicate acts, apart from the conspiracy, formed the basis for a CCE conviction. (The district court stated that three predicate acts were required.) The jury convicted on the CCE count and found, as the predicate acts for each defendant other than the conspiracy, crimes committed exclusively after October 27, 1986. 4 94 A law violates the ex post facto clause if it is (1) retrospective (that is, applies to events occurring before its enactment) and (2) disadvantages the offender affected by it, as by imposing a harsher penalty than a law in effect on the date of the offense. Weaver v. Graham, 450 U.S. 24, 30-31, 101 S.Ct. 960, 965-66, 67 L.Ed.2d 17 (1981); see also Miller [319 U.S.App.D.C. 288] v. Florida, 482 U.S. 423, 430, 107 S.Ct. 2446, 2451, 96 L.Ed.2d 351 (1987) (reaffirming Weaver test). As Super CCE seriously increased the risk of a life sentence (from a possibility to a certainty), it is harsher than the prior law. Cf. United States v. Bader, 956 F.2d 708, 709 (7th Cir.1992) (reasoning that adverse changes in federal Sentencing Guidelines after a crime is committed do not violate the ex post facto clause so long as they do not extend the sentencing exposure established by statutory offense categories). The change in the statute, therefore, can only be applied to a continuing offense if the illegal conduct continued into the period after enactment. See United States v. Torres, 901 F.2d 205, 226 (2d Cir.1990); United States v. Johnson, 537 F.2d 1170, 1175 (4th Cir.1976); United States v. Campanale, 518 F.2d 352, 365 (9th Cir.1975). The question here is whether an explicit instruction on timing was needed. Following most of our sister circuits, we review the issue de novo. See, e.g., United States v. Walker, 27 F.3d 417, 419 (9th Cir.1994); United States v. Cabrera-Sosa, 81 F.3d 998, 1001 (10th Cir.1996); Hamama v. INS, 78 F.3d 233, 235 (6th Cir.1996). But see Orellana v. Kyle, 65 F.3d 29, 33 (5th Cir.1995) (saying district court did not abuse its discretion in rejecting ex post facto claim). 95 Appellants argue that because the trial court instructed that to convict the jury should find the conspiracy began about May 1983, it is possible that the CCE conviction rested at least in part on conduct that occurred prior to the statute's effective date and therefore violates the ex post facto clause. For this to have happened, the jury would have had to have found that the defendants (1) were part of a conspiracy to distribute drugs from about May 1983 to March 26, 1991, (2) led the conspiracy for some time before October 27, 1986, (3) committed the specific predicate acts that were found (all after that date), but somehow--by choice or ouster or some other mishap--dropped from their leadership roles after that date. Appellants point to no shred of evidence of any such abdication by them or rebellion by their underlings. As a practical matter, the risk of such a bizarrely configured jury finding was zero. Thus, although we reviewed under a plain error standard in Mitchell, 49 F.3d at 772, its conclusion controls. There the evidence of leadership after the date of enactment, coupled with a special verdict form finding 14 predicate acts by defendant Campbell after October 27, 1986, left the court in no doubt that Campbell was not prejudiced by the absence of a specific instruction requiring a leadership role after the date of enactment. Id. at 781. Here too the omission was harmless. 96 We note that the Second Circuit declined to find harmless error in Torres, even though the evidence at trial made it highly improbable that the jury found defendants had given up their leadership role after October 27, 1986. 901 F.2d at 228-29. But there the trial court had submitted a special verdict form that affirmatively directed the jury's attention to the period before the enactment of Super CCE:  'Was [the particular defendant] a principal administrator, organizer or leader of the continuing criminal enterprise at some time during the one-year period from June 24, 1986 to June 23, 1987?'  Id. at 226 (quoting jury verdict form and adding emphasis); see id. at 229 (holding that despite strong evidence, court would reverse where instruction on its face violated ex post facto clause). Thus, assuming arguendo that Torres might provide a basis for distinguishing our own decision in Mitchell, the distinguishing feature is absent here.