Opinion ID: 3014618
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: sufficiency of the evidence

Text: Earp’s first argument on appeal is that the District Court erred in denying his Rule 29 motion for a judgment of acquittal. Earp claims that the government failed to introduce any evidence that he took a “substantial step” toward the commission of a substantive offense. In deciding whether a jury verdict is based on legally sufficient evidence, we apply a “particularly deferential” standard of review. United States v. Cothran, 286 F.3d 173, 175 (3d Cir. 2002) (quoting United States v. Dent, 149 F.3d 180, 187 (3d Cir. 1998), cert. denied, 525 U.S. 1085 (1999)). The verdict must be sustained if there is substantial evidence to support it. Burks v. United States, 437 U.S. 1, 17 (1978); United States v. Beckett, 208 F.3d 140, 151 (3d Cir. 2000). “It is not our role to weigh the evidence or to determine the credibility of the witnesses.” Cothran, 286 F.3d at 175. “We must view the evidence in the light most favorable to the Government and sustain the verdict if any rational juror could have found the elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt.” Id. Earp was convicted of an attempted violation of 21 U.S.C. §§ 841(a)(1), 952(a), and 960(b)(1). The federal attempt statutes with respect to these violations are codified at 21 U.S.C. §§ 846 and 963, which identically provide that “[a]ny person who attempts or conspires to commit any offense defined in this subchapter shall be subject to the same penalties as those prescribed for the offense, the commission of which was the 9 object of the attempt or conspiracy.” These two provisions, originally enacted as §§ 406 and 1013 of the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act of 1970, Pub. L. No. 91-513, 84 Stat. 1236 (Oct. 27, 1970), do not contain a definition of “attempt.” See United States v. Rovetuso, 768 F.2d 809, 821 (7th Cir. 1985). Nevertheless, we recognized in United States v. Everett, 700 F.2d 900 (3d Cir. 1983), that the word “attempt” is a common law term, and when Congress uses a common law term in a federal criminal statute without otherwise defining it, Congress is presumed to adopt the meaning given that term at common law. Id. at 903-04 (citing Morissette v. United States, 342 U.S. 246, 263, 72 S. Ct. 240, 249, 96 L. Ed. 288 (1952)). 4 Accordingly, in applying 21 U.S.C. § 846, we have relied upon the “wellsettled principles of the law of attempts” that are embodied in Model Penal Code § 5.01 (1985). See United States v. Cruz-Jiminez, 977 F.2d 95, 102 & n.10 (3d Cir. 1992) (citing United States v. Kikumura, 918 F.2d 1084, 1108 (3d Cir. 1990)). In Cruz-Jiminez, we noted that the Model Penal Code formulation of attempt is consistent with our own caselaw, id. at 102 (citing Everett, 700 F.2d at 908), and has been adopted by a majority of federal courts. Id. at 102 n.8 (citing United States v. Stone, 960 F.2d 426, 433 (5th Cir. 1992); United States v. Leiva, 959 F.2d 637, 642 (7th Cir. 1992); United States v. Watson, 4 We also recognized, however, that the generally accepted common law definition of a term will not be imposed “if there are ‘grounds for inferring an affirmative instruction from Congress’ to define it otherwise.” Everett, 700 F.2d at 904 (reviewing the legislative history of § 846 to discern whether Congress intended to eliminate an impossibility defense) (citing Morissette, 342 U.S. at 273, 72 S. Ct. at 255). 10 953 F.2d 406, 408 (8th Cir. 1992); United States v. Leopard, 936 F.2d 1138, 1140 (10th Cir. 1991); United States v. Pennyman, 889 F.2d 104, 106 (6th Cir. 1989); United States v. Dworken, 855 F.2d 12, 17 (1st Cir. 1988); United States v. Delvecchio, 816 F.2d 859, 861 (2d Cir. 1987)). We also found that the Model Penal Code formulation “is logical and in conformity with the purposes of the criminal law to require corroborative behavior.” Cruz-Jiminez, 977 F.2d at 102 n.10 (quoting Everett, 700 F.2d at 908-09). Subsequently, we adopted the Model Penal Code formulation in contexts other than drug trafficking. See, e.g., United States v. Hsu, 155 F.3d 189, 202-03 (3d Cir. 1998) (attempted misappropriation of trade secrets, under 18 U.S.C. § 1832(a)(4)); United States v. Cicco, 10 F.3d 980, 984-85 (3d Cir. 1994) (attempted coercion of municipal employees into performing services for a political party as a condition of employment, under 18 U.S.C. § 601(a)). We will therefore apply the Model Penal Code formulation of attempt to this case as well. Under the Model Penal Code: A person is guilty of an attempt to commit a crime if, acting with the kind of culpability otherwise required for commission of the crime, he . . . purposely does or omits to do anything that, under the circumstances as he believes them to be, is an act or omission constituting a substantial step in a course of conduct planned to culminate in his commission of the crime. Cruz-Jiminez, 977 F.2d at 102 (quoting Dworken, 855 F.2d at 16-17; Model Penal Code § 5.01(1)(c) (1985)). This test requires the government to prove: “(1) the intent, or kind of culpability otherwise required, to engage in the criminal conduct; and (2) conduct 11 constituting a ‘substantial step’ toward commission of the substantive offense that strongly corroborates the criminal intent.” Id. at 101-02 & n.8. With respect to evidence of a defendant’s intent, we have noted that: [I]f substantial steps are the only proof of the defendant’s criminal intent, then those steps must unequivocally evidence such an intent; “that is, it must be clear that there was a criminal design and that the intent was not to commit some non-criminal act.” Dworken, 855 F.2d at 17. If, however, there is evidence of criminal intent independent of that demonstrated by the defendant’s substantial steps in furtherance of his criminal design, “the substantial steps do not themselves need to be unequivocally indicative of criminal intent – they must merely corroborate criminal intent.” Id. at 17 n.3 (citing Model Penal Code Part 1, § 5.01, cmt. at 330-31). Cruz-Jiminez, 977 F.2d at 102. As for the “substantial step” element, “[f]or a defendant to have taken a ‘substantial step,’ he must have engaged in more than ‘mere preparation,’ but may have stopped short of ‘the last act necessary’ for the actual commission of the substantive crime.” United States v. Yousef, 327 F.3d 56, 134 (2d Cir. 2003) (quoting United States v. Rosa, 11 F.3d 315, 337 (2d Cir.1993)). There is no clear line between preparation and attempt. United States v. Neal, 78 F.3d 901, 906 (4th Cir. 1996) (citing United States v. Coplon, 185 F.2d 629, 633 (2d Cir. 1950) (Learned Hand, C.J.) (“The decisions are too numerous to cite and would not help much anyway, for there is, and obviously can be, no definite line [between preparation and attempt].”)). “Whether conduct represents a substantial step depends on the ‘surrounding factual circumstances’ and, therefore, such determinations are necessarily fact specific.” Id. (quoting United States v. Gaines, 969 F.2d 692, 689 (8th Cir. 1992); see also United States v. Crowley, 12 318 F.3d 401, 408 (2d Cir. 2003) (“Determining whether particular conduct constitutes a substantial step is ‘so dependent on the particular factual context of each case that, of necessity, there can be no litmus test to guide the reviewing courts.’” (quoting United States v. Manley, 632 F.2d 978, 988 (2d Cir.1980)). In this case, the District Court’s charge to the jury was consistent with the law of attempt. The District Court first instructed that the government was required to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Earp had intended to commit each substantive offense. App. at D-228, D-231. The District Court went on to instruct on the meaning of “substantial step,” stating that: [T]he government must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the mental processes of this defendant passed and went beyond the stage of just thinking about the crime to actually intending to commit the crime, and that the physical process of the defendant, what he was doing, what he did, went beyond and passed from the stage of mere preparation to some firm, clear and undeniable action to accomplish the intent of the offense. App. at D-234. Based upon this correct statement of the law of attempt, we hold that sufficient evidence was presented for a rational juror to find beyond a reasonable doubt that Earp attempted to commit each of the substantive offenses as charged. With respect to the intent element, the jury was presented with Earp’s written statement confessing to his participation in a criminal design to take possession of cocaine and to import such cocaine into the Customs Territory of the United States. Viewed in the light most favorable to the government, this statement provided independent evidence of Earp’s criminal intent. See Cruz-Jiminez, 977 F.2d at 102 n.11 13 (“[A] defendant’s confession could furnish evidence of criminal intent independent from that demonstrated by any substantial steps taken in furtherance of the crime.”). Despite Earp’s testimony that he had decided not to go through with the plan, a rational juror could have believed that any abandonment of the criminal design occurred, if at all, only after Earp passed through his U.S. Customs inspection and concluded that he was under government surveillance. Earp’s own testimony revealed that he believed he aroused suspicion during the inspection and that he would be under surveillance thereafter. The question, therefore, is whether Earp’s conduct up to that point constituted a substantial step that corroborated his criminal intent. We find that sufficient evidence was presented for a rational juror to find beyond a reasonable doubt that it did. In accordance with the confessed plan, Earp: (1) accepted airline tickets worth a substantial amount of money, (2) traveled to the U.S. Virgin Islands, (3) allowed himself to be driven to a hotel by one or more conspirators, (4) accepted $150.00 to pay for the hotel room, (5) accepted a green carry-on bag to be used in the scheme, (6) allowed himself to be driven back to the airport on March 8, 2002 by one or more conspirators with the carry-on bag, (7) entered the airport at the agreed-upon time, and (8) gave deceitful answers to U.S. Customs Inspectors in order to reach the airport’s passenger area. We need not determine which of these actions were merely preparatory and which actions constituted substantial steps. Rather, we hold that a rational juror, reviewing these actions and weighing all of the relevant facts, could have found, 14 consistent with the District Court’s instruction, that Earp’s conduct went beyond the stage of mere preparation. At the very least, giving deceitful answers to U.S. Customs inspectors in order to reach the area in which the cocaine would be obtained may be deemed a substantial step that strongly corroborated the independent evidence of criminal intent. Accordingly, we reject Earp’s sufficiency of the evidence argument.