Opinion ID: 551535
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: James Sawyer

Text: 44 The court did not err in denying Sawyer's motion for severance, which urged prejudicial jury confusion between the evidence bearing on his CCE charge and evidence bearing on the CCE charge against co-defendant Hicks. Sawyer asserts that the jury may have been led to believe that it had to find an independent entity, similar to the enterprise concept used in the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, 18 U.S.C. Secs. 1961 et seq., as an element of the CCE charge against Sawyer; i.e., the jury may thus have believed that defendant Hicks's narcotics organization served to establish this perceived element of Sawyer's CCE offense, even though the correct question was whether Sawyer independently committed a series of federal felony violations. See infra section III(F)(1) of this opinion (setting out elements of CCE offense). This argument is speculative. The district court correctly charged the jury as to the elements of the offense, and on several occasions charged on the importance of considering the evidence against each defendant separately and independently. The evidence was not of such a character that the jury could not have performed this necessary function.