Opinion ID: 2999921
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Taylor’s Motion to Vacate the Jury’s Special

Text: Finding After a jury found Taylor guilty of the charges in the indictment, he moved for an order granting him a new trial, or in the alternative, vacating the jury’s special finding that he manufactured or possessed with the intent to manufacture more than 1000 marijuana plants. The district court denied both of Taylor’s requests for relief. On appeal, Taylor maintains that the jury’s special finding should be vacated because it was (1) based on inadmissible hearsay in violation of his Sixth Amendment right to confront witnesses against him, and (2) unsupported by the evidence. Taylor requests that this court either reverse his conviction or vacate his sentence and remand his case for resentencing. Taylor points out that when Detectives Atteberry and Bays testified that a total of 1417 marijuana plants were counted, neither detective testified to his individual count of his share of the plants, and the third detective who participated in the count, McCoy, did not testify at all. Taylor contends that the total number of plants testified to by Atteberry and Bays was based upon inadmissible hearsay—McCoy’s out-of-court statements regarding his count of his portion of the plants. According to Taylor, the district court erred in admitting this testimony and in doing so, violated his right to be confronted with the witnesses against him as guaranteed by the Sixth Amendment to the Constitution. Taylor’s counsel, however, failed to object to the district court’s admission of this testimony at trial, and, instead, raised this issue for the first time in his motion for a new trial. Because Taylor did not assert a timely objection, he forfeited his right to assign error to the district court’s admission of the testimony on appeal; therefore, our review is for plain error. See United States v. Ross, 77 F.3d No. 05-3819 15 1525, 1538 (7th Cir. 1996). To establish that the district court committed plain error, Taylor must demonstrate that “(1) there was error; (2) the error was plain; and (3) the error affected [his] substantial rights.” Id. (citing United States v. Olano, 507 U.S. 725, 731 (1993)). If Taylor can make such a showing, we have discretion to take remedial measures if the forfeited error “seriously affects the fairness, integrity or public reputation of judicial proceedings,” or, in other words, causes “a miscarriage of justice.” See United States v. Stewart, 411 F.3d 825, 829 (7th Cir. 2005) (internal citations omitted). It is clear that error was committed at Taylor’s trial when the district court allowed Detectives Atteberry and Bays to testify regarding the total number of plants counted. The detectives’ testimony on this particular issue was based on inadmissible hearsay—Detective McCoy’s individual count of his share of the plants. Neither Detective Atteberry or Bays counted 1417 plants alone. The testimony of Detectives Atteberry and Bays as to the total number of plants was predicated on McCoy’s count; however, McCoy did not testify at trial. The government made no showing that McCoy was unavailable to testify, nor is there any indication that Taylor’s counsel had a prior opportunity to cross-examine McCoy regarding his count of the plants. By allowing the testimony of Detectives Atteberry and Bays regarding the total number of plants counted, the district court effectively admitted McCoy’s out-of-court statements to prove that Taylor was responsible for more than 1000 marijuana plants. Because the admission of McCoy’s statements contravenes the protections of the Sixth Amendment’s Confrontation Clause, the district court’s error was plain. See Crawford v. Washington, 541 U.S. 36, 68 (2004) (holding that the Confrontation Clause prohibits the admission of testimonial statements of a witness who did not appear at trial, unless the witness was unavailable to testify or the 16 No. 05-3819 defendant had a prior opportunity for cross-examination); see also United States v. Gilbertson, 435 F.3d 790, 795 (7th Cir. 2006) (concluding that “testimonial statements” are those “made following government official initiated ex parte examination or interrogation developed in anticipation of or in aid of criminal litigation”).7 Next, we consider whether Taylor has shown that the district court’s error affected his substantial rights. See Olano, 507 U.S. at 734. To accomplish this, Taylor must show that the error was prejudicial in that it affected the outcome of his trial. See id. Taylor points to the remarks made by the district court judge upon denying Taylor’s motion for a new trial: Certainly I don’t believe it’s possible, standing on its own, to get from those pictures to the figure of over a thousand. There obviously were a large number of plants, hundreds. But whether it was over a thousand, I think it would not be possible to get to over a thousand without engaging in a certain amount of speculation. The pictures do 7 The detectives’ process of counting the marijuana plants was performed in the course of their criminal investigation of Taylor. Detective Atteberry testified at trial that after seizing the plants from Taylor’s home, “[o]ur concern was the actual count of the evidence and the evidence was the plant itself.” Trial Tr. at 25. Detective Bays likewise testified that his “focus was the number of plants,” and that once he tallied the detectives’ individual counts, he recorded the total number of plants in the police report. Id. at 48-50. It is therefore without question that the count of the plants was initiated by the government and carried out for purposes of future criminal prosecution of Taylor. Indeed, Taylor was indicted for knowingly manufacturing or possessing with the intent to manufacture more than 1000 marijuana plants, a charge that could not have been made without first counting the plants found in Taylor’s home. No. 05-3819 17 create a background for the testimony that oc- curred by one of the officers who did testify and who went on to explain, in addition to the pictures, what the methodology was that was used for the counting. ... We do have the plants themselves that were shown to the jury, but I don’t see how the jury could make much out of that, a bunch of dried-up plants. Certainly assigning numbers would not be some- thing you could do from that. But we have the pictures. We have the physical evidence. We have the DVD of the plants growing. We have the officer testifying as to the methodology of the count and two of the three officers subject to cross-examination, Bays and Atteberry. McCoy did not testify. See Tr. of Cont’d. Hr’g on Post-Trial Mots. at 17-18. As the district court observes, without the testimony of the detectives concerning the total number of plants reportedly counted, the pictures and the physical evidence of the plants alone are not enough to establish that more than 1000 plants were found at Taylor’s home. The admissible portions of the detectives’ testimony also cannot support the jury’s finding that Taylor was responsible for over 1000 plants. Detective Bays testified that he did not keep track of the number of styrofoam cups that housed the plants, although he estimated that there were between thirty to thirty-five cups in each of the four flats. Trial Tr. at 48. Detective Atteberry did not know the exact number of styrofoam cups holding the plants either; however, he testified that “there [were] well over a hundred of them.” Id. at 24. Without the detectives’ testimony that their individual counts totaled 1417, there is no support for the jury’s conclusion that approximately 150 cups held over 1000 plants. However, that Taylor was responsible for only “100 or more but less than 1000 18 No. 05-3819 marijuana plants,” is clearly supported by the photographic evidence of the plants. But because the jury’s finding as to the quantity of drugs for which Taylor was responsible was impacted by the district court’s admission of the hearsay testimony, the error affected Taylor’s substantial rights. Although Taylor has established that the district court committed plain error that affected his substantial rights, we only have discretion to take remedial measures when the forfeited error causes “a miscarriage of justice.” See Stewart, 411 F.3d at 829. An error can be found to have such an effect “independent of the defendant’s innocence.” Olano, 507 U.S. at 736. The jury’s special finding that Taylor manufactured or possessed with the intent to manufacture more than 1000 marijuana plants subjected Taylor to a mandatory minimum sentence of 120 months under 21 U.S.C. § 841(b)(1)(A)(vii). The district court subsequently committed Taylor to a term of 120 months of imprisonment. As we explained above, after the detectives’ hearsay testimony is excluded, the pictures and physical evidence of the plants alone do not support the jury’s special finding that there were over 1000 marijuana plants. Because Taylor’s sentence is directly attributable to the jury’s finding, to allow it to stand would be a miscarriage of justice. See United States v. Paladino, 401 F.3d 471, 481 (7th Cir. 2005). As a result, we conclude that there is insufficient competent evidence in the record to support the jury’s special finding that Taylor was responsible for more than 1000 marijuana plants. Accordingly, we vacate the jury’s special finding and Taylor’s sentence of 120 months, and we remand this case to the district court for the imposition of a sentence consistent with this opinion. No. 05-3819 19