Opinion ID: 222432
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: sufficiency of the evidence

Text: The District Court concluded that the government's evidence was insufficient to show that Tyson and Morrell reached an agreement to unlawfully traffic firearms in violation of federal law. The issue here is not whether Tyson engaged in unilateral trafficking activity; nor is it whether Morrell knew Tyson was so engaged. Rather, the pertinent inquiry is whether Tyson and Morrell agreed to achieve the conspiracy's ends. Conspirators, of course, rarely leave evidence of an explicit understanding or common goal. United States v. Perez, 280 F.3d 318, 353 (3d Cir.2002). Indeed, common sense suggests, and experience confirms, that illegal agreements are rarely, if ever, reduced to writing or verbalized with the precision that is characteristic of a written contract. United States v. McKee, 506 F.3d 225, 238 (3d Cir.2007). We have therefore recognized that the existence of a conspiratorial agreement may be proven by circumstantial evidence alone. Brodie, 403 F.3d at 134 (stating that the very nature of the crime of conspiracy is such that it often may be established only by indirect and circumstantial evidence). The District Court correctly recognized this point of law, but nonetheless found that the government ... failed to show any integration of activities between Tyson and any other individual that could indirectly prove the existence of a preconceived plan or common understanding to traffic firearms. The government acknowledges that it advanced no direct evidence that Tyson and Morrell reached an illicit agreement to traffic firearms. It focuses instead on what it calls a pattern of unusual and suspicious activity in Tennessee and the Virgin Islands. Specifically: Tyson and Morrell flew from the Virgin Islands to Tennessee on February 13, 2008. Morrell stayed with Tyson in his Bristol residence for one week. Tyson purchased fourteen semiautomatic firearms in and around Bristol during the week of Morrell's stay. On February 20, Tyson and Morrell traveled back to the Virgin Islands. Both checked luggage containing firearms. Finally, when Tyson flew back to St. Thomas on July 31, Morrell was waiting at the airport to pick him up. According to the government, this series of unusual acts, considered in the context of the record as a whole, amount to substantial evidence that Tyson and Morrell entered into the conspiratorial agreement charged in the indictment. We have previously explained that where several alleged co-conspirators engage in coordinated, unusual acts, one may reasonably infer the existence of a tacit agreement. For instance, in United States v. Smith, 294 F.3d 473 (3d Cir. 2002), five police officers were charged in a criminal conspiracy to violate Earl Faison's civil rights. The officers arrested Faison and beat him to death under the mistaken belief that he had killed one of their colleagues. At trial, the officers argued that while they might have been subject to criminal liability for the underlying offense, there was insufficient proof that they had agreed to engage in coordinated illegality. The evidence, however, indicated that during the course of events, the officers jointly contravened a number of their department's operating procedures governing the apprehension and interrogation of criminal suspects. Id. at 476. For example, the officers arrested Faison and took him to the jail for questioning instead of the county prosecutor's office, where suspects were supposed to be taken; the officers entered the jail through the south entrance when protocol dictated that the north entrance was the designated prisoner drop-off area; Faison was never fingerprinted or photographed, nor was he taken to the booking room; after Faison died from the beating administered by his assailants, several officers submitted consistent but false incident reports. Id. We described this collective deviation from standard operating procedure as unusual and explained, The fact that [the officers]... engaged as a group in so many unusual acts could certainly lead a reasonable juror to the conclusion that there was at least a tacit agreement between the officers, formed at the scene of the arrest, that Faison was to be assaulted. Id. at 478-79. By characterizing the activities of Tyson and Morrell as unusual, the government attempts to cast a pall of suspicion over their week-long interaction. But applying labels is insufficient. Unfortunately, the government makes little attempt to explain what is so unusual about the conduct at issue. The government does not argue, for instance, that the behavior of Tyson and Morrell deviated from some baseline norm. Nor can they. Almost all of the facts highlighted by the government focus upon lawful conduct. What is more, we know almost nothing about Tyson's interactions with Morrell or Morrell's stay in Tennessee. What little we do know is for the most part mundane: Morrell arrived on the same flight as Tyson, he was present when police came to the residence on February 14, and he departed after staying one week. [22] On the day of his departure, Morrell traveled to the airport along with Tyson. Both men checked baggage containing firearms. They then appear to have parted ways until July 31, 2008. It is difficult to draw any useful inferences from the discrete facts set forth above. The evidence certainly does not suggest coordinated action in support of a common goal. To constitute coordinated action, there must be some link between the co-conspirators' conduct that suggests integration or unity of purpose. Pressler, 256 F.3d at 155; Gibbs, 190 F.3d at 200-02; United States v. Powell, 113 F.3d 464, 467 (3d Cir.1997). Co-conspirator A may serve as a lookout for co-conspirator B; two co-conspirators may consult with one another to fix a sale price; co-conspirators may communicate in code. Here, there is no link between the two men, nor anything to show that one is facilitating the handiwork of the other. True, Tyson and Morrell arrived at the airport on February 20 together. But this is not evidence that they were assisting one another. [23] See Pressler, 256 F.3d at 153 (finding insufficient evidence of a tacit agreement when alleged co-conspirators merely traveled to Philadelphia together to purchase narcotics). It is, at most, proof of parallel conduct  two individuals attempting to import firearms into the Virgin Islands. A conspiracy prosecution requires more. Morrell's role in the events of July 31 is perhaps the sole bit of evidence indicative of coordinated action. Indeed, this is a significant bit of proof, but not enough. In a sufficiency inquiry, we cannot evaluate evidence in isolation, but must determine `whether all the pieces of evidence, taken together, make a strong enough case to let a jury find [the defendant] guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.' Brodie, 403 F.3d at 134 (quoting Coleman, 811 F.2d at 807). Here, Tyson was engaged in trafficking activity for some seven months before he was arrested. Morrell's role in this seven-month narrative spans the length of one week. There is no evidence that Morrell assisted Tyson during any of his first three trips to the Virgin Islands, much less interacted with him. Nor is there evidence that the two communicated with each other when Tyson was stateside. Had the government presented proof of some recurrent pattern of coordinated conduct, then perhaps we might rethink our calculus. But the government has offered no such thing and, in the context of the record as a whole, Morrell's presence at the airport is simply too slim a reed upon which to hang a criminal conspiracy conviction. The government would no doubt claim that we are overlooking crucial circumstantial evidence that tends to support its position on appeal. In particular, Morrell testified that Tyson paid at least $800 of the cost for him to fly from St. Thomas to Tennessee. Morrell also admitted on cross examination that during his stay in Tennessee he (1) accompanied Tyson to at least one gun store, (2) visited a firing range with Tyson, and (3) posed for photographs at Tyson's residence, guns in hand. But because all of this testimony was admitted after the close of the government's evidence, we cannot consider it. Fed. R.Crim.P. 29(b); Brodie, 403 F.3d at 134. Under Rule 29, the government may not rely upon testimony admitted through Morrell's cross examination. Rather, the prosecution must rise or fall solely on the basis of the government's proof. Tyson is, in other words, entitled to a verdict based only upon a snapshot of the evidence as it existed when the government concluded its case-in-chief. Moore, 504 F.3d at 1347. In sum, the jury lacked sufficient evidence to find that Tyson and Morrell entered into a tacit agreement to traffic firearms in violation of federal law. We have no doubt that Tyson was engaged in unlawful trafficking activity and, viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the government, it is reasonable to infer that Morrell knew about some of Tyson's illicit conduct. But our conspiracy jurisprudence does not sanction guilt by association. United States v. Terselich, 885 F.2d 1094, 1098 (3d Cir.1989) (stating that the company an individual chooses to keep is not evidence of a conspiracy). We will therefore affirm the ruling of the District Court granting judgment of acquittal on the conspiracy count.