Opinion ID: 2708559
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Alfonso Chavez

Text: Nos. 11-3179 et al. 31 Chavez, Inca of the 31st and Drake chapter of the Latin Kings’ Little Village region, is the last of the appellants convicted following the joint trial. The indictment charged him with the RICO conspiracy, the drug-trafficking conspiracy, and possession of cocaine with intent to distribute. After the jury convicted him on all three counts, the court sentenced him to the maximum allowable sentence of 240 months on the RICO count and 360 months on each of the drug counts, all to run concurrently. We address here his arguments about the sufficiency of the evidence on his two drug counts, the lack of a buyer-seller instruction, the “half-Pinkerton” instruction, and his link (for sentencing purposes) to the gang’s murders and attempted murders. As before, we summarize additional arguments that do not require extended discussion. Sufficiency of the Evidence: Drug Counts. Chavez challenges the evidence supporting his convictions for conspiring to distribute drugs and for possession with intent to distribute cocaine. Like his co-appellants, he can succeed only if no rational jury could have found that the government met its burden to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Unfortunately for Chavez, juries are entitled to decide whom to believe and whose testimony to reject. This jury credited Shanna’s testimony and several audio recordings that Shanna secretly taped. This evidence showed that Shanna passed along to Chavez about seven grams of cocaine on three occasions within a three-week period. Each time, Chavez promised to pay Shanna $200 within the next week. On the first occasion, Chavez informed Shanna that he (Chavez) was the new Inca on Drake. Shanna told Chavez that he was using the “process that we take with all the In32 Nos. 11-3179 et al. cas.” Another Latin King told Chavez that he had “like about a week … to get rid of it [the cocaine] … [and] give us back two bills [$200].” Shanna also noted that “the collections are gonna be on … Mondays and Fridays.” Chavez returned, as ordered, with the money a week later. On a later occasion, after commenting that he had “24 people doing this,” Shanna asked Chavez whether “you guys alright with this?” Chavez replied, “I mean, bro, we’re all for uh, well, um, I’m up for helping yous out.” Chavez has little with which to defuse this evidence. He argues that he was purchasing the cocaine for his own use, not for distribution or as part of a distribution conspiracy. In support of that position, he notes the relatively small quantities involved in each transaction, Shanna’s admission that Chavez might have been taking the cocaine for personal use, Shanna’s observation that as long as Chavez paid the $200 no one cared what he did with the drugs, and Chavez’s question to Shanna about how long the sales were likely to go on. But there is nothing that compelled the jury to see the evidence in that light, even if Chavez’s interpretation is possible. Viewed from the proper perspective, the evidence on both of Chavez’s drug charges was sufficient to support the verdict. Buyer-Seller. As we recognized in United States v. Brown, 726 F.3d 993 (7th Cir. 2013), the question whether a buyerseller instruction should be given to a jury that is considering conspiracy charges is a difficult one. Our cases distinguish between buyer-seller relationships (which obviously involve a simple agreement) and conspiracies, which are also based on agreement. Id. at 997. We have held that the substantive crime of drug distribution—that is, the sale itself— Nos. 11-3179 et al. 33 cannot also count as the agreement needed to find conspiracy. United States v. Lechuga, 994 F.2d 346, 349 (7th Cir. 1993) (en banc) (lead opinion of Posner, J.). Instead, a majority of the court agreed that “[w]hat is necessary and sufficient [to prove a conspiracy] is proof of an agreement to commit a crime other than the crime that consists of the sale itself.” Id. at 347. In Brown, we confirmed this rule when we held that “conspiracy to traffic drugs requires an agreement to advance further distribution.” 726 F.3d at 998. Chavez’s effort to show that the district court erred when it decided not to give a buyer-seller instruction runs into a number of obstacles. First, he failed to raise this argument in the district court, and so our review is only for plain error. See Puckett and Olano, supra. Had that not been the case, we would have considered this a closer question. Chavez’s short tenure with the Latin Kings might have persuaded a jury that he was just a buyer. When the evidence of conspiracy is weak, we have urged courts to give a buyer-seller instruction on their own initiative. See United States v. Gee, 226 F.3d 885, 895 (7th Cir. 2000). But the evidence of conspiracy in the present case was strong; indeed, Chavez admitted that a drug conspiracy existed. The only remaining question was whether he was party to that conspiracy. The evidence showing that Chavez bought seven grams of cocaine (about a quarter ounce, or two “eight balls”) might have supported a finding by the jury that this was a personal-use transaction. But there was a great deal of evidence that pointed in the conspiracy direction. Apart from the admitted agreement, Chavez’s role in the Latin Kings was undisputed, and the audio recordings and Shanna’s testimony were damning. Even if the district court erred by fail34 Nos. 11-3179 et al. ing to give the buyer-seller instruction (and it seems to us that the more prudent course would have been to do so), the mistake was harmless on this record. Half-Pinkerton. Chavez argues that the district court erred by giving only what he calls a half-Pinkerton instruction—one that failed to remind the jurors that they had to find beyond a reasonable doubt that at the time the coconspirator’s acts were undertaken, the defendant was (1) a member of the conspiracy and (2) the act was in furtherance of the conspiracy. See United States v. Elizondo, 920 F.2d 1308, 1317 (7th Cir. 1990); United States v. Manzella, 791 F.2d 1263, 1268 (7th Cir. 1986). In particular, the instruction here did not remind the jury that the government had to prove all elements of the Pinkerton doctrine beyond a reasonable doubt. Once again, because Chavez and the others did not raise this argument before the district court, we review only for plain error. Failure to include the second half of the Pinkerton instruction may have been erroneous. No reason appears in the record for the district court’s decision to omit the relevant passages from the Seventh Circuit’s pattern jury instructions, which it had been following. See 7TH CIR. PATTERN INSTRUCTION 5.09. Even if the omission was wrong, however, the question remains whether this error affected Chavez’s substantial rights and whether it brings disrepute on the legal system. See Olano, 507 U.S. at 736–37. In Neder v. United States, the Supreme Court held that only a small set of errors “defy analysis by harmless error standards.” 527 U.S. 1, 7 (1999) (quotation marks omitted). The Court’s list includes the complete denial of counsel, a biased trial judge, racial discrimination in the selection of the grand jury, denial of self-representation at trial, denial of a Nos. 11-3179 et al. 35 public trial, and a defective reasonable-doubt instruction. Id. at 8. The last of those might seem useful to Chavez, but a closer look persuades us that it is not. Chavez is not complaining about a defective reasonable-doubt instruction. He points to the district court’s failure to remind the jury about the reasonable-doubt standard within the Pinkerton instruction. The court had, elsewhere in the instructions, told the jury that the government had to prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt. We conclude that the harmless-error principle applies here, and that any error that resulted from the incomplete instruction did not affect Chavez’s substantial rights. The district court read the correct reasonable doubt standard to the jury several times during the jury instructions, and there was no indication that the Pinkerton issue was to be governed by a different standard. Moreover, the government’s case did not rely solely on the Pinkerton doctrine of vicarious liability among co-conspirators. The jury’s other findings of guilt established the predicate acts necessary to convict all of the appellants who went to trial, except Chavez, without resort to Pinkerton. It convicted each one on multiple substantive counts, and those counts could have formed the basis for the RICO conspiracy convictions. The jury also found beyond a reasonable doubt that Chavez agreed to join the conspiracy. There were no facts suggesting that Chavez or his codefendants were acting as rogues or mercenaries when they carried out their substantive offenses. To the contrary, the evidence overwhelmingly showed that they were acting as gang members, for the gang. Murders and Attempted Murders. The district court sentenced Chavez in part based on its conclusion that he was 36 Nos. 11-3179 et al. responsible for at least some of the gang’s murders and attempted murders. Chavez contests this finding because, as he understands Illinois law, the crime of conspiracy to commit murder requires an agreement to kill a specific person; his agreement cannot be assumed, he continues, just because he was part of the Latin Kings gang. His argument, however, does not fit the facts. The district court did not hold him responsible for murder of a non-specific person or because of his gang membership. Audio recordings reveal Chavez boasting to Shanna that “some dude went speeding down the block, and well you know how that goes. Dude got it[.]” He also remarked that “my guys were on their stuff, you know? And they, boom, you know? Dude got it.” These comments related to the shooting of Jorge Camargo as he drove through Chavez’s turf. In other words, Chavez was doing just what he was supposed to do as the Inca of his section. The district court did not abuse its discretion when it took Camargo’s attempted murder into account when determining Chavez’s sentence. Other Arguments. Chavez also argues that the district court violated his Fifth and Sixth Amendment rights when it found the facts at sentencing using the preponderance-ofthe-evidence standard. We have repeatedly rejected this argument, and we do so again here for the reasons provided in King’s appeal. Similarly, we reject the argument that sentencing guideline § 1B1.2(d) applies here, and that it requires the government to prove predicate RICO acts beyond a reasonable doubt. King makes the same argument, which we discuss below.