Opinion ID: 2829689
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Motion to Suppress and Franks Hearing

Text: We “review[] the district court’s denial of a Franks hearing under the same standard used to review the district court’s denial of a motion to suppress: factual findings are reviewed for clear error and conclusions of law are reviewed de novo.” United States v. Rose, 714 F.3d 362, 369–70 (6th Cir. 2013). “A defendant is entitled to a Franks hearing if he: 1) makes a substantial preliminary showing that the affiant knowingly and intentionally, or with reckless disregard for the truth, included a false statement or material omission in the affidavit; and 2) proves that the false statement or material omission is necessary to the probable cause finding in the affidavit.” Id. at 370 (citing Franks v. Delaware, 438 U.S. 154, 171–72 (1978)).
Smith contends that, “[p]ursuant to Franks, the district court erred by failing to severe [sic] the tainted portions from the affidavit, ie. [sic], the statements given by Kestner. Had the district court severed these offending recitations, the affidavit could not have supported a finding of probable cause under the Fourth Amendment.” Appellant Br. at 30. 8 No. 14-5549 United States v. Arthur Smith These assertions miss the mark. In his affidavit, Officer Daniel Lane included a singleparagraph summary of his interview with Kestner. That summary notes that Kestner was “a friend of Arthur Smith” and that he had “heard Mr. Smith discuss planning robberies of fast food restaurants . . . in Clarksville, TN and surrounding areas.” R. 54-1 (Affidavit at 1) (Page ID #114). These statements are corroborated by the video recording of Kestner’s interview. After viewing this recording, the district court rejected Smith’s assertion that Kestner’s statements had been unduly coerced. We need not weigh in on whether the district court erred in arriving at this conclusion. Whether Smith has made “a substantial preliminary showing that [Officer Lane] knowingly and intentionally, or with reckless disregard for the truth, included a false statement or material omission in the affidavit,” Rose, 714 F.3d at 370, is only the first part of a two-part analysis that we must conduct in order to determine whether Smith is entitled to a Franks hearing. The second step requires us to review whether Smith has proven “that the false statement or material omission is necessary to [a finding of] probable cause.” Id. Smith fails to clear this second hurdle. As the district court pointed out, Reed’s testimony alone would have been sufficient to justify a finding of probable cause. “[I]n order to answer ‘the commonsense, practical question’ of whether an affidavit is sufficient to support a finding of probable cause,” we “must look to the ‘totality of the circumstances,’ including [the] confidential informant’s ‘veracity, reliability, and basis of knowledge.’” United States v. May, 399 F.3d 817, 822 (6th Cir. 2005) (quoting Illinois v. Gates, 462 U.S. 213, 230 (1983)). Reed’s 9 No. 14-5549 United States v. Arthur Smith knowledge was based on the fact that she spent several nights per week at Smith’s apartment. Her information was credible and reliable: she described the outfit that Smith wore on the night of the robbery. That information matched the description of the robber as captured by surveillance video and as described by various McDonald’s employees. She then identified Smith as the perpetrator after viewing surveillance footage. These facts are sufficient to support a finding of probable cause. See, e.g., Florida v. Harris, 133 S. Ct. 1050, 1055 (2013) (“Finely tuned standards such as proof beyond a reasonable doubt or by a preponderance of the evidence . . . have no place in the [probable-cause] decision. All [that is] required is the kind of ‘fair probability’ on which ‘reasonable and prudent [people,] not legal technicians, act.’”) (quoting Gates, 462 U.S. at 235, 238, 231). The district court did not err in denying Smith’s motion for a Franks hearing or in denying Smith’s motion to suppress. B. Smith’s Request for an Addict-Informant Jury Instruction 1. Standard of Review “We review a denial of a proposed jury instruction for abuse of discretion.” United States v. Svoboda, 633 F.3d 479, 483 (6th Cir. 2011). “An abuse of discretion will not be found if the jury instructions as a whole . . . adequately informed the jury of the relevant considerations and provided a basis in law for aiding the jury in reaching its decision.” United States v. Capozzi, 723 F.3d 720, 725 (6th Cir. 2013). With respect to the specific instruction at issue, we have held that “[n]o per se rule . . . requires that an addict-informant instruction be given in all cases involving the testimony of an addict-informant.” United States v. Combs, 369 F.3d 925, 10 No. 14-5549 United States v. Arthur Smith 939 (6th Cir. 2004). The district court must instead consider the circumstances particular to each case. United States v. Anderson, 166 F.3d 1215 (Table), 1998 WL 833701, at  (6th Cir. Nov. 20, 1998). 2. Analysis Smith’s contention that the district court should have given an addict-informant jury instruction fails for three reasons. First, there is no clear evidence that Reed was an addict at the time she approached police. In fact, when asked at trial about her crack cocaine habit in June 2009, she stated that she was “pretty much off of it by then. I did smoke a little bit off and on here and there, but I was pretty much off of it.” R. 134 (Trial Tr. at 45) (Page ID #733); see also id. at 43, 46 (Page ID #731, 734) (reiterating stance). See United States v. Rich, 205 F.3d 1342 (Table), 2000 WL 92269, at  (6th Cir. Jan 19, 2000) (upholding district court decision to not give an addict-informant instruction because “the district court found that there was no evidence in the record to suggest that [the informant] was addicted at the time of his cooperation with the government.”). Second, both Reed and Officer Lane testified that Reed was not promised anything in exchange for her cooperation other than the publicly advertised monetary award. Reed answered in the negative when asked whether “the government promised [her] anything at all for [her] testimony here today” and whether she “expect[ed] anything from the government for [her] testimony.” R. 134 (Trial Tr. at 44) (Page ID #732). Instead, she insisted that she turned Smith in because “[a]t the time[,] I was living on the streets. I needed the money.” Id. at 42 (Page ID 11 No. 14-5549 United States v. Arthur Smith #730). Reed’s version of events is consistent with Officer Lane’s recollection that he did not promise he was “going to drop any charges [against Reed]” in exchange for her assistance. Id. at 85 (Page ID #773). Third, the district court did include an alternative jury instruction that asked the jury to keep in mind that Reed had been paid for her information. That instruction reflects what actually occurred in this case. It also mirrors what occurred in United States v. Anderson, where the district court gave a cautionary instruction with respect to the informant’s testimony because of the informant’s status as a codefendant. 1998 WL 833701, at . We affirmed the district court’s decision to deny defendant’s request for an addict-informant jury instruction in Anderson, and we do the same here. As a final note, Smith’s reliance on our decision in United States v. Griffin, 382 F.2d 823 (6th Cir. 1967), is misplaced. As Smith concedes, Griffin’s conviction “rested largely on the uncorroborated testimony of an addict-informant.” Appellant Br. at 22; see Griffin, 382 F.2d at 828–29. The district court did not provide the jury with an addict-informant jury instruction or, for that matter, any cautionary instruction. Here, on the other hand, Reed’s testimony did not go uncorroborated: her description of Smith’s outfit and the bag of money that he brought home matches the description of the robber. Moreover, Reed’s financial motivations were sufficiently addressed in another, more appropriate jury instruction. In light of these facts, the district court did not abuse its discretion in denying Smith’s request for an addict-informant jury instruction. 12 No. 14-5549 United States v. Arthur Smith C. Jurors’ Request for Selected Trial Transcripts 1. Standard of Review “We review the propriety of a court’s decision to allow a deliberating jury to review trial testimony under an abuse of discretion standard.” United States v. Rodgers, 109 F.3d 1138, 1142 (6th Cir. 1997). “An abuse of discretion occurs when we are left with the ‘definite and firm conviction that the [district] court . . . committed a clear error of judgment in the conclusion it reached upon a weighing of the relevant factors’ or ‘where it improperly applies the law or uses an erroneous legal standard.’” United States v. Haywood, 280 F.3d 715, 720 (6th Cir. 2002) (quoting Huey v. Stine, 230 F.3d 226, 228 (6th Cir. 2000)). 2. Analysis Smith claims that “[p]roviding the jury with the testimony of two out of the government’s three witnesses stacked the deck and gave the jury a roadmap to conviction.” Appellant Br. at 27. He asserts that the district court abused its discretion in this respect, notwithstanding the cautionary instruction that the district court gave after it decided to grant the jury’s request. Smith is correct that there are “inherent dangers in allowing a jury to read a transcript of a witness’s testimony during its deliberations.” Rodgers, 109 F.3d at 1143 (internal quotation marks omitted). In Rodgers, we noted that the jury might “accord undue emphasis to the testimony” or “apprehend the testimony out of context.” Id. (internal quotation marks omitted). In addition, “[t]hese dangers are escalated if the jury makes the request after reporting an inability to arrive at a verdict,” id. (internal quotation marks omitted), which it did here. See also 13 No. 14-5549 United States v. Arthur Smith United States v. Padin, 787 F.2d 1071, 1077 (6th Cir. 1986) (noting concern but holding that district court did not abuse its discretion in reading “specific and limited excerpts of [a witness’s] testimony [to] respond[] to the jury’s request.”). But the entire purpose of providing a cautionary instruction is to mitigate these dangers, as we also made clear in Rodgers. See 109 F.3d at 1145 (“[W]e hold that if a district court chooses to give a deliberating jury transcribed testimony, or chooses to re-read testimony to a deliberating jury, the district court must give an instruction cautioning the jury on the proper use of that testimony . . . . Th[is] rule . . . will not place a great burden on the district courts and can serve as an antidote to the natural tendency of a deliberating jury to focus on the testimony it has requested.”). To be sure, we did state that “a cautionary instruction does not necessarily immunize a district court from error.” Id. “It is possible in a particular case that the choices made by a judge regarding whose testimony and/or what portions of testimony should be re-read may constitute an abuse of discretion.” Id. However, it is unclear why this case should be considered to be such a case—or, more precisely, how the district court abused its discretion. Unlike the cases discussed in Smith’s brief, the district court here did not inadvertently send trial transcripts to the jury, nor did it read back only direct-examination testimony while omitting cross-examination testimony. See Appellant Br. at 26. Smith also does not allege that the transcripts provided to the jury were inaccurate or incomplete. See Rodgers, 109 F.3d at 1143. In addition, in deciding to grant the jury’s request for these transcripts, the district court also denied the jury’s request for a photograph of Smith and a copy of the slideshow used during 14 No. 14-5549 United States v. Arthur Smith closing arguments. See R. 139 (Trial Tr. at 2) (Page ID #928). (“The answer is, no, that’s not evidence.”). This determination suggests that the district court did not grant these requests as a matter of course, but considered each of them individually “upon a weighing of the relevant factors.” Haywood, 280 F.3d at 720 (internal quotation marks omitted). The district court did not abuse its discretion in providing jurors transcripts of Reed’s and Lane’s testimony. D. Sufficiency of the Evidence 1. Standard of Review “We review a claim of insufficient evidence in the light most favorable to the government.” United States v. Fekete, 535 F.3d 471, 476 (6th Cir. 2008). Our review is limited to “whether, after viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the prosecution, any rational trier of fact could have found the essential elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt.” Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 319 (1979) (emphasis in original). “A defendant making such a challenge bears a very heavy burden.” United States v. Kelley, 461 F.3d 817, 825 (6th Cir. 2006). 2. Analysis At the close of its case-in-chief, the government submitted a number of uncontested stipulations, including the fact that Smith “had been convicted in court of a crime punishable by a term of imprisonment exceeding one year,” that the firearm identified in the indictment had moved in interstate commerce, and that the McDonald’s restaurant he had allegedly robbed had moved articles in interstate commerce. R. 135 (Trial Tr. at 27–28) (Page ID #804–05). 15 No. 14-5549 United States v. Arthur Smith Smith does not object to any of these stipulations on appeal. In fact, his sufficiency-ofthe-evidence claim is, by his own admission, largely a repeat of his addict-informant argument: “Smith’s argument regarding the sufficiency [of the] evidence tracks closely [to] his second assignment of error, the trial court’s failure to give the addict-informant instruction.” Appellant Br. at 34. We have already rejected Smith’s addict-informant argument. His sufficiency-of-theevidence argument is equally unavailing. With respect to his conviction for robbery, the Hobbs Act provides that “[w]hoever in any way . . . affects . . . the movement of any article or commodity in commerce . . . by robbery or extortion . . . shall be fined . . . or imprisoned.” 18 U.S.C. § 1951(a). Smith does not contest the fact that the McDonald’s restaurant was robbed on June 29, 2009. Nor does he dispute that the robbery affected interstate commerce. See United States v. Davis, 473 F.3d 680, 682 (6th Cir. 2007). His sole argument appears to be that he was not the robber. Smith called two witnesses to testify in his favor: an optometrist who testified to Smith’s poor eyesight, see R. 135 (Trial Tr. at 34) (Page ID #811), and another girlfriend of Smith, who attempted to impeach Reed’s testimony, see id. at 46–47 (Page ID #823–24). Yet the government presented several pieces of evidence linking Smith to the robbery: Reed’s testimony, the fruits from the search of Smith’s apartment, the surveillance footage of the robbery, and the testimony of the McDonald’s employees. Together, this evidence—considered in the light most favorable to the government—is sufficient to support his conviction for robbery under the Hobbs Act. 16 No. 14-5549 United States v. Arthur Smith Smith’s remaining convictions follow from his robbery conviction. As already noted, Smith concedes that he has been convicted of a felony. During the search of his apartment, officers found a handgun located exactly where Reed had told them they would find it— underneath Smith’s nightstand. R. 134 (Trial Tr. at 35, 75) (Page ID #723, 763). The surveillance footage shows the robber pointing a gun at the store manager. The manager noted in addition that the robber cocked his gun in the presence of other employees. Id. at 5–6 (Page ID #693–94). These facts provide a basis for convicting Smith of being a felon in possession and of using, carrying, and brandishing a firearm during and in relation to a crime of violence.