Opinion ID: 415511
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: conspiracy law: spokes and chains.

Text: 65 Conspiracy is an area of the law filled with figurative analogies, including chains and wheel parts. See generally Note, Single vs. Multiple Criminal Conspiracies: A Uniform Method of Inquiry for Due Process and Double Jeopardy Purposes, 65 Minn.L.Rev. 295 (1980); Developments in the Law--Criminal Conspiracy, 72 Harv.L.Rev. 920 (1959); W. LaFave & A. Scott, Criminal Law Sec. 362, at 480-82 (1978). The question of the type of conspiracy involved is generally raised in a defendant's claim, similar to Michelena-Orovio's, that the government has proven not one but several conspiracies and that the defendant cannot be convicted of the conspiracies in which he did not participate. 3 66 In Kotteakos v. United States, 328 U.S. 750, 66 S.Ct. 1239, 90 L.Ed. 1557 (1946), the Supreme Court was confronted with the classic spoke conspiracy involving fraudulent loan schemes that revolved around one man, Brown. To use the analogy, Brown was the hub of the wheel, while the other defendants were the spokes. The government conceded that there was more than one conspiracy, i.e. that there was no rim to connect the spokes, but it maintained that the defendants had not suffered substantial prejudice from being convicted of a single general conspiracy. The Supreme Court thought otherwise and reversed the convictions. 67 In contrast, the Supreme Court affirmed the convictions of participants in a chain or rimmed wheel conspiracy. Blumenthal v. United States, 332 U.S. 539, 68 S.Ct. 248, 92 L.Ed. 154 (1947). The defendants were convicted of a conspiracy to sell whiskey at prices above the ceiling set by government regulations. In distinguishing the factual situation in Kotteakos, the Court noted that Blumenthal and his colleagues were all involved in one scheme--to sell whiskey unlawfully--and that the several agreements were essential and integral steps in a single conspiracy. 332 U.S. at 559, 68 S.Ct. at 257. 68 Conspiracies to distribute narcotics have generally been considered to be prime examples of chain, or interconnected, conspiracies, in which a participant in a segment of the conspiracy may be convicted of participation in the whole. For example, in United States v. Bruno, 105 F.2d 921 (2nd Cir.1939), rev'd on other grounds, 308 U.S. 287, 60 S.Ct. 198, 84 L.Ed. 257 (1939), the defendants were indicted for and convicted of a conspiracy to import, sell and possess narcotics. They argued that there were at least three separate conspiracies--one between the smugglers and the middlemen and one between the middlemen and each group of retailers. The Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit rejected the defendants' argument, specifically recognizing the interdependence of participants in a drug distribution scheme:The evidence did not disclose any cooperation or communication between the smugglers and either group of retailers, or between the two groups of retailers themselves; however, the smugglers knew that the middlemen must sell to retailers, and the retailers knew that the middlemen must buy of importers of one sort or another. Thus the conspirators at one end of the chain knew that the unlawful business would not, and could not, stop with their buyers; and those at the other end knew that it had not begun with their sellers. That being true, a jury might have found that all the accused were embarked upon a venture, in all parts of which each was a participant, and an abettor in the sense that the success of that part with which he was immediately concerned, was dependent upon the success of the whole. 69 105 F.2d at 922. 70 The Second Circuit has followed the Bruno rationale in more recent narcotics cases under the present statute: 71 As we have long recognized, in many narcotics distribution networks the ultimate retailers may not know the identities of those who supply their wholesaler, and the retailers' identities may be unknown to those suppliers; but all are well aware that they are participating in a collective venture. 72 United States v. Martino, 664 F.2d 860, 876 (2d Cir.1981), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 102 S.Ct. 3493, 73 L.Ed.2d 1373 (1982). In our own circuit we have stated: 73 Where the activities of one aspect of the scheme are necessary or advantageous to the success of another aspect of the scheme or to the overall success of the venture, where there are several parts inherent in a larger common plan, or where the character of the property involved or the nature of the activity is such that knowledge on the part of one member concerning the existence and function of other members of the same scheme is necessarily implied due to the overlapping nature of the various roles of the participants, the existence of a single conspiracy will be inferred. 74 United States v. Elam, 678 F.2d 1234, 1246 (5th Cir.1982) (citations omitted) (emphasis added). See also United States v. Jabara, 618 F.2d 1319 (9th Cir.), cert. denied, 446 U.S. 987, 100 S.Ct. 2973, 64 L.Ed.2d 845 (1980). Thus, there is a line of precedent in a number of circuits, including our own, holding that the suppliers of narcotics may be convicted for participation in the entire distribution scheme. 75 The majority describes as question-begging the argument that Bruno and other cases support the holding that suppliers of narcotics such as Michelena-Orovio may be convicted for participation in the entire distribution scheme. at 504. As the majority explains, the issue in this case is whether the jury could reasonably infer, on the basis of Michelena-Orovio's participation in the conspiracy to import twelve tons of marijuana, that he had knowingly and voluntarily joined the conspiracy to distribute it. Relying on Direct Sales Co. v. United States, 319 U.S. 703, 63 S.Ct. 1265, 87 L.Ed. 1674 (1943), and United States v. Falcone, 311 U.S. 205, 61 S.Ct. 204, 85 L.Ed. 128 (1940), the majority maintains that there is no evidence that Michelena-Orovio had the requisite stake 4 in the distribution scheme to connect him to the conspiracy to distribute. It emphasizes the absence of prolonged cooperation in this case in support of its conclusion that the defendant was at most indifferent to the contraband's ultimate destination. 76 The majority admits, however, that Direct Sales recognized that the strength of an inference of participation in the illicit conspiracy based on the sale of goods to the conspirators is dependent on the nature of the goods sold. Because the narcotics in Direct Sales were heavily regulated, there was a greater inference that the distributor knew that the buyer would use the goods illegally and that the distributor intended to further, promote and cooperate in the buyer's misuse of the commodity:The commodities sold [in Falcone] were articles of free commerce, sugar, cans, etc. They were not restricted as to sale by order form, registration, or other requirements. When they left the seller's stock and passed to the purchaser's hands, they were not in themselves restricted commodities, incapable of further legal use except by compliance with rigid regulations, such as apply to morphine sulphate. The difference is like that between toy pistols or hunting-rifles and machine guns. All articles of commerce may be put to illegal ends. But all do not have inherently the same susceptibility to harmful and illegal use. Nor, by the same token, do all embody the same capacity, from their very nature, for giving the seller notice the buyer will use them unlawfully. Gangsters, not hunters or small boys, comprise the normal private market for machine guns. So drug addicts furnish the normal outlet for morphine which gets outside the restricted channels of legitimate trade. 77 319 U.S. at 710-11, 63 S.Ct. at 1269. The Court explained that the difference in commodities was important in terms of both the seller's knowledge of the buyer's intended use, and the seller's intent to promote and cooperate in the illegal action: 78 This difference is important for two purposes. One is for making certain that the seller knows the buyer's intended illegal use. The other is to show that by the sale he intends to further, promote and cooperate in it. 79 Id. In recognition of the obvious difference between the sale of morphine and the sale of sugar, yeast and cans, the Court specifically stated that the quantum of proof required to show knowledge that the buyer will use the commodity unlawfully is dependent on the nature of the commodity: 80 The difference between sugar, cans, and other articles of normal trade, on the one hand, and narcotic drugs, machine guns and such restricted commodities, on the other, arising from the latters' inherent capacity for harm and from the very fact they are restricted, makes a difference in the quantity of proof required to show knowledge that the buyer will utilize the article unlawfully. Additional facts, such as quantity sales, high-pressure sales methods, abnormal increases in the size of the buyer's purchases, etc., which would be wholly innocuous or not more than ground for suspicion in relation to unrestricted goods, may furnish conclusive evidence, in respect to restricted articles, that the seller knows the buyer has an illegal object and enterprise. Knowledge, equivocal and uncertain as to one, becomes sure as to the other. So far as knowledge is the foundation of intent, the latter thereby also becomes the more secure. 81 319 U.S. at 711-12, 63 S.Ct. at 1269 (emphasis added). 82 Falcone and Direct Sales must be viewed along a continuum of transactions. At one end of the continuum is Falcone, which did not involve an inherently illegal transaction at all, but rather the sale of goods in themselves innocent. 311 U.S. at 207, 61 S.Ct. at 205 (quoting the opinion below, 109 F.2d 579, 581 (2d Cir.1940)). 5 The sale of morphine in Direct Sales fell somewhere in the middle of the continuum, in that it involved the sale of a restricted commodity. Thus, not every instance of sale of restricted goods would support a charge of conspiracy. 319 U.S. at 712, 63 S.Ct. at 1269. But the restricted nature of the commodity meant that there were limitations on the possible expansion of the legal market: 83 [T]he market for opiates may [not] be developed as any other market.... Mass advertising and bargain-counter discounts are not appropriate to commodities so surrounded with restrictions. They do not create new legal demand and new classes of legitimate patrons, as they do for sugar, tobacco and other free commodities. Beyond narrow limits, the normal legal market for opiates is not capable of being extended by such methods. The primary effect is rather to create black markets for dope and to increase illegal demand and consumption. 84 Id. In the case of Direct Sales, the sale of large quantities of morphine, together with the prolonged cooperation between the seller and buyer, provided the evidence sufficient to convict the seller of conspiracy to violate the narcotics laws. 85 If Falcone is at one end of the continuum, Michelena-Orovio's case is at the other, for the transaction involving the marijuana was itself illegal and there was no legal market for the commodity. The absence of any legal market provides the link that supports the inference of involvement in the conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute. Michelena-Orovio would have had no job if there had been no plan made for the distribution of his cargo. The twelve tons of marijuana would have been virtually worthless if there had been no conspiracy to distribute. The marijuana could not be sold in the supermarket as sugar or yeast could, Falcone, nor could it be disposed of in a pharmacy or hospital, as morphine might be. Direct Sales. 6 Common sense leads to the conclusion that an importer of that much marijuana knows perfectly well, and indeed relies on the fact, that there is a plan for the distribution of his cargo. See Turner v. United States, 396 U.S. 398, 417, 90 S.Ct. 642, 653, 24 L.Ed.2d 610 (1970) (Common sense ... tells us that those who traffic in heroin will inevitably become aware that the product they deal in is smuggled, unless they practice a studied ignorance to which they are not entitled.); Barnes v. United States, 412 U.S. 837, 845, 93 S.Ct. 2357, 2363, 37 L.Ed.2d 380 (1973) (affirming conviction of possession of United States Treasury checks stolen from the mails where knowledge that the checks were stolen was inferred from unexplained possession of checks made out to someone with whom the defendant was unacquainted). In the context of the importation of a huge quantity of marijuana, in contrast to the sale of a commodity that is merely restricted, it is not necessary to have an ongoing venture in order to establish involvement in the plan for distribution, because the requisite positive interest in the distribution scheme is supplied by virtue of the fact that there would be no cargo and the cargo could not be disposed of unless such a scheme existed. 86 The majority emphasizes that the drug chain-conspiracy cases involved multiple transactions over a considerable length of time. The discussion in those opinions of the ongoing nature of those transactions was not, however, necessarily directed to whether the supplier could be convicted of the conspiracy to distribute the narcotics that he had supplied. Proof of an ongoing conspiracy was needed to convict the defendants of participation in other transactions, separated in time, personnel, and location from those in which they had directly participated. The ongoing nature of the conspiracy supplied the rim for the spokes of the wheel, not the links in each individual distribution chain. The Second Circuit has recognized that the links at the far ends of a long-term chain conspiracy may be unaware of others performing roles similar to theirs, but the links of a single supply chain are inextricably related to one another: 87 As applied to the long term operation of an illegal business, the common pictorial distinction between chain and spoke conspiracies can obscure as much as it clarifies. The chain metaphor is indeed apt in that the links of a narcotics conspiracy are inextricably related to one another, from grower, through exporter and importer, to wholesaler, middleman, and retailer, each depending for his own success on the performance of all the others. But this simple picture tends to obscure that the links at either end are likely to consist of a number of persons who may have no reason to know that others are performing a role similar to theirs--in other words the extreme links of a chain conspiracy may have elements of the spoke conspiracy. Moreover, whatever the value of the chain concept where the problem is to trace a single operation from the start through its various phases to its successful conclusion, it becomes confusing when, over a long period of time, certain links continue to play the same role but with new counterparts, as where importers who regard their partnership as a single continuing one, having successfully distributed one cargo through X distributing organization, turn, years later, to moving another cargo obtained from a different source through Y. 88 United States v. Borelli, 336 F.2d 376, 383-84 (2d Cir.1964), cert. denied, 379 U.S. 960, 85 S.Ct. 647, 13 L.Ed.2d 555 (1965) (footnote omitted) (emphasis added); see also Bruno, 105 F.2d at 923. 7 Michelena-Orovio's case is one where the issue is whether the jury is entitled to infer the defendant's participation in the conspiracy to distribute the marijuana that he has supplied, not whether he is involved in a number of distribution schemes extending over time. 89 Similarly, the fact that Michelena-Orovio only participated in a single act does not render his participation in the distribution scheme insufficient. In United States v. Magnano, 543 F.2d 431 (2d Cir.1976), cert. denied, 429 U.S. 1091, 97 S.Ct. 1100, 51 L.Ed.2d 536 (1977), the Second Circuit was confronted with and rejected a similar argument: 90 For much the same reasons the fact that De Lutro and Soldano each only consummated one transaction with the core group does not render their participation insufficient to warrant their inclusion in the single conspiracy charged. The so-called single transaction rule, ... recognizes that a single isolated act does not, per se, support an inference that a defendant had knowledge of, or acquiesced in, a larger conspiratorial scheme. It is only when there is no independent evidence tending to prove that the defendant had some knowledge of the broader conspiracy and when the single transaction is not in itself one from which such knowledge might be inferred, ... that the single act is an insufficient predicate upon which to link the actor to the overall conspiracy.... Each of the single acts here--De Lutro's sale of five kilos pure heroin and Soldano's sale of three kilos--was to core members of the conspiracy and of such a magnitude as to justify an inference that each knew he was involved in a criminal enterprise of substantial scope. 91 543 F.2d at 434-35 (citations omitted) (emphasis added). So, for example, where a buyer makes one purchase of a small amount of marijuana, the single purchase does not in and of itself support the inference that the buyer is part of the distribution scheme. Such a purchase could conceivably be made solely for the buyer's personal consumption. Where the single sale involves twelve tons of marijuana, however, that sale cannot possibly be limited to a purchase for the buyer's personal use. Mazyak, supra; Mann, supra; see also United States v. Prieskorn, 658 F.2d 631, 634 (8th Cir.1981) (ten to fifteen pounds of cocaine sold over a fourteen-month period). Indeed, it strains credibility to suggest that the importation of twelve tons of marijuana with an approximate street value of between four and six million dollars is a casual transaction, even if the transaction is planned for one time only. The majority's approach would permit the drug smuggler to make a one-time killing in the market, free from any fear of prosecution for his part in the scheme to distribute his wares. 92 In summary, the fact that the defendant is involved in importing a huge quantity of marijuana into the United States may establish both the defendant's knowledge of and his joinder in the conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute. Since twelve tons of marijuana is more than mere mortals could personally consume in a lifetime, Cortez, supra, someone must have an intent to distribute the contraband. 8 The defendant's awareness of the existence of the conspiracy flows from his participation in the conspiracy to import such a large quantity, for in the absence of any legal market in which to dispose of his wares, there is no reason to import the goods if there has been no plan made for their distribution. Similarly, the defendant's joinder or interest in the conspiracy to distribute may be inferred from his involvement in the importation scheme, for he would have no importing job if there was no conspiracy to distribute. Finally, the act of importation itself is an act in furtherance of the conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute, for there would be no distribution scheme if there were no marijuana to distribute. See United States v. Tramaglino, 197 F.2d 928, 930-31 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, 344 U.S. 864, 73 S.Ct. 105, 97 L.Ed. 670 (1952). 93