Opinion ID: 2802959
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: sufficiency of the evidence

Text: We review de novo whether the government presented sufficient evidence to sustain a conviction. United States v. Prince, 647 F.3d 1257, 1268 (10th Cir. 2011). Evidence is sufficient to support a conviction if, viewing the evidence and all reasonable inferences from it in the light most favorable to the government, a rational trier of fact could find the defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Id. “We will not weigh conflicting evidence or second-guess the fact-finding decisions of the jury.” United States v. Summers, 414 F.3d 1287, 1293 (10th Cir. 2005). Having said this, however, a conviction must be grounded in more than a mere suspicion of guilt when viewing the evidence in its entirety. Id. at 1294. In the - 11 - criminal context, this rule derives from the government’s burden to prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt. Id. at 1294–95. The government may use circumstantial evidence to fulfill this burden, and the “jury has wide latitude to determine factual issues and to draw reasonable inferences from circumstantial evidence.” Id. at 1295 (quoting United States v. McCarrick, 294 F.3d 1286, 1293 (11th Cir. 2002)). “An inference is reasonable if it ‘flows from logical and probabilistic reasoning,’ i.e., with experience serving as the touchstone, a jury’s inference is permissible where there is a reasonable probability that the conclusion flows from the facts in evidence.” Id. (internal citations omitted). Or, put slightly differently, “an inference must be more than speculation . . . to be reasonable . . . . A jury will not be allowed to engage in a degree of speculation and conjecture that renders its finding a guess or mere possibility. Such [an inference] is infirm because it is not based on the evidence.” United States v. Jones, 44 F.3d 860, 865 (10th Cir.1995) (citation and quotation marks omitted). Here, the government relied primarily on circumstantial evidence to tie Dejuan to the robbery of Arvest Bank, 8 and we must evaluate the reasonableness of the inferences needed to move from that evidence to a conviction of Dejuan for the crimes charged. So what could the jury tell from that evidence? It could strongly 8 See supra p. 6–7 (summarizing the evidence the government marshalled against Dejuan). - 12 - infer from Officer Johnson’s testimony that Dejuan had been inside 1107 E. Pine with Vernon and Stanley because Officer Johnson saw him drive away from a one-way alley behind the house. It could also infer from the lack of the second robber’s clothing at the house that one of the robbers had either left the house soon after arriving or had been dropped off somewhere on the way to the house. The cell phone records provided the information that a call was placed on Landrum 1 to Vernon’s phone at about the time Officer Johnson saw Dejuan leaving Vernon’s property (and that at least three calls occurred between those two phones over the next 30 minutes). The cell phone records also detailed that Landrum 1 was near 1107 E. Pine when the first call was placed but continued to move south as the calls progressed. Thus, the jury needed to take only a single inferential step to determine that this was Dejuan calling Vernon, Dejuan having just been seen by Officer Johnson. The jury could also tell two other important things from the cell phone records introduced at trial. First, Vernon’s phone placed a call to Landrum 1 right before the Arvest robbery. The government posited that this was Vernon calling Stanley, the getaway driver, before he and Dejuan entered the bank. This assertion was corroborated by an eyewitness who testified to having seen two men whose description matched that of the robbers standing outside of the bank shortly before the robbery, one of them speaking on a cell phone. And, second, the - 13 - government’s cell phone evidence suggested that the three phones at issue— Vernon’s phone, Landrum 1, and Landrum 2—were all located in the vicinity of Whitney Landrum’s house on the morning of the robbery. Taking all reasonable inferences in the government’s favor, the jury could believe from this evidence that Vernon, Dejuan, and Stanley were all in the same location shortly before the robbery of Arvest Bank. This evidence also allowed the jury to infer that, after leaving 1107 E. Pine, Dejuan called Vernon using the very phone that Vernon had called when standing outside of the bank before the robbery. The evidence from inside the bank—the videotape and eyewitnesses—allowed the jury to determine that Stanley was not one of the robbers who entered the bank. It also allowed the jury to see—consistent with other testimony—that the second robber was about the same height and complexion as Dejuan. How, then, could the jury move from these reasonable inferences to a supportable determination that Dejuan was the second robber? Each inference requires additional steps. First, the jury had to infer from Dejuan’s presence at 1107 E. Pine not merely that he was at his brother’s house, but that he arrived with Vernon and Stanley in the car after driving there with them from the Arvest Bank robbery. It also had to infer from the lack of a second robber’s outfit and the missing $311.52 not merely that someone had these items, but that Dejuan was the person who had them. And, finally, it had to infer from the cell phone - 14 - records that, upon seeing Officer Johnson, Dejuan called Vernon to tell him that the police may be zeroing in. We believe that the combination of circumstantial factors presented at trial allowed the jury to properly take these steps and determine, beyond a reasonable doubt, that Dejuan was the second robber. Understanding this conclusion requires a brief explanation of the relevant precedent regarding the use of purely circumstantial evidence. The Supreme Court long ago counseled that “[c]ircumstances altogether inconclusive, if separately considered, may, [by] their number and joint operation . . . be sufficient to constitute conclusive proof.” The Reindeer, 69 U.S. 383, 401 (1864). Circumstantial evidence alone may permissibly support a jury’s guilty verdict, see Desert Palace Inc. v. Costa, 539 U.S. 90, 100 (2003) (“[W]e have never questioned the sufficiency of circumstantial evidence in support of a criminal convictions, even though proof beyond a reasonable doubt is required.”), and the government’s evidence need not remove all doubt, but merely those doubts that are reasonable. See Thornburg v. Mullin, 422 F.3d 1113, 1130 (10th Cir. 2005) (holding that a prosecutor’s “state[ment] [to the jury] that ‘beyond a reasonable doubt’ does not mean beyond ‘a shadow of a doubt or all doubt’ was not a constitutional violation” because it was not misleading). - 15 - As noted above, no single piece of the government’s evidence alone conclusively establishes that Dejuan was the second robber. Taken together, however, we believe the combination of circumstances dispels any other reasonable conclusion. Any doubt that Dejuan was the second robber captured on video by the Arvest Bank security camera would require the presence of a fourth individual (other than Vernon, Stanley, or Dejuan) of the same height and complexion as Dejuan. This fourth individual would have had to do one of three things: (1) gotten out of the car on the way from the bank to 1107 E. Pine wearing the bank robbery clothing (a possibility that the GPS tracer’s movements makes unlikely); (2) never entered the getaway car; or (3) managed to sneak out of 1107 E. Pine unnoticed despite the presence of numerous police officers in the vicinity. Under this scenario, Dejuan would have had to be in the unlucky position of being in the house unaware when Stanley and Vernon (his brothers and fellow gang members) returned from the bank robbery, leaving shortly thereafter when Officer Johnson identified him, and unwittingly being in possession of, and using, the very same phone that Vernon called shortly before he robbed the bank. Although this sequence of events may be conceivable, believing that it came to pass strains credulity. We must be mindful that, again, our standard does not require that the government’s evidence eliminate all doubts, but merely reasonable doubts. See id. Given the sequence of events that would be required - 16 - for Dejuan not to be the second robber, we hold that the government has met its burden here. We believe that Dejuan’s strongest case regarding insufficient evidence is Summers, so we consider it in depth. In Summers, two men—Omar Mohammad and Curtis Frazier—robbed a Bank of America branch in Albuquerque, New Mexico. 414 F.3d at 1292. A witness saw the robbers get into a gold Acura as it fled the bank’s parking lot. Id. Our review of the Summers record shows that, as the investigation progressed, this witness—who was viewing the car from above at a diagonal and could only see the driver’s side—came to believe that the car was moving when the robbers entered it, implying the existence of an additional accomplice. (Summers R., Tr. Trans. vol. 1, at 169–70.) The car was later found near the Vista Montano Apartments. Summers, 414 F.3d at 1292. Before the robbery, the apartment manager of Pinnacle View Apartments (located adjacent to Vista Montano Apartments) had seen three black men, none of whom she could identify, walk onto the apartment complex grounds after parking a gold Acura outside the gate. Id. Her suspicions aroused, she had maintenance men watch to see where the three men went. A maintenance worker saw the three men—one carrying a black bag—enter an apartment in the complex. Id. The apartment was rented to Adrienne McCastle, whose boyfriend—Marvin Thomas—resided at the apartment with her (although Thomas’s name was not on - 17 - the lease). Id. About five to ten minutes later, the maintenance worker saw four men, including Thomas, leave the apartment and drive away in a red Ford Escape SUV. Id. The same maintenance worker saw Thomas return alone in the same Ford Escape. Id. Although this worker saw Thomas then leave the apartment a second time after around five to ten minutes, no one saw him or anyone else return to the apartment. Id. By this time, police had contacted the apartment manager to ask if she had seen any cars matching the getaway car used in the robbery near the apartment complex. Id. Given that the description of the gold Acura matched, police started watching the apartment. Id. Although no witness saw anyone enter the apartment after Thomas’s second departure, the police later saw four black men—Thomas and Summers among them—leaving the apartment. Id. at 1292–93. The police followed and eventually apprehended these four. Id. The police found evidence in the car of the bank robbery and also found “$5,142.10 in Mr. Thomas’s pockets, including ten ‘bait bills’” stolen in the robbery. Id. at 1293. We concluded based on this record that there was insufficient evidence to convict Summers of conspiring to commit the bank robbery. Id. at 1292. Equating Summers with Dejuan’s case ignores many extenuating circumstances present in Summers but absent here. In Summers, the government’s claim that a third person besides Mohammad and Frazier participated in the - 18 - robbery relied mainly on one eyewitness who claimed that the gold Acura the robbers escaped in was already moving when the two robbers got into opposite sides of the car. Id. at 1296. In his initial statement to police, the witness had not mentioned that the car was moving when the two robbers reached it, explaining at trial that he later realized that was what he had seen. (Summers R., Tr. Trans. vol. 1, at 169–70.) He did not see a third person in the car and testified that one of the robbers had quickly entered the driver’s side of the moving, two-door car. (Id. at 161, 169.) In fact, his revised recollection (that perhaps there had been a third person) was based principally on a contention that the car “left very fast” for two people to have entered it, started it, and then departed. (See id. at 161.) For Summers to be the getaway driver—the government’s theory against him at trial—the bank robber entering the driver’s side door of the moving car would have had to smoothly climb over Summers to the backseat as the car sped from the bank, all without a hitch. Such unlikely acrobatic skills hardly squared with proof beyond a reasonable doubt. One would assume that a witness intently watching the driver’s side of the car would have seen something other than a smooth getaway if one of the bank robbers tried to enter the rear seat of the twodoor car while a third person was already seated in front, driving. (Summers R., Ex. 46.) Even the presence of a third person, then, was a troublesome question in Summers. - 19 - By contrast, in Dejuan’s case the government’s theory supporting three bank robbery co-conspirators (Vernon, Stanley, and another man) relied on many pieces of evidence. These included: (1) the videotape of the robbers (specifically the robbers’ heights and complexions); (2) the lack of a second robber’s outfit at 1107 E. Pine; (3) the $311.52 missing from the money discovered at 1107 E. Pine; (4) the speed at which the GPS tracer traveled from the vicinity of the bank to 1107 E. Pine; and (5) the cell phone communications between Vernon’s phone and Landrum 1. Moreover, here any theory involving an unknown fourth man (beyond Vernon, Dejuan, and Stanley) participating in the robbery requires many inferential leaps, leaps unnecessary in Summers. Simply put, Summers was a much weaker case than Dejuan’s. Even if one accepts the almost preposterous view that two bank robbers jumped into a moving, two-door car, nothing introduced at trial indicated that the third person driving the car was Summers. Why couldn’t Thomas have been one of the three men? Couldn’t one of the times he left the apartment have been to participate in the robbery? It seems at least as reasonable as the government’s alternative scenario. A central problem in Summers, then, was that the government’s theory involved a three-person crime but the government offered the jury four possibly culpable parties (Mohammad, Dwayne, Thomas, and Summers), two of whom (Summers and Thomas) were equally likely to have - 20 - been the third robber. Finding reasonable doubt in Dejuan’s case, by contrast, would require the jury to concoct a highly implausible scenario in which another robber besides Vernon, Stanley, and Dejuan was present at the robbery. Again, this robber would have had to have done one of the following: (1) been dropped off before the robbers returned to 1107 E. Pine (despite the speed with which they returned); (2) quickly taken $311.52 from the $86,918.52 of loot outside the bank, entered a separate car, and sped away; or (3) returned with Vernon and Stanley to 1107 E. Pine, left the house, and evaded the many police officers who were in the area. And these two distinctions say nothing of the timing issues present in Summers that are not at issue in the case before us. Here, Officer Johnson saw Dejuan leaving a one-way alley behind his brother’s house at 1107 E. Pine minutes after the robbers would have arrived at the house. In Summers, however, there were multiple times when unidentified individuals entered and left the apartment. Summers, 414 F.3d at 1292. To find that Summers was either one of the robbers or had participated in the robbery as a conspirator, the jury essentially was asked to take it on faith that because Summers was in the last group that left the apartment, he must have been in the earlier one that first entered the apartment. Id. at 1296. The case before us does not present the same difficulties. - 21 - The numerous factual deficiencies in the government’s case in Summers supported the court’s conclusion that the government had presented insufficient evidence to sustain Summers’s conviction. But the evidence against Dejuan is much stronger. We perceive no difficulty squaring our finding here with our precedent in Summers. In sum, we conclude that sufficient evidence existed for the jury to convict Dejuan beyond a reasonable doubt.