Opinion ID: 4023423
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: the drug crime as Charged in Count 9.

Text: The jury found Preston guilty of conspiring to possess firearms in furtherance only of the drug crime charged in Count Nine—use of a telephone to facilitate a drug crime in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 843(b). Thus—reading §§ 843(b), 924(c), 13That conviction served as the predicate for Preston’s conviction of possessing a firearm in furtherance of a drug crime in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 924(c)(1)(A). He questioned the § 924(c)(1)(A) conviction only by way of challenging the underlying conviction. Having affirmed the underlying conviction, we also affirm the conviction under § 924(c)(1)(A). 8 Case: 15-30351 Document: 00513632590 Page: 9 Date Filed: 08/10/2016 No. 15-30351 and 924(o) in conjunction—the evidence must be sufficient to allow a rational jury to find that Preston (1) conspired to possess firearms (2) in furtherance of (3) his intentional use of a phone (4) to facilitate a drug offense (i.e. his underlying conspiracy). It is not sufficient. The jury presumably relied on Preston’s jailhouse phone calls in which he directed members of the conspiracy to transfer firearms and sell crack. Although there is sufficient evidence that he conspired to possess firearms, there is no evidence that any such conspiracy was in furtherance of the specific predicate crime on which the jury relied: his use of the phone. That the conspiracy to possess firearms was one reason he made the phone call is insufficient to show that the conspiracy “further[ed], advance[d], or help[ed] forward the [use of the phone to facilitate the underlying conspiracy].” United States v. Ceballos-Torres, 218 F.3d 409, 415 (5th Cir. 2000). Such a relationship between the conspiracy to possess firearms and the phone call would be clear, for example, in a situation where Preston agreed with other inmates to acquire a firearm to subdue a guard and reach a telephone from which he would facilitate his outside drug-distribution conspiracy. But the evidence here made no such showing: Preston’s conspiracy to possess firearms in no way advanced his use of the phone. Similarly, that the conspiracy to possess firearms might have furthered the underlying conspiracy to distribute crack (which was the predicate crime of Preston’s § 843(b) violation) or some other drug crime cannot support the conviction. We must review whether the evidence supports his actual crime of conviction, not some other crime of which the jury may have (but did not) convict him. The evidence did not support Preston’s conviction under Count Two, because no rational jury could conclude that the conspiracy to possess firearms outside the jail furthered, helped, or advanced Preston’s use of the phone 9 Case: 15-30351 Document: 00513632590 Page: 10 Date Filed: 08/10/2016 No. 15-30351 within the jail. Therefore, we reverse that conviction. 14