Opinion ID: 745414
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Jimmie Darrell Poe, Sr.

Text: 25 Jimmie Poe is characterized by the government as the ringleader of this conspiracy. He was convicted by a jury of conspiracy to distribute marijuana, attempting to distribute marijuana, six counts of distribution and possession with intent to distribute marijuana, using a firearm during and in relation to a drug trafficking crime, possession of a firearm by a felon and engaging in a continuing criminal enterprise. He appeals only his convictions for using a firearm during and in relation to a drug trafficking crime and for engaging in a continuing criminal enterprise.
26 As with Lindsey, the government concedes that an improper jury instruction was given with respect to the firearm count. See Bailey, --- U.S. ----, 116 S.Ct. 501, 133 L.Ed.2d 472. The government further concedes that the conviction on this count must be reversed and remanded for a new trial. See Robinson, 96 F.3d 246. Poe's conviction under 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) must therefore be reversed.
27 Poe believes that his continuing criminal enterprise conviction cannot stand. He believes that the government's argument to the jury sought conviction on legally impermissible grounds. Because we cannot determine if the jury convicted him on legally permissible or legally impermissible grounds, he argues, his conviction must be set aside. See, e.g., United States v. Windom, 82 F.3d 742, 749 (7th Cir.), reh'd, 103 F.3d 523 (7th Cir.1996), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 117 S.Ct. 1716, 137 L.Ed.2d 839 (1997). To convict a defendant for engaging in a continuing criminal enterprise (CCE), 21 U.S.C. § 848, the government must prove: 28 (1) [a felony violation of the federal narcotics laws] 29 (2) ... [as] a part of a continuing series of violations ... 30 (A) ... in concert with five or more other persons with respect to whom [the defendant] occupies a position of organizer, a supervisory position, or any other position of management, and 31 (B) from which [he] obtains substantial income or resources. 32 21 U.S.C. § 848(c). Section 848 requires the government to prove that the defendant occupies a position of organizer, a supervisory position, or any other position of management with respect to five other persons engaged in the illegal drug trade. Id.; see also United States v. Witek, 61 F.3d 819, 822 (11th Cir.1995), cert. denied, 116 S.Ct. 738 (1996). Poe's argument is that some of the people whom the government argued were organized by Poe, were not, as a matter of law, so organized (some of them, apparently, were couriers; these or others may have been sellers). Therefore, says Poe, part of the government's argument had no basis in the evidence and was legally impermissible. Despite the fact that the remainder of the government's argument was legally permissible, and thus valid for the jury to rely on for a CCE conviction, Poe argues that we cannot tell whether the jury relied on both the permissible and impermissible arguments or relied on one or the other. This uncertainty would mean that Poe's CCE conviction is invalid, regardless of the otherwise sufficient evidence, and must be reversed. 33 Poe references two portions of the government's closing argument as impermissible because they posited that a CCE conviction could be based on a finding that Poe organized individuals with whom he had only a buyer-seller relationship. The first contested part of the argument involves the government's listing of Bill McCarty (admittedly not subject to Poe's supervision or management and presumably a mere buyer) as one of the people organized by Poe (frankly I think with Bill McCarty, we have called that an organizer's role more than direct supervision or management role, Trial Tr. Vol. XX, at 35-37). The other is the government's argument that Poe organized various other individuals not subject to his management:[Poe] occupied a position of organizer, supervisor or other position of management with respect to those five other persons. The people who were involved in bringing marijuana to the area, I would argue, and under the law Mr. Poe was involved in organizing their activities so that they could bring the marijuana to him or someone he designated, and that then it could be distributed out to the other people who worked in cooperation with him. So I would argue that for the people he had to call or who had to call him to make the arrangements. Remember, the instruction says that a middleman can be an organizer, supervisor, manager as these terms are defined that he acts as an organizer with regard to these. 34 Id. at 34-35. 35 Poe points us to United States v. Barona, 56 F.3d 1087 (9th Cir.1995), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 116 S.Ct. 813, 133 L.Ed.2d 759 (1996) & --- U.S. ----, 116 S.Ct. 814, 133 L.Ed.2d 759 (1996) & --- U.S. ----, 116 S.Ct. 814, 133 L.Ed.2d 759 (1996), as an analogous case. In Barona the government conceded that it had included at least one person who could not legally qualify as a supervisee for CCE purposes in its argument to the jury. Id. at 1096. Because no instructions had been given directing the jury to exclude from CCE consideration individuals who had only buyer-seller relationships with the defendant, the conviction could have been based on legally impermissible grounds. Id. at 1098. The conviction therefore had to be reversed. Id. 36 Here, the government responds by arguing that the jury was properly instructed. The instruction read in part: 37 The fourth requirement is that you find beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant occupied a position of organizer, supervisor, or other position of management with respect to five or more persons. An organizer can be defined as a person who puts together a number of people engaged in separate activities and arranges them in their activities in one operation or enterprise. The word organizer does not mean that the organizer must be able to control those whom he organizes. 38 Because Poe did not object to this instruction (nor does he do so now) and because the jury was also instructed to base its verdict on the law given by the court, while disregarding argument by counsel which was unsupported by the evidence, the government argues that there was no error based on the argument. The government also contends that we should not follow the lead of the Ninth, Eleventh and D.C. Circuits in finding that the position of organizer under the CCE statute is limited by the phrase or any other position of management, (emphasis supplied) especially since Poe failed to object at trial to the government's final argument. Finally, the government argues that because there is sufficient evidence that Poe supervised at least five other people his CCE conviction should stand. 39 The government concedes that its argument assumed that to be an organizer under the CCE statute does not require the occupation of a management role. The government also apparently does not dispute Poe's characterization of his relationships with various individuals cited in argument as not involving a management relationship. We note, however, that the instruction, to which Poe did not object, contains no explicit requirement that an organizer must have a management role. Thus, we face a threshold question: does the term organizer require a management dimension under 21 U.S.C. § 848? 40 But before we attempt to answer that question, we must address the nature of our review. As the government is quick to point out, Poe did not object to the now-questioned argument at trial. Thus, we review only for plain error. In order to constitute plain error, the error must be clear under current law and must affect substantial rights. In order to reverse a conviction for plain error, we must determine, in our discretion, that the error seriously affects the fairness, integrity or public reputation of judicial proceedings. United States v. Olano, 507 U.S. 725, 732-36, 113 S.Ct. 1770, 1776-78, 123 L.Ed.2d 508 (1993). 41 Had Poe objected to the argument, and been overruled, we would have a much more difficult problem. See Yates v. United States, 354 U.S. 298, 312, 77 S.Ct. 1064, 1073, 1 L.Ed.2d 1356 (1957) (the proper rule to be applied is that which requires a verdict to be set aside in cases where the verdict is supportable on one ground, but not on another, and it is impossible to tell which ground the jury selected.). Because a management requirement was not alluded to in the court's instructions (to which there was no objection) and since there is adequate evidence of Poe's supervision of a sufficient number of persons whom he clearly managed, there is no plain error here. 3 42 However, we are in accord with the other circuits that have concluded from the statutory language that an organizer must exercise some form of managerial authority and that the mere relationship of seller to buyer is not enough. Thus the CCE statute requires that a defendant occup[y] a position of organizer, a supervisory position, or any other position of management. 21 U.S.C. § 848(c)(2)(A) (emphasis added). Management, however, as used in this sense, should be distinguished from supervision--another basis for a CCE finding. Supervision, with its probable implication of day-to-day oversight and control, arguably requires a much more intensive and continuous exercise of authority than does management. 43 The first court to tackle this issue was the Ninth Circuit in United States v. Jerome, 942 F.2d 1328 (9th Cir.1991). The Jerome court found the following: 44 We read the statutory language or any other position of management to indicate that an organizer must exercise some sort of managerial responsibility; one does not qualify if one simply sets up a system of supply. 45 Id. at 1331. In Jerome the government argued to the jury that Jerome was the organizer of his suppliers. Under the facts of the case, however, Jerome was properly considered not to have managed his suppliers. The Ninth Circuit described the case thus: 46 Every legitimate retail store makes arrangements with its regular suppliers. In one sense it may be said to organize its supply, but does it organize its suppliers? Surely not in the sense of being the manager of its suppliers. To be an organizer within the sense of the statute more is required than simply being a steady customer. 47 Id. This conclusion, that an organizer under the CCE statute must exercise some managerial authority, has remained good law in the Ninth Circuit, see, e.g., United States v. Delgado, 4 F.3d 780, 783-84 (9th Cir.1993); Barona, 56 F.3d at 1096-97, and has been explicitly adopted by the Eleventh Circuit, see Witek, 61 F.3d at 823, and the D.C. Circuit. See United States v. Williams-Davis, 90 F.3d 490, 508-9 (D.C.Cir.1996), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 117 S.Ct. 986, 136 L.Ed.2d 867 (1997). At the same time, however, the courts have held that an organizer need not exercise control. See Witek, 61 F.3d at 823. 48 In Witek, the Eleventh Circuit considered the disjunctive language of the CCE statute (or any other position of management). The court followed the rules of statutory construction by giving § 848(c)(2)(A) a common-sense reading, by giving weight to the intent of the statute to punish substantial operations and by construing ambiguous terms narrowly under the rule of lenity. Witek, 61 F.3d at 822. Noting first that every circuit to consider the matter has determined that a mere buyer-seller relationship does not satisfy § 848's management requirement, id. (collecting cases) 4 , the court recognized that an organizer need not control those whom he organizes but only need arrange[ ] their activities into an orderly operation. Id. at 823. The Eleventh Circuit also recognized that while there may be cases where the drug buyer organizes his supplier, that will not be the usual situation. Buyers and sellers often need to accommodate one another when meeting and arranging for delivery. Such conduct is simply incidental to the buyer-seller relationship. Id. Thus, organizing for CCE purposes requires more than simply coordinating various players; it requires some exercise of managerial authority. 49 In Williams-Davis, the D.C. Circuit likewise followed the Jerome court's lead. As explained by the D.C. Circuit, suppliers are not per se excluded from being organized, but there must be a managerial relationship between the organizer and the organized. Concluding that an actual managerial relationship is the crux of the CCE requirement, the court agreed that this requirement is not displaced for suppliers or customers. Williams-Davis, 90 F.3d at 509 (citing United States v. Mitchell, 49 F.3d 769, 772 (D.C.Cir.), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 116 S.Ct. 327, 133 L.Ed.2d 228 (1995); Ward, 37 F.3d at 248.) 50 No other circuit has had the opportunity to address the question directly. See, e.g., United States v. Sotelo, 97 F.3d 782, 789 (5th Cir.1996) (discussing only that defendant organized, supervised or managed with no distinction among terms), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 117 S.Ct. 620, 136 L.Ed.2d 543 (1996) & --- U.S. ----, 117 S.Ct. 1002, 136 L.Ed.2d 881 (1997) & --- U.S. ----, 117 S.Ct. 1324, 137 L.Ed.2d 486 (1997); United States v. Edmonds, 52 F.3d 1236, 1239 (3d Cir.1995) (same), reh'd en banc, 80 F.3d 810 (3d Cir.) (reh'd on different issue), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 117 S.Ct. 295, 136 L.Ed.2d 214 (1996); United States v. Rockelman, 49 F.3d 418, 420-21 (8th Cir.1995) (same); United States v. Herrera-Rivera, 25 F.3d 491, 498 (7th Cir.1994) (same); United States v. Hahn, 17 F.3d 502, 506 (1st Cir.1994) (same); see also United States v. Elder, 90 F.3d 1110, 1122 (6th Cir.1996) (Merely proving that five people were in a buyer-seller relationship with the alleged organizer or supervisor is not sufficient to show management.), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 117 S.Ct. 529, 136 L.Ed.2d 415 (1996) & --- U.S. ----, 117 S.Ct. 529, 136 L.Ed.2d 415 (1996) & --- U.S. ----, 117 S.Ct. 993, 136 L.Ed.2d 873 (1997); cf. United States v. Hall, 93 F.3d 126, 130, 130-31 (4th Cir.1996) (the term organizer and the term supervisory position and position of management are to be given their usual and ordinary meanings. These words imply the exercise of power or authority by a person who occupies some position of management or supervision and [t]he 'usual and ordinary' meaning of manager or supervisor does not include a mere buyer-seller relationship. Buyer-seller relationships are not characterized by 'the exercise of power or authority.' ), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 117 S.Ct. 1087, 137 L.Ed.2d 220 (1997). 51 As we have recently noted, the law regarding buyer-seller transactions, in the context of conspiracy law, has been evolving: 52 [m]ore recently, however, we have clarified the law ... pointing out that, while purchase of narcotics for resale is evidence of a conspiratorial agreement (especially when the purchases are repeated ... ), a buyer-seller relationship alone is insufficient to prove a conspiracy. This is the case even when the buyer intends to resell the purchased narcotics. United States v. Townsend, 924 F.2d 1385, 1394 (7th Cir.1991) (The buy-sell transaction is simply not probative of an agreement to join together to accomplish a criminal objective beyond that already being accomplished by the transaction.); United States v. Lechuga, 994 F.2d 346, 349 (7th Cir.1993) (en banc) (Insofar as there was an agreement between [the defendants] merely on the one side to sell and on the other to buy, there was no conspiracy between them no matter what [the buyer] intended to do with the drugs after he bought them.). 53 United States v. Mims, 92 F.3d 461, 465 (7th Cir.1996). With respect specifically to CCE, we have stated that [t]he government must only show that the defendant exerted some type of influence over five other individuals in the course of the criminal enterprise, but did so in a case where the defendant in fact was shown to have exercised significant supervision and control. United States v. Rogers, 89 F.3d 1326, 1334-35 (7th Cir.) (defendant demanded percentage of proceeds, paid various individuals for services and purposefully generated reputation as a violent person intolerant of dissent), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 117 S.Ct. 495, 136 L.Ed.2d 387 (1996). In another of our cases, United States v. Gibbs, 61 F.3d 536, 538 (7th Cir.), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 116 S.Ct. 543, 133 L.Ed.2d 446 (1995), we quoted the same language but found that the defendant had in fact controlled numerous other individuals. 54 We find the reasoning of Jerome and Witek and like cases persuasive and we believe that an organizer for purposes of 21 U.S.C. § 848(c)(2)(A) must exercise some form of managerial authority over the individuals alleged to be organized. For example,  'simply purchasing cocaine from the 'organizer' standing alone is not enough to satisfy the relationship requirement.'  Ward, 37 F.3d at 247 (quoting United States v. English, 925 F.2d 154, 157 (6th Cir.1991)). Further,  'the mere 'fronting' of cocaine alone is insufficient to support finding a management relationship.'  Id. at 248 (quoting United States v. Possick, 849 F.2d 332, 336 (8th Cir.1988)) (emphasis supplied). Fronting cocaine, without additional elements of control, is nothing more than a variation on the traditional buyer-seller relationship. Id.; but see United States v. Apodaca, 843 F.2d 421, 427 (10th Cir.1988) (defendant fronted, but carefully controlled the supply going to these dealers, giving them a few ounces at a time.). On the other hand, giving directions, even if followed, about where to meet for the drug purchase without more evidence of management, would not support the CCE requirement. Ward, 37 F.3d at 249. In any event, since there was no objection at trial to the argument now claimed to be reversible error, there is no adequate basis for reversing Poe's conviction. 55 The conviction and sentence of Howland is AFFIRMED. The convictions of Lindsey and Poe are AFFIRMED in part, REVERSED in part and REMANDED for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.