Court Opinion

ID: 9894611
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-11-02 15:01:19.037366+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:10:05.359780
License: Public Domain

United States Court of Appeals
                            For the Eighth Circuit
                        ___________________________

                                No. 23-1779
                        ___________________________

                            United States of America

                                      Plaintiff - Appellee

                                        v.

                             Daniel Arsenio Rodgers

                                   Defendant - Appellant
                                 ____________

                     Appeal from United States District Court
                    for the Northern District of Iowa - Eastern
                                  ____________

                          Submitted: October 20, 2023
                           Filed: November 2, 2023
                                [Unpublished]
                                ____________

Before GRUENDER, STRAS, and KOBES, Circuit Judges.
                          ____________

PER CURIAM.

       A jury found Daniel Rodgers, a felon, guilty of unlawfully possessing a
firearm. See 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1). The district court 1 denied his motion for
judgment of acquittal and sentenced him to 120 months’ imprisonment. Rodgers

      1
        The Honorable C.J. Williams, United States District Judge for the Northern
District of Iowa.
appeals and argues that the evidence was insufficient to support his conviction and
that the district court erred in applying a sentencing-guidelines enhancement.
Addressing these arguments in turn, we affirm.

      We review de novo the denial of Rodgers’s motion for judgment of acquittal
based on the sufficiency of the evidence. United States v. Trejo, 831 F.3d 1090,
1093 (8th Cir. 2016). We view the “evidence in the light most favorable to the
government, resolving conflicts in the government’s favor, and accepting all
reasonable inferences that support the verdict.” United States v. Sherman, 81 F.4th
800, 806 (8th Cir. 2023). “We will reverse only if no reasonable jury could have
found all the elements of the offense proved beyond a reasonable doubt.” Id.

       Rodgers argues that the evidence at trial was insufficient for a reasonable jury
to conclude beyond a reasonable doubt that he knowingly possessed a Beretta pistol.
See United States v. Coleman, 961 F.3d 1024, 1027 (8th Cir. 2020) (noting “knowing
possession of a firearm” as an element of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1)). At trial, the jury
heard witnesses testify, and saw traffic-camera footage showing, that Rodgers
committed two drive-by shootings on the day of his arrest. After arresting Rodgers,
officers found the Beretta in the center console of the car in which Rodgers had been
riding. Later forensic analysis matched the shell casings and bullet fragments found
at the two crime scenes to the Beretta found in the car. The Beretta also fit in the
Beretta gun case found in a different car used by Rodgers. This evidence sufficed
to prove Rodgers’s knowing possession of the Beretta, and the district court did not
err in denying Rodgers’s motion for judgment of acquittal.

       Rodgers attempts to avoid this conclusion by attacking the credibility of two
of the Government’s witnesses and by asserting that the Government proved its case
only by “implication.” These complaints do not disturb our conclusion that the
evidence was sufficient because it is the jury’s function, not ours, to judge the
credibility of witnesses. See United States v. Hernandez, 569 F.3d 893, 897 (8th Cir.
2009). Moreover, a “conviction may be based on circumstantial as well as direct
evidence.” United States v. Tate, 633 F.3d 624, 628 (8th Cir. 2011).

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       Rodgers further argues that the jury’s verdict was “inconsistent” because it
found that he knowingly possessed the Beretta but not another firearm also found at
the time of Rodgers’s arrest. Putting aside that inconsistent verdicts are not, on their
own, sufficient grounds for reversal or a new trial, see United States v. Armstrong,
253 F.3d 335, 336 (8th Cir. 2001), we agree with the district court that the evidence
tending to show Rodgers’s knowing possession of the Beretta was different from the
apparently weaker evidence connecting Rodgers to the other firearm. We see no
inconsistency in the jury’s findings.

       Next, Rodgers challenges his sentence. Over Rodgers’s objection, the district
court applied a four-level enhancement because the Beretta “had an altered or
obliterated serial number.” U.S.S.G. § 2K2.1(b)(4)(B). Rodgers argues that the
sentencing enhancement should not have applied because the Beretta’s serial number
was “visible to the naked eye” and “required no crime lab procedure to determine
the serial number.” To address this point, we review the district court’s factual
findings for clear error and its application of the sentencing guidelines de novo.
United States v. Thigpen, 848 F.3d 841, 845 (8th Cir. 2017).

       A serial number is “altered or obliterated” when it is “materially changed in a
way that makes accurate information less accessible.” United States v. Jones, 643
F.3d 257, 258 (8th Cir. 2011); see also United States v. Carter, 421 F.3d 909, 916
(9th Cir. 2005) (“[N]othing in . . . § 2K2.1(b)(4) suggests that any defacement must
make tracing impossible or extraordinarily difficult.”). Here, the Beretta’s serial
number was stamped at three places on the gun. Each was at least partially scratched
out, and a police officer testified that law enforcement had difficulty piecing together
the gun’s serial number because of the scratches. In other words, the scratches
“materially changed” the serial number and made an accurate reading “less
accessible.” The district court also examined the gun, noted that someone scratched
out the serial numbers, and found that “the serial number has been altered or
obliterated.” This finding is not clearly erroneous, and the district court properly
applied the enhancement. See Thigpen, 848 F.3d at 845-46 (holding that the

                                          -3-
enhancement applies even when only one of the three serial-number stamps on the
firearm was altered or obliterated).

      Accordingly, we affirm Rodgers’s conviction and sentence. 2
                     ______________________________

      2
        Rodgers also raises several ineffective-assistance-of-counsel claims. As a
rule, ineffective-assistance claims are better left for post-conviction proceedings,
and none of the scenarios that would justify early review of the claims are present
here. See United States v. Ralston, 973 F.3d 896, 914 (8th Cir. 2020); United States
v. Long, 721 F.3d 920, 926 (8th Cir. 2013). Thus, we do not address the claims in
this direct appeal.

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