Court Opinion

ID: 9946513
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-02-29 20:00:59.863662+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:25:40.355883
License: Public Domain

USCA11 Case: 22-13516    Document: 40-1      Date Filed: 02/29/2024   Page: 1 of 10

                                                              [PUBLISH]
                                    In the
                 United States Court of Appeals
                         For the Eleventh Circuit

                           ____________________

                                 No. 22-13516
                           ____________________

        UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
                                                       Plaintiﬀ-Appellee,
        versus
        RAQUAN EMAHL GRAY,

                                                    Defendant-Appellant.

                           ____________________

                  Appeal from the United States District Court
                       for the Middle District of Georgia
                  D.C. Docket No. 5:20-cr-00053-CAR-CHW-3
                            ____________________

        Before WILSON, GRANT, and LAGOA, Circuit Judges.
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        2                      Opinion of the Court                22-13516

        GRANT, Circuit Judge:
               Raquan Emahl Gray was convicted of conspiracy to commit
        a controlled-substances oﬀense after helping transport a car full of
        drugs to a state prison in the middle of the night. Gray says his
        conviction cannot stand because the government failed to prove
        that he knowingly possessed “a Schedule II controlled substance,”
        methamphetamine speciﬁcally, rather than a controlled substance
        generally. This assertion is incorrect—our precedent requires only
        that the government prove general knowledge to obtain a
        controlled-substances conviction. Because it did so here, we aﬃrm
        Gray’s conviction.
                                         I.
               It was the middle of the night. Two men drove to Raquan
        Emahl Gray’s house in Columbus, Georgia with a bag of marijuana
        in the trunk. Gray got in the backseat of the car with a black bag
        in hand and directed the group to drive to Macon State Prison.
               When an officer pulled the car over for a traffic stop and
        instructed Gray and his companions to exit the car, Gray began to
        panic. He immediately told the officer in an unprompted
        statement that he knew “nothing about anything in the vehicle.”
        He was, by his account, merely catching a ride to visit one of his
        friends in Americus, Georgia. Smelling marijuana from the car, the
        officer called for backup. Responding officers searched the car,
        where they found a black bag and three packages wrapped in black
        electrical tape in the backseat where Gray had been sitting. In these
        three packages, they found smaller softball-size packages, each of
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        22-13516               Opinion of the Court                         3

        which contained marijuana. The trunk revealed a clear bag with
        yet another set of packages inside, these wrapped in duct tape.
        When officers examined the contents of the bags, they found 50
        cell phones, multiple cell phone chargers, 19 bags of tobacco, 19
        lighters, methamphetamine, 150 pills of ecstasy, and marijuana.
        The officers arrested all three of the car’s occupants.
               Gray continued to deny any involvement in transporting the
        drugs, but his story about visiting a friend in Americus fell apart as
        the investigation continued. One of his coconspirators told police
        that Gray had navigated the car to Macon State Prison—not
        Americus. And even Gray admitted he had never asked the driver
        to take him to Americus. Though Gray claimed he was planning
        to stay with his friend for a few days, he did not pack a change of
        clothes or even toiletries. Gray later offered an address for his
        “friend in Americus,” but the person who lived there said he did
        not know Gray or the alleged friend.
               Gray, along with the two other men in the car, was indicted
        for conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute
        methamphetamine in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1),
        § 841(b)(1)(A), and § 846. The indictment stated that they
        conspired to “knowingly possess with the intent to distribute, a
        Schedule II controlled substance, to wit: 50 grams or more of
        methamphetamine; all in violation of Title 21, United States Code,
        Section 846 in connection with Title 21, United States Code,
        Section 841(a)(1) and 841(b)(1)(A)(viii).”
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        4                      Opinion of the Court                22-13516

               The case proceeded to trial. After the government rested its
        case, Gray moved for judgment of acquittal under Federal Rule of
        Criminal Procedure 29, arguing that there was not enough
        evidence to convict him. The district court denied the motion.
        The defense presented its case and at the close of all the evidence,
        Gray did not renew his motion. The case went to the jury.
               During deliberations, the jury submitted a note to the court:
        “Hes [sic] guilty for the conspiracy but not for the meth. Were [sic]
        hung up on the meth part.” The court clarified the law:
              The Government is required to prove beyond a
              reasonable doubt that the Defendant knew that the
              unlawful purpose of the plan was distribution of a
              controlled substance. The Government is not
              required to prove that the Defendant knew the
              substance was methamphetamine. The government
              need only prove that it was methamphetamine.

              The jury convicted less than twenty minutes later. Two
        weeks after that, Gray renewed his Rule 29 motion for judgment
        of acquittal, claiming that the district court had “constructively
        amended the indictment by giving an additional charge to the jury
        during deliberations.” He said the indictment charged a
        methamphetamine offense, but the court had broadened the
        indictment when it responded to the jury’s note. He added that
        there was insufficient evidence to support a conviction for
        methamphetamine distribution. The district court again denied
        Gray’s Rule 29 motion, this time because he had not renewed it at
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        22-13516                 Opinion of the Court                             5

        the close of the evidence. The court also held in the alternative
        that the evidence was sufficient to support the conviction.
                Gray appeals the district court’s denial of his renewed
        motion for judgment of acquittal on three grounds. First, he says
        the district court’s jury instruction was per se reversible error
        because the government had failed to show that he knew the
        substance in the car was methamphetamine specifically, or at least
        that it was a Schedule II controlled substance. 1 Second, he claims
        this failure left the government with insufficient evidence to
        convict. And third, he says the district court erred when it decided
        that he had failed to preserve his motion for acquittal.
                                            II.
               We review de novo a claim that a district court’s jury
        instruction misstated the law or misled the jury. United States v.
        Baston, 818 F.3d 651, 660 (11th Cir. 2016). An instruction that
        “broadens the possible bases for conviction beyond what is
        contained in the indictment” is a constructive amendment and
        “constitutes reversible error per se.” United States v. Seher, 562 F.3d
        1344, 1363 (11th Cir. 2009) (alteration adopted) (quotation
        omitted); United States v. Behety, 32 F.3d 503, 508 (11th Cir. 1994).
        We also review de novo both the denial of a motion for judgment
        acquittal and a challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence,

        1 The Controlled Substances Act classifies prohibited drugs into different

        schedules based on legislative findings about a drug’s potential for abuse,
        accepted medical use, and accepted safety. 21 U.S.C. § 812(a), (b). A drug’s
        specified schedule may also change the applicable penalty under § 841(b).
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        6                       Opinion of the Court                  22-13516

        “drawing all reasonable inferences in the government’s favor.”
        United States v. Hernandez, 433 F.3d 1328, 1332 (11th Cir. 2005)
        (quotation omitted).
                                          III.
               We first address Gray’s contention that it was not enough
        for the government to prove that he knew he possessed, generally
        speaking, a controlled substance. He rests his argument on the
        wording of his indictment. According to Gray, the fact that it refers
        to “a Schedule II controlled substance, to wit: 50 grams or more of
        methamphetamine” means that the government charged him not
        with knowing possession of any controlled substance, but with
        knowing possession of methamphetamine in particular—or at least
        with knowing that he possessed a controlled substance on the
        Schedule II list. So by instructing the jury that the government
        need only show knowledge of any controlled substance, Gray says,
        the district court amended the indictment and committed a per se
        reversible error.
                We have already addressed and rejected Gray’s argument in
        United States v. Colston—and we do so again here. 4 F.4th 1179 (11th
        Cir. 2021). There, just as here, the indictment charged a defendant
        with violations of § 841(a)(1), § 846, and § 841(b), and it specifically
        named the drug involved (cocaine rather than methamphetamine).
        Id. at 1185. And there, just as here, the defendant challenged the
        sufficiency of the evidence, claiming that the government was
        required to prove her knowledge of the particular drug listed in her
        indictment but failed to do so. Id. at 1186.
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        22-13516               Opinion of the Court                         7

                But as we explained in Colston, § 841(a)(1), § 846, and
        § 841(b) do not require the government to prove a defendant’s
        knowledge of a specific drug. “Section 841(a)(1) makes it unlawful
        for any person knowingly or intentionally to manufacture,
        distribute, or dispense, or possess with intent to manufacture,
        distribute, or dispense, a controlled substance,” and § 846 makes it a
        crime to conspire to violate § 841(a)(1). Id. at 1187 (alteration
        adopted) (quotation omitted). For both, the same state of mind is
        necessary: “the defendant must knowingly possess, and intend to
        distribute, a controlled substance, but need not know which
        substance it is.” Id. at 1187–88. Section 841(b), on the other hand,
        provides the possible penalties for a § 841(a)(1) violation “based on
        only the type and quantity of drug ‘involved,’ not on what the
        defendant knew.” Id. at 1188. So it has no mens rea requirement
        at all. Id. That, we said, was why the indictment needed to list the
        type of substance—by both name and schedule. See id.
               Colston thus confirmed that an indictment listing a specific
        substance simply establishes the type of drug the government must
        prove at sentencing; it does not change the general knowledge
        element for § 846 and § 841(a)(1). That approach tracks our
        instruction that indictments must be read “as a whole” and given a
        “common sense construction” based on “practical, not technical,
        considerations—including the elements of the statutory offense.”
        United States v. Phillips, 4 F.4th 1171, 1176 (11th Cir. 2021)
        (quotations omitted).
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        8                          Opinion of the Court                         22-13516

               In explaining our holding in Colston, we specifically rejected
        our contrary decision in United States v. Narog, which had said that
        because the indictment in that case named a specific type of drug,
        the government needed to prove the defendant’s knowledge of
        that particular drug to the jury. 372 F.3d 1243, 1246, 1249 (11th Cir.
        2004); see Colston, 4 F.4th at 1188–89. Narog and “its demand for a
        hyper-technical parsing of every indictment,” we emphasized,
        departed from longstanding precedent and thus was “not good
        law.” Colston, 4 F.4th at 1188–89; see United States v. Gomez, 905 F.2d
        1513, 1514 (11th Cir. 1990).
               Gray tries to escape Colston’s reach, and our rejection of
        Narog, by relying on another of our decisions, United States v. Achey,
        943 F.3d 909 (11th Cir. 2019). We cannot see why. To start, Achey
        ultimately held that the indictment in that case did not require the
        government to establish the defendant’s knowledge of the specific
        drug. Id. at 913. And its discussion and analysis of that issue
        responded to Narog’s incorrect guidance—which we firmly
        rejected in Colston. Id. at 914–15, 914 n.6; Colston, 4 F.4th at 1188–
        89. 2
               In short, Gray’s indictment for violating 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1)
        and § 846 required the government to prove only that he knew he
        possessed a controlled substance, not that he knew he possessed a
        certain controlled substance. The fact that the indictment named
        a specific substance does not change this general-knowledge

        2 Gray also relies on United States v. Sanders, 668 F.3d 1298 (11th Cir. 2012), but

        his reliance on this case fails for the same reason his Achey arguments fail.
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        22-13516               Opinion of the Court                         9

        requirement. Nor does the “Schedule II” notation. All that listing
        methamphetamine did, then, was provide an element of an
        enhanced penalty under § 841(b)—which does not carry a
        knowledge requirement. The district court did not err when it
        instructed the jury that the government need only prove that Gray
        knew he possessed a controlled substance.
             For this reason, we also reject Gray’s sufficiency challenge,
        which his counsel correctly conceded depends entirely on his
        argument that general knowledge was not enough.
                                         IV.
                Gray’s only remaining argument is that the district court
        erred when it denied his Rule 29 motion for judgment of acquittal
        because he did not timely renew that motion at the conclusion of
        the evidence. He is correct that Federal Rule of Criminal
        Procedure 29(c) allows a renewed motion both after the jury’s
        discharge or within fourteen days after a guilty verdict, whichever
        is later. So Gray’s motion, renewed on the fourteenth day after his
        guilty verdict, was timely.
               But not all errors warrant reversal. Weaver v. Massachusetts,
        582 U.S. 286, 294 (2017). Errors that “do not affect the substantial
        rights of the parties” are considered harmless. 28 U.S.C. § 2111; see
        also Stansell v. Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colom., 45 F.4th 1340,
        1349 (11th Cir. 2022). Just so here. On top of denying Gray’s Rule
        29 motion for untimeliness, the district court held in the alternative
        that sufficient evidence sustained his conviction. As we already
        explained, we agree. So the district court’s error in rejecting Gray’s
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        10                    Opinion of the Court               22-13516

        motion as untimely did not matter—his argument would have
        failed on the merits anyway.
                                 *      *      *
              Because there was suﬃcient evidence for the jury to ﬁnd that
        Gray knew he possessed a controlled substance, we AFFIRM his
        conviction.