Court Opinion

ID: 9491304
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 14:10:03.753965+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:51:39.196500
License: Public Domain

DAUGHTREY, Circuit Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
The jury, the representational embodiment of soeiety-at-large, lies at the very foundation of our American jurisprudential system. To a panel of our fellow citizens we daily entrust matters of life and death, imprisonment, fame, and fortune. We have accorded such deference to the determinations of juries that we all can readily recall post-trial motions or clemency petitions being denied merely through invocation of the mantra, “The jury has spoken.” Yet, interestingly, when the *447public becomes outraged at a state court jury’s conclusion that constitutional safeguards must prevent a criminal defendant from being convicted of a crime, we do not hesitate to stretch upon the rack of dual sovereignty our conceptions of fairness and reason. I believe the majority’s decision today has succeeded in stretching the reach of 18 U.S.C. § 1512(a)(1)(C) beyond its breaking point so as to impose severe punishments upon actions never envisioned by Congress to fall within the ambit of the statute.. I thus respectfully dissent from the majority’s decision to affirm Frederick Jefferson’s conviction for witness tampering. Consequently, I would also find the challenge to the legal sufficiency of the count of the indictment alleging that crime to be moot. In all other respects, however, I concur in the majority’s treatment of the issues raised on appeal.
I.
After being acquitted in Tennessee state court of the murder of Elmus Gerald Simms, Jefferson was nevertheless indicted by a federal grand jury for killing Simms “with the intent to prevent the communication by El-mus Gerald Simms to a law enforcement officer [of] the fact that Elmus Gerald Simms could identify [the defendant] as the individual who had robbed Elmus Gerald Simms in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 1512(a)(1)(C) and (2).” A conviction under § 1512(a)(1)(C), however, requires proof of specific intent to prevent communication as at least part of the motivation for the violent act. See United States v. Mullins, 22 F.3d 1365, 1369 (6th Cir.1994). “Specific intent” denotes not an objective standard (ie., whether a reasonable person intended to prevent communication with law enforcement officers), but a subjective determination (ie., whether this particular defendant intended to prevent communication between the crime victim and a federal law enforcement official). United States v. DeAndino, 958 F.2d 146, 148 (6th Cir.1992). Based upon the evidence adduced at trial, I do not believe, even under the deferential standard of review we apply in sufficiency of evidence challenges, that a reasonable jury could determine beyond a reasonable doubt that Jefferson killed Simms to prevent him from communicating with the authorities.
Instead, the evidence, viewed in its entirety, establishes that Jefferson’s interactions with Simms were directed not towards efforts at concealing his identity, but only towards the robbery of jewelry samples. After shooting Simms numerous times, the defendant grabbed the car keys from the ignition and proceeded to the back of Simms’s car. He then heard a commotion, however, and squatted down to fire another shot toward the victim before grabbing the sample case containing the jewelry and fleeing. Had Jefferson’s intent been to silence an eyewitness, greater care would have been taken at that point to ensure that Simms was no longer alive and able to report the crime to authorities. Moreover, the gunshots fired by the defendant were not aimed at Simms’s head, neck, or chest, but rather were consistent with shots aimed at an individual to disable him to allow for completion of a robbery. In fact, a forensic pathologist testified that the paths of the bullets through the victim’s body indicated that Simms was shot either once or twice in the left buttock as he was slumped down on the front seat of his ear. An additional bullet track showed that the victim was shot another time in his lower body, but that the bullet happened to travel upward until it damaged Simms’s lung and caused his death. Contrary to the conclusion drawn by the majority, under the facts of this case, I find nothing indicative of a specific intent to silence a witness merely from the firing of shots at the victim, especially given the normally non-fatal entry wounds of the bullets.
Second, Jefferson’s reactions to other eyewitnesses indicates his lack of interest in preventing identification or reporting of the crime. For example, Barbara Pitts and Richard Stout testified that they viewed the entire occurrence from a vantage point approximately 70 yards from the crime scene. Furthermore, while at the trunk of the car retrieving the sample case, Jefferson looked *448directly at the two witnesses but took no efforts to dissuade them from relating the happenings to police.
Even more telling, Charles Taylor testified that, upon seeing Simms’s vehicle crash down the embankment into the soybean field, he stopped his car only one-and-one-half car lengths behind the defendant’s vehicle on the roadway and watched the robbery unfold from a distance of 25-30 yards. Taylor left the scene as Jefferson climbed back up to his car, but the defendant’s Chrysler soon passed Taylor in his vehicle on the road. In doing so, however, Jefferson did nothing to threaten, harm, or intimidate the eyewitness.
Kurt Moore, then a student at the local high school, also observed Simms’s car crash into the field. Moore exited his own vehicle and walked down the embankment to within 30 yards of the scene of the robbery and shooting. Again, Jefferson took no action to prevent the vulnerable witness from reporting his observations to the police. If Jefferson’s specific intent in shooting Simms were to ensure that no witnesses would be able to report his illegal actions to federal officials, it is inconceivable that he would ignore the four eyewitnesses who were able to observe his actions from close range. I believe, therefore, that under any interpretation of the evidence before the jury, the defense has established reasonable doubt that the motive for the shooting of Simms was interference with a witness to a federal crime and not merely facilitation of a robbery.
II.
Additionally, the government in its brief and the majority in its opinion cannot cite to a single reported court decision applying the provisions of 18 U.S.C. § 1512(a)(1)(C). to a situation such as the one presented in this case. The paucity of such legal support is not surprising. The statutory provision at issue in this appeal was simply not intended to reach actions taken only to enable the commission of an underlying crime. In the usual § 1512(a)(1)(C) case, the efforts of a defendant to silence a witness or co-defendant occur after completion of the base offense. See, e.g., United States v. Bell, 113 F.3d 1345, 1347 (3d Cir.1997), cert. denied, — U.S. -, 118 S.Ct. 447, 139 L.Ed.2d 383 (1997); United States v. Edwards, 36 F.3d 639, 642 (7th Cir.1994); United States v. Clark, 988 F.2d 1459, 1462 (6th Cir.1993); United States v. Galvan, 949 F.2d 777, 780 (5th Cir.1991); United States v. Gonzalez, 922 F.2d 1044, 1047 (2d Cir.1991).
The majority correctly holds, however, that the reach of the statute may not be restricted temporally only to such situations. The clear language of § 1512(a)(1)(C) allows application of the statute’s prohibitions to the prevention of communication relating to the “possible commission” of a federal offense. Nevertheless, such application does not relieve the prosecution of its burden to establish beyond a reasonable doubt that the killing or attempted killing was accomplished for the specific purpose of preventing communication about another crime to the authorities. If a killing or attempted killing were to coincide with the commission of the underlying offense, therefore, the government must establish through introduction of specific pieces of evidence a defendant’s pre-existing intent to eliminate witnesses to his or her acts. In this ease, the government quite simply has failed to satisfy the key evidentiary requirement that differentiates a § 1512(a)(1)(C) violation from any crime in which a defendant kills or attempts to kill the crime victim.
Without question, the killing of a crime' victim prevents that individual from communicating with federal authorities about the commission or possible commission of a federal offense. It is not simply recognition of that axiomatic principle that is incorporated into the proscriptions of 18 U.S.C. § 1512(a)(1)(C), however. Instead, the statute requires proof that the defendant specifically intended to kill or to attempt to kill another person precisely to prevent such communication. The evidence adduced in this matter creates at least a reasonable doubt whether this critical element of the offense was established in Jefferson’s killing of an innocent jewelry salesperson. The defendant’s actions during and immediately after the robbery, his complete disregard for *449the presence of other witnesses to his crime, and the absence of any evidence of a preexisting intent to silence such witnesses conclusively establish that the tragic murder of Elmus Gerald Simms was committed only to effectuate and facilitate the planned robbery and not to prevent reports of the offense. I thus dissent from the majority’s opinion, which may be read as an attempt to bootstrap sympathy for an innocent victim and outrage at a callous crime into constitutionally sufficient evidence for a § 1512(a)(1)(C) conviction.
Given my belief that insufficient evidence was adduced to support a conviction for the crime charged in count 4 of the indictment, I would also hold that Jefferson’s challenge to the legal sufficiency of that count of the charging document is now moot. In all other respects, I concur in the majority’s analysis of the issues presented on appeal.