Court Opinion

ID: 9485864
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 11:32:19.497119+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:51:24.548749
License: Public Domain

CYNTHIA HOLCOMB HALL, Circuit Justice,
concurring:
Although I agree that Delgado’s conviction of continuing criminal enterprise (“CCE”) must be reversed, I disagree with the majority’s analysis. In my view, the evidence is sufficient, though not overwhelming, to support a jury verdict that Delgado’s drug distributing was part of “a continuing series of violations” of federal drug laws undertaken “in concert with five or more other persons with respect to whom [Delgado] occupies a position of organizer, a supervisory position, or any other position of management....” 21 U.S.C. § 848(c)(2) (1988). Nevertheless, because the government’s closing argument was both improper and highly prejudicial and the district court failed to give a specific unanimity instruction, the conviction must be reversed.
I
Viewing the evidence and the inferences that a jury could reasonably draw therefrom in the light most favorable to the verdicts, Glasser v. United States, 315 U.S. 60, 80, 62 S.Ct. 457, 469, 86 L.Ed. 680 (1942), I conclude there is sufficient evidence to support the jury’s finding that Delgado was an “organizer” with respect to Fernandez and Fajar-do, despite evidence to the contrary.
*789A
The evidence showed that Delgado initiated Fernandez’s involvement in drug dealing by introducing Fernandez to his partner Herrera, who recruited Fernandez to join their drug business. Although Herrera supplied Fernandez at first, after Delgado quit doing business with Herrera and established an independent source of supply, Delgado took Fernandez into his own operation and supplied him directly, undercutting Herrera’s price. Delgado was Fernandez’s sole supplier of drugs.
Delgado fronted the cocaine to Fernandez, who in turn fronted the cocaine to the dealers in his distribution network. Proceeds from the drug sales were passed back to Fernandez, who paid Delgado for prior purchases each timé he purchased more cocaine. Through Fernandez, Delgado sold 12 kilograms of cocaine, worth approximately $360,-000. Delgado and Fernandez kept in frequent contact, and Delgado gave Fernandez a new supply every two weeks. Delgado directed the terms of the sales transactions, including when and where they took place; he arranged the meetings and telephone communications between himself and Fernandez.
Although Delgado did not attempt to control Fernandez’s management of his own business, he disapproved of employing drug addicts or violent persons, and Fernandez attempted to prevent Delgado from learning about an employee of whom he knew Delgado would disapprove. Delgado also requested that Fernandez hire Martinez, one of Delgado’s employees, in the Las Vegas operation. About this time, Fernandez was getting out of the business, but his successor Fajardo hired Martinez as requested. These actions suggest Fernandez felt subject to Delgado’s influence to some degree.
When Fernandez sought to withdraw from the cocaine business, Delgado insisted that Fernandez turn it over to someone responsible. Delgado knew Fajardo because Fajardo had previously worked for someone in Miami who supplied drugs to Delgado. When Fernandez sought to turn the Las Vegas operation over to Fajardo, Fernandez brought Fa-jardo to meet Delgado, obtained Delgado’s approval, and was required to guarantee Fa-jardo’s credit as a condition of maintaining the cocaine supply. Delgado’s fronting enabled Fajardo to operate a distribution network; Fajardo testified that there was no way he could have conducted the Las Vegas operation without having the cocaine fronted. Through Fajardo, Delgado sold roughly nine kilograms of cocaine, for approximately $270,000. Like Fernandez, Fajardo employed persons of whom Delgado disapproved, and Fajardo also attempted to keep their activities out of Delgado’s sight. In addition, Delgado was Fajardo’s sole supplier until he terminated their relationship.
This evidence is sufficient to support a finding that Delgado “organized” Fernandez and Fajardo. He introduced both distributors into the Las Vegas operation. He extended credit to enable the distributors to go into the cocaine business. Delgado gave both Fernandez and Fajardo cocaine worth roughly $120,000 at a time, with no payment or security in return. A jury could reasonably assume that Delgado would not leave such valuable property on consignment with a person over whom he had no influence. Delgado set the price and terms of the transactions, controlled the quantity, and arranged the method of pick up and payment.
Delgado generated substantial sales from the Las Vegas operation and transacted frequently and regularly with both Fernandez and Fajardo. Delgado’s operation was clearly the type of continuing criminal enterprise the statute intends to punish more heavily than the occasional drug trafficker. The fact that Delgado was less authoritative.or dictatorial than the typical “kingpin” and did not control his distributors does not remove his business from the operation of the statute. United States v. Ray, 731 F.2d 1361 (9th Cir.1984); United States v. Mannino, 635 F.2d 110, 117 (2d Cir.1980). The law does not require that Delgado manage the distributors’ day to day operations, or select their dealers, or set the price at which they sell the drugs, to be an organizer of a criminal enterprise. United States v. Bond, 847 F.2d 1233, 1236 (7th Cir.1988). A rational jury could find that Delgado “occupie[d] a position of organizer” with respect to Fernandez and *790Fajardo by selecting them as his distributors and arranging the supply of drugs from Columbia, arranging the pick up of drugs by his distributors, arranging the timing, quantity, and price of drug sales, and fronting drugs to the distributors to enable them to go into business. This last fact, while perhaps not sufficient in itself to establish Delgado’s organizational role, is important. But cf. United States v. Cruz, 785 F.2d 399, 407 (2d Cir.1986) (consignment of drugs for sale on commission is sufficient to establish organizational element for purposes of CCE statute). Of greater significance is the fact that Delgado set the terms under which Fernandez transferred the Las Vegas operation to Fa-jardo. While it could be viewed as nothing more than a condition of sale to an independent distributorship, it is evidence that could lead a rational jury to conclude that on some level Delgado controlled Fernandez’s operation of the drug business.
Delgado argues strongly that Fernandez and Fajardo could not be counted as persons organized by him as a matter of law, relying on United States v. Jerome, 942 F.2d 1328 (9th Cir.1991). In Jerome, this Court questioned whether a drug dealer’s suppliers were “subject to” the dealer as an organizer. Looking at the statutory language, we said that “an ‘organizer’ must exercise some sort of managerial responsibility; one does not qualify if one simply sets up a system of supply.” Jerome, 942 F.2d at 1331. Delgado reads Jerome to mean that to “occupy a position of organizer” with respect to another person under the CCE statute, one must manage the persons purportedly organized. I disagree. Section 848 requires only that Delgado act in concert with his distributors and “oceup[y] a position of organizer” with respect to them. 21 U.S.C. § 848(c)(2)(A) (1988). We have said that the statutory terms “position of organizer, a supervisory position, or any. other position of management” carry their ordinary, everyday meanings. Ray, 731 F.2d at 1367. Ordinary usage of the term “organize” includes the following meanings: to arrange or form into a coherent unity or functioning whole; to set up an administrative structure; to persuade to associate in an organization; to arrange by systematic planning and united effort. Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary 802 (1979). Thus, in common understanding the term “organizer” may simply imply an exercise of managerial responsibility over the enterprise or undertaking organized, rather than over the persons organized. Organizers can bring people together for a common purpose without exercising any degree of influence, control, or responsibility over those persons.
Ray recognized this, holding that the ordinary, common-sense meaning of “organize” does not carry the implication that the organizer is necessarily able to control those whom he organizes. 731 F.2d at 1367.1 This is the prevailing view in other circuits as well.
[Wjhile proof of a supervisory or managerial relationship requires a showing of some degree of control by the defendant over the other persons, such proof is not required to show that a defendant acted as an organizer. An organizer can be defined as a person-who puts together a number of people engaged in separate activities and arranges them in one essentially orderly operation or enterprise.
United States v. Butler, 885 F.2d 195, 201 (4th Cir.1989) (internal quotation omitted); accord United States v. Patrick, 965 F.2d at 1397; United States v. Apodaca, 843 F.2d at 426; cf. United States v. Oberski, 734 F.2d 1030, 1032 n. 3 (5th Cir.1984) (statute does not require actual control over others to be manager or organizer); United States v. Bond, 847 F.2d at 1236 (statute reaches those who “coordinate” activities).
Given the statutory language and our holding in Ray, Jerome’s dicta that the statute does not apply to one who “simply sets up a system of supply” means only that something more than a bare buyer-seller relationship is required. See Jerome, 942 F.2d at 1331 (citing Apodaca, 843 F.2d at 426); accord United States v. Patrick, 965 F.2d at 1396;, Unit*791ed States v. Butler, 885 F.2d at 201.2 A wide range of conduct may be sufficient to indicate the existence of more than a bare buyer-seller relationship, however, including: arranging acquisition and delivery, distributing drugs on consignment or credit, setting price and credit terms, arranging contacts and meetings, and transacting in large quantities with regularity. See United States v. Moya-Gomez, 860 F.2d 706, 748-49 (7th Cir.1988), cert. denied, 492 U.S. 908, 109 S.Ct. 8221, 106 L.Ed.2d 571 (1989); United States v. Apodaca, 843 F.2d at 426; United States v. Grubbs, 829 F.2d 18, 19 (8th Cir.1987) (per curiam); United States v. Wilkinson, 754 F.2d 1427, 1431-32 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, 472 U.S. 1019, 105 S.Ct. 3482, 87 L.Ed.2d 617 (1985); United States v. Dickey, 736 F.2d 571, 588 (10th Cir.1984), cert. denied, 469 U.S. 1188, 105 S.Ct. 957, 83 L.Ed.2d 964 (1985); United States v. Mannino, 635 F.2d at 117. Here, there was evidence that Delgado did all of these things; he was not a simple salesman offering a product to occasional consumers.
Delgado asserts that the CCE statute requires a showing that he “exerted some type of influence over” Fernandez and Fajardo, as exemplified by “compliance with [Delgado’s] directions, instructions, or terms.” Appellant’s Brief at 30-31 (quoting United States v. Possick, 849 F.2d 332, 336 (8th Cir.1988)). Even assuming he is correct, which is unclear in light of Ray’s holding that no showing of control is required, the argument avails him nothing. The evidence shows that Fernandez, at least, complied with Delgado’s terms both in the manner in which he obtained the drugs and then transferred the operation to Fajardo.
The evidence was sufficient for a jury to find that in initiating and maintaining his wholesale supplier relationship with his distributor customers, Delgado occupied a sufficiently central role to be considered an organizer of a drug distribution enterprise within which Fernandez and Fajardo operated. Thus, in my view there was sufficient evidence to support a CCE conviction.
II
However, I agree there is no evidence to support a finding that Delgado occupied any kind of organizational or managerial role ■with respect to any of Fernandez and Fajar-do’s customers. As the majority correctly points out, Delgado’s CCE conviction in this case can stand only if Fernandez, Fajardo and their customers could properly be counted. See ante at 784. This results from two factors: the prosecutor’s argument, and the lack of a specific unanimity instruction.
The prosecutor argued to the jury that in considering whether Delgado was guilty of continuing criminal enterprise, it could count the nine customers with respect to whom there was no evidence Delgado, acted in an organizational of managerial capacity. The objectionable statements were neither brief nor incidental remarks. They comprised the whole of the government’s argument on the element of Delgado’s organizational, supervi-sorial, or managerial role — which was the sole element in dispute regarding the CCE charge. Moreover, they pertained to a substantial number of the persons the government held up as persons organized by Delgado — nine of the fifteen persons, whom the government could not otherwise connect to Delgado.3
Thus, this case presents circumstances similar to those in Jerome: the jury was “presented with a variety of persons that the *792prosecution told them could count in making up the five persons necessary to trigger the statute.” 942 F.2d at 1331. The customers could not have been counted, however, because there was insufficient evidence to support the requisite finding that Delgado occupied an organizational position with respect to them. Under Jerome, the court therefore should have instructed the jury that the jurors “must unanimously agree as to the identity of each of the five people [the defendant] organized, managed or supervised.” Id.4
The district court considered giving the proper specific unanimity instruction, but yielded to the government’s objections to any instruction containing the word “identity.” The government was apparently concerned that the jury would believe it could not count the unnamed male courier because the government had not proven his identity by name. Consequently, the court instructed the jury that it had to unanimously agree “as to the existence of at least five of the other persons” whom Delgado allegedly organized, supervised or managed. This only required the jury to unanimously agree there were at least five persons; it did not require the jury to unanimously agree as to the identities of each of those five, which is. what Jerome required under these circumstances. Accordingly, Jerome instructs that we must reverse, and I concur in the judgment.5

. Despite its discussion of the type of relationship required by the CCE statute, Jerome held only that the district court erred in not giving a specific unanimity instruction. 942 F.2d at 1331. The original opinion in Jerome concluded that a properly instructed jury could have found that the defendant did, in fact, organize two of his suppliers. United States v. Jerome, 924 F.2d 170, 173 (9th Cir.1991), amended, 942 F.2d 1328, 1331 (9th Cir.1991).

. Furthermore, the jury could easily have applied the government’s erroneous theory to Fernandez and Fajardo as well as the customers. The evidence that Delgado organized Fernandez and Fajardo, even considered in the light most favorable to the government, was not overwhelming. The evidence of conspiracy, however, was. The prosecutor's arguments regarding Delgado’s responsibility for Fernandez’s and Fajardo’s acts through the conspiracy may have encouraged the jury to convict Delgado of CCE not on the evidence of his organizational role, but on the basis of conspiracy principles.

. The district court did not have the benefit of the amended opinion in Jerome, which was not filed until several months after Delgado’s trial ended. The first Jerome opinion, however, would have advised the district court that "where the jury had a confusing array of persons presented, some of whom could be counted and some of whom could not be counted, it was plain error to fail to instruct the jury as to who could not count” towards a charge of continuing criminal enterprise. United States v. Jerome, 924 F.2d 170, 173, amended, 942 F.2d 1328, 1331 (9th Cir.1991).

. A specific unanimity instruction would not have prevented the jury from unanimously agree-mg to count some or all of the "uncountable” customers in reaching its verdict. The specific unanimity instruction might have prevented a reversal on the ground of juiy confusion, however, as it would have enabled the district court upon post-trial motion, or this Court upon appellate review, to determine whether there was sufficient evidence to support the particular set of facts upon which the jury convicted. Special verdicts are not ordinarily, used in criminal cases, and are only required under Jerome when a court permits facts which pose a genuine possibility of juror confusion to go to the jury. Jerome, 942 F.2d at 1331.