Court Opinion

ID: 9600243
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 01:25:18.202471+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:04:42.862526
License: Public Domain

COLLOTON, Circuit Judge,
concurring.
I concur in the holding that there was sufficient evidence to convict Ontario Rush-Richardson for violating 18 U.S.C. § 924(c), and I concur in the judgment remanding for a new trial, in view of our court’s decisions in United States v. Brown, 560 F.3d 754 (8th Cir.2009), and United States v. Kent, 531 F.3d 642 (8th Cir.2008). Given the location of the firearms and ammunition seized in Rush-Richardson’s residence, this was a reasonably close case on whether the government established proof beyond a reasonable doubt under a jury instruction that called for a verdict on what was the equivalent of possession “during and in relation to” drug trafficking. If a comparable instruction created a “close” question under the third prong of plain error analysis on the evidence in Kent, 531 F.3d at 656, and crossed the threshold in Brown — where a revolver, ammunition, scale, $16,000 cash, and small amount of marijuana were seized from a vehicle owned by the defendant and a semi-automatic rifle, ammunition, and 35 pounds of marijuana were seized from a storage unit leased by a co-conspirator, 560 F.3d at 761, 767-68 — then it seems to follow that Rush-Richardson’s substantial rights were affected by the instruction in this case. Our cases might have gone in a different direction on the substantial rights prong of plain error analysis, given the narrow circumstances in which it appears that a firearm would be *914possessed “during and in relation to” drug trafficking but not “in furtherance” of drug trafficking, see United States v. Combs, 369 F.3d 925, 933 (6th Cir.2004), but I ultimately agree with the disposition of this case in light of Brown and Kent.
I add two observations. First, while the court cites the prosecutor’s statement in final argument that a firearm possessed “in furtherance” of drug trafficking “must have the potential to facilitate the offense of possession with intent to distribute crack cocaine,” ante, at 912, the court does not hold that this argument misstated the law under 18 U.S.C. § 924(c). To the contrary, in Kent, we specifically rejected the defendant’s argument that this same language — “[t]he firearm must ... have the potential to facilitate the offense of possession with intent to distribute crack cocaine” — incorrectly defined the “in furtherance” element of § 924(c). 531 F.3d at 654. The court explained that “ ‘in furtherance of is not a factual requirement that the firearm advance the crime, but rather a requirement that the person possess the gun with the intent of advancing the crime.” Id. Nothing in this decision calls into question the conclusion in Kent that § 924(c) “authorizes conviction where the defendant intended the firearm to advance or further the crime, but it did not actually do so.” Id.
Our cases explain that the first two sentences of the “in furtherance” instruction given in Rush-Richardson’s case, see ante, at 910-11, not the third sentence, misstate the law under § 924(c). See Brown, 560 F.3d at 767 (“The instructions incorrectly defined ‘possession in furtherance of to mean that ‘the firearm must have some purpose of effect with respect to the [drug trafficking crime]; its presence or involvement cannot be the result of accident or coincidence.’ ”); Kent, 531 F.3d at 654-55. The prosecutor in this case did emphasize the first two sentences of the instruction during final argument, immediately before making the statement quoted by the court. T. Tr. 229. Therefore, I agree that “in closing arguments, the jury’s attention was drawn specifically to the improper definition in Instruction 5.” Ante, at 913.
Second, the opinion in this case relies on the absence of Rush-Richardson’s fingerprints on the firearms, or physical evidence connecting him to the firearms, to support a conclusion that the erroneous jury instruction affected Rush-Richardson’s substantial rights, ante, at 911-12, but the significance of these factors is overstated. The evidence at trial was that investigators found no fingerprints on the exterior of any of the three firearms. One fingerprint was found underneath the hand grips on one firearm after the hand grips were removed from the weapon during the fingerprinting process. The examiner testified that this fingerprint could have been left during the manufacturing process, or by the last person who removed the grips. When asked about the lack of fingerprints on the exterior of the guns, the examiner explained that there is a “very low success rate” in “finding identifiable fingerprints on firearms,” for “several reasons, including the way a manufacturer designs a firearm, especially a handgun.” He testified that the surface of a firearm grip is “not suitable for leaving good latent fingerprints,” and that other areas that a person normally would touch while operating a gun are “checkered” and “multisurfaced,” rather than a “smooth, nice, easy surface” on which a person “would leave a consistent, nice fingerprint.” He further explained that latent prints are usually very fragile, and that other surfaces, such as a pocket, a waistband, or a gun ease lined with cloth, would damage the prints when making contact with the firearm. T. Tr. 172-75.
*915The absence of fingerprints could support an argument that there was reasonable doubt about whether Rush-Richardson possessed the firearms, although the examiner’s unchallenged testimony in this case suggests that any inference drawn from the fingerprint evidence is weak, and Rush-Richardson did not even argue the point to the jury. In any event, the jury in this case found that Rush-Richardson did possess the guns, and the error in the jury instruction had no effect on its finding of possession. The lack of fingerprints or physical evidence is relevant on this appeal only if it tends to show that Rush-Richardson did possess the firearms “during and in relation to” drug trafficking, but did not possess them “in furtherance of’ drug trafficking. There might be hypothetical scenarios in which this is so — such as where a drug trafficking defendant posits that a firearm was inadvertently left behind at his home by a drug buyer, see Combs, 369 F.3d at 933 — but this case was tried on the theory that Rush-Richardson possessed the firearms for protection of his drug trafficking activity, and the principal defense was that Rush-Richardson did not even know about the guns. Given that the jury found knowing possession by Rush-Richardson under a proper instruction, the absence of fingerprints and physical evidence does not in my view materially advance Rush-Richardson’s showing that the mistaken jury instruction affected his substantial rights on the “in furtherance” element.