Court Opinion

ID: 9494556
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 15:40:14.534647+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:56:28.132873
License: Public Domain

*706DIANE P. WOOD, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
Marcus Harris stood trial on a single charge of unlawfully distributing cocaine— not conspiring to distribute cocaine, not possessing a controlled substance with intent to distribute it. This means that the government was obliged to prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, that he committed this particular crime. The majority spends a great deal of time and energy arguing forcefully that the evidence before the jury was sufficient to support a conviction on the distribution charge. If that was what this appeal was about, I would agree that the evidence taken in the light most favorable to the jury’s verdict would easily support an affirmance. But that is not Harris’s argument on appeal. Instead, his principal point is that the prosecutor made comments that violated his right to a fair trial, and these errors were so serious that he is entitled to a new trial. Even taking into consideration the demanding plain error standard of review Harris faces, I am persuaded that he is right. I would reverse Harris’s conviction and remand for a new trial, and I therefore respectfully dissent.
The statements Harris challenges are set out in the majority opinion. As my colleagues essentially acknowledge, the government has conceded that at least some of them were improper. Ante at 700. Nevertheless, both because this court has an independent obligation to assess the propriety of any such confession of error, and because affirmance would be required if the statements were not improper, I consider the propriety question first, and then the question of the impact of any improprieties on the trial as a whole. This is in keeping with the usual test that is applied to plain error review of prosecuto-rial misconduct under cases like United States v. Renteria, 106 F.3d 765 (7th Cir.1997), to which the majority refers ante at 699: first we consider whether the challenged remarks were improper; if they were, we then consider them in context and ask whether they denied the defendant a fair trial. Renteria, 106 F.3d at 766.
First is the prosecutor’s reference — two times — to portions of the government’s evidence as “unrebutted” or “not contested.” The Fifth Amendment forbids prosecutors from inviting the jury to draw an adverse inference from a defendant’s decision not to testify. Griffin v. California, 380 U.S. 609, 85 S.Ct. 1229, 14 L.Ed.2d 106 (1965). This rule prohibits indirect as well as direct comments to this effect. United States v. Aldaco, 201 F.3d 979, 987 (7th Cir.2000). As the majority points out, indirect requests to draw adverse inferences from the defendant’s silence violate the Fifth Amendment only if (1) the prosecutor manifestly intended to refer to the defendant’s silence or (2) a jury would naturally and necessarily take the remark for a comment on the defendant’s silence. United States v. Mietus, 237 F.3d 866, 871 (7th Cir.2001). However, this court has repeatedly held that, if a prosecutor points out that certain evidence is “unrebutted” or “uncontested,” and if the only person who could reasonably be expected to rebut the evidence is the defendant himself, then such comments naturally and necessarily call the jury’s attention to the defendant’s failure to testify. See, e.g., Mietus, 237 F.3d at 871; Aldaco, 201 F.3d at 987; United States v. Cotnam, 88 F.3d 487, 497 (7th Cir.1996) (collecting cases). Essentially, these cases carve out a narrow class of comments that refer indirectly to the defendant’s failure to testify — remarks that testimony is unrebutted when only the defendant could have supplied a rebuttal— and hold that this type of comment always naturally and necessarily involves a comment on the defendant’s silence.
*707Both of the statements Harris challenges ran afoul of this rule. The first statement referred back to Berry Young’s testimony that Harris backed out of the drug deal at the Citgo because Harris was concerned that “Sam,” a man who had recently been arrested for selling drugs and who might be cooperating with the police, was there. In his closing, the prosecutor argued that “[t]he explanation given by Berry Young [for why Harris backed out of the deal] is absolutely unrebutted in this case.” But here the prosecutor could only have been talking about Harris’s thoughts or frame of mind, because the question was why Harris decided not to go ahead with the deal. No matter how reasonable Young’s guess may have been about Harris’s mental processes, the fact remains that no third party, including an expert in drug lingo, reasonably could have rebutted Young’s testimony except for Harris himself.
Second, the prosecutor described the incident in which a government agent watched Young give Harris $1800 and concluded that this testimony was “not contested.” But according to the government’s own witnesses, only three people witnessed the alleged exchange of money — Young, Harris, and Agent Graham. Young and Agent Graham both testified that Young gave Harris the money. The only conceivable person who could have supplied the “contest” the prosecutor claimed was missing was again Harris himself. The majority’s reliance on Kurina v. Thieret, 853 F.2d 1409 (7th Cir.1988) is misplaced, since in that case other witnesses, not called by either party, could have countered the testimony of prosecution witnesses. Id. at 1416. It makes no difference whether there were three witnesses to the drug transaction or thirty; if all but the defendant testify for the prosecution, then the only person who can credibly testify in rebuttal is the defendant. Because Harris was the only person who could have rebutted both the “Sam” evidence and the fund transfer evidence, the prosecutor’s statements that the evidence on these points was “unrebutted” or “not contested” were improper.
Next, Harris challenges the prosecutor’s references to his courtroom demeanor. At the end of his initial closing argument, the prosecutor asked the jury: “What’s been the defendant’s manner during this trial? Cocky, like it’s a joke. You’ll never catch me. I’m too careful. But not careful enough.” The majority does not discuss the propriety of these statements, but the government has conceded that they were error. A review of the caselaw in this area amply demonstrates the correctness and wisdom of that concession. The Supreme Court has held that “one accused of a crime is entitled to have his guilt or innocence determined solely on the basis of the evidence introduced at trial, and not on [the basis of] ... circumstances not adduced as proof at trial.” Taylor v. Kentucky, 436 U.S. 478, 485, 98 S.Ct. 1930, 56 L.Ed.2d 468 (1978). Several circuits have applied this rule to hold that prosecutorial comments on the defendant’s courtroom demeanor are improper. See, e.g., United States v. Gatto, 995 F.2d 449, 455 (3d Cir.1993); United States v. Schuler, 813 F.2d 978, 979 (9th Cir.1987); United States v. Pearson, 746 F.2d 787, 796 (11th Cir.1984). I am convinced that this outcome is correct and would join our sister circuits in this holding. See also Gomez v. Ahitow, 29 F.3d 1128, 1136 (7th Cir.1994) (citing this reasoning with approval, although deciding case on other grounds).
Finally, and most seriously, the prosecutor made a statement during his rebuttal argument that improperly distorted the burden of proof in this case. In the passage to which Harris objects, the prosecutor stated:
*708Absent any reasonable alternative explanation for the defendant’s comments to Berry Young that the government says related to drugs, if that is the only reasonable explanation was that Berry Young asked' — the defendant said he had a deuce, two, and Berry Young says will you sell it to me for 18,1800, Eighteenth Street, and the defendant says, “I’ll do that for you, I’ll do that for you,” and in fact Berry Young is seen by Detective Graham giving $1800 to the defendant, and then the defendant — and then after meeting with the defendant the next time after that Berry Young comes back with two ounces, if there is no other reasonable explanation for those statements than that given by Berry Young, there is no reasonable doubt about where Berry Young got those two ounces.
Statements that suggest incorrectly what the jury must find in order to reach a certain verdict distort the burden of proof and are therefore improper. See United States v. Cornett, 232 F.3d 570, 574 (7th Cir.2000); United States v.Vargas, 583 F.2d 380, 386 (7th Cir.1978). The statement quoted above created just such a distortion. According to it, unless there was a reasonable alternative explanation of the meaning of the recorded conversations, there could be no reasonable doubt as to whether Harris distributed the drugs. But this is plainly not true; it assumes that evidence of negotiations and evidence of final delivery are one and the same thing, and they are not. Harris’s strongest argument was that, even if the tapes showed that he and Young were negotiating a drug deal, there was no proof that Harris actually delivered the drugs rather than backing out at the last minute. Furthermore, as I explain below in more detail, the government had no way of showing for certain that Harris was the source of whatever drugs Young got. For the government to tell the jury that it had to convict unless it could find an innocent explanation for the negotiating conversations was a misstatement of the government’s burden of proof.1
*709The prosecutor, in short, made not one but several seriously improper remarks in his closing argument. This makes it necessary for me to consider the question whether these remarks, viewed in the light of the record as a whole, deprived Harris of a fair trial. As the majority correctly notes, the focus of this inquiry is whether the evidence against the defendant was so overwhelming that it is clear that he would have been convicted even absent the improper remarks. See United States v. Hasting, 461 U.S. 499, 510-11, 103 S.Ct. 1974, 76 L.Ed.2d 96 (1983). The answer, I believe, is no: while the government certainly had enough evidence against Harris to sustain a conviction, once again that is not the issue. We must consider instead whether no other conclusion was possible for this jury. On that point, a close look at the evidence of actual delivery of the drugs reveals that the government’s case was not nearly as airtight as the majority claims it is. To the contrary, as I indicate below, there were significant gaps, and a reasonable jury viewing the case without the distortions introduced by these errors could also have concluded that the government failed to prove that Harris transferred the drugs to Young.
We all agree that the government presented overwhelming evidence that Harris negotiated with Young to sell Young several ounces of cocaine. Although both parties have made much of the “veiled” language Harris and Young used to conduct their negotiations, I find the coded language on the tapes rather transparent, and I have no trouble believing that any rational jury, hearing those tapes, would have concluded that the two were indeed negotiating for the sale of drugs. If the government had only to prove that Harris negotiated to sell drugs, once again affirmance would be in order.
Where, however, is the evidence that Harris actually delivered the two ounces of cocaine to Young? On this critical point, the government’s evidence was scant. We know from Young’s own testimony that Harris was skittish about selling drugs and that he typically abandoned a deal if he sensed anything was amiss. We also know, again from Young’s own interpretation of the taped conversations, that Harris had already pulled out of a deal with him earlier in the day. Against that background, we know that Young went to a barber shop to meet Harris, at Harris’s request. Government agents accompanied Young to the barber shop, but they parted ways before they got there and left him entirely unattended. (They explained that it was too dangerous to maintain visual surveillance of Young during the key moments when Harris allegedly provided the drugs to him.) As Young told the story, he and Harris walked to the parking lot to look at Harris’s new truck. After discussing the truck for a few minutes, Harris instructed Young to “look in the glove compartment.” The two talked for a little while longer about the truck’s paint job, and Harris then said, “Peep it man. It’s tight, it’s on the knob. I’m thinkin’ about sellin’ it.” Young later returned to the agents with two ounces of cocaine, testifying at trial that he found the drugs in the glove compartment, and that the references to something being “tight” and “on the knob” meant that the cocaine weighed *710two ounces exactly. Although this testimony, if believed, was certainly sufficient to convict Harris, this portion of the case ultimately rests entirely on Young’s word. The references to something being “tight” and “on the knob” could easily have referred to drugs, as Young said they did, but they were ambiguous enough that they could also have described something else. Similarly, Harris could have told Young to look in the glove compartment to retrieve any number of legal items that people commonly store there, such as the car’s title and registration. In short, although the recorded conversation easily could be interpreted as Young suggested, the jury also reasonably could have determined that the conversation was innocuous.
The majority’s suggestion that it is quite unlikely that Young could have acquired the drugs in any other way — as the opinion puts it, “from some other phantom source ... in an almost instantaneous time frame, in a secretive transaction” ante at 703, overlooks important parts of the record. The trial testimony makes it apparent that Young had ample opportunity and time to obtain the two ounces of cocaine from someone other than Harris. When the officers and Young began this operation on the morning of November 11, the officers searched Young and his car and found no money or drugs. After that, however (and assuming that this search accurately revealed that Young had no money or drugs at that time), several hours elapsed before Young finally returned to the officers with the drugs that afternoon. During that time, Young was frequently out of the officers’ visual surveillance. Although the officers searched Young’s person again, they never again searched his car. Young had recording devices with him for much of that time, but not all of it. At least once, Young left the recording device in the car, when he left it to go into the Citgo station where he was to meet Harris. Furthermore, despite the officers’ testimony that Young had neither drugs nor money at the time of their search of him, Young testified that later in the day he bought spicy chicken wings at the Citgo. This testimony suggests that the officers either missed some money Young had, or he managed to acquire money after their inspection. Either way, if he could have acquired money (in a “secretive” transaction not recorded on the tapes), then he could also have acquired drugs.
None of this is to say that Young necessarily acquired the drugs he provided to the agents anywhere other than from Harris, as he said he did. It only illustrates that Young had ample opportunity to acquire the drugs elsewhere if he had wanted to set Harris up. Young also had ample motive to do so, as he had agreed to cooperate with the government in its investigation of Harris after the government caught Young himself with drugs. Young was under some pressure, because he had been unsuccessful in purchasing drugs from Harris in any of their first few meetings. Harris’s counsel argued at trial that, although Harris may have negotiated to sell drugs to Young, he ultimately did not do so. Although the jury obviously was not bound to accept this story, the evidence in the record could have supported it.
Against this backdrop, the government’s improper closing argument may well have prejudiced Harris. First, the prosecutor’s statement that “if there is no other reasonable explanation for [the recorded conversations] other than that given by Berry Young, there is no reasonable doubt about where Berry Young got those two ounces,” directly addressed the central weakness in the government’s case and instructed the jury to ignore that weakness. That error alone might be enough to warrant reversal. But there is much more. The prose-*711eutor’s statements that the defendant’s demeanor during the trial was “cocky, like it’s a joke” and that the defendant thought the government would never catch him because he was “too careful” are also very troubling, especially given that Young testified in detail as to his history of drug deals with Harris. The prosecutor’s reference to Harris’s demeanor invited the jury to convict Harris based on the fact that he is a cocky, sneaky drug dealer, rather than focusing on whether the government had sufficiently proved that Harris actually distributed drugs in this case. When these errors, along with the prosecutor’s repeated improper references to Young’s “unrebutted” interpretation of the taped conversations, are viewed together, I cannot say that the combined weight of the errors did not improperly influence the jury’s decision to convict Harris, despite the court’s generic instructions on burden of proof. I would reverse and remand for a new trial, and I therefore respectfully dissent.

. The majority comments that the reference to 18th Street in Springfield must have been code for a drug transaction, because, it says, "[tjestimony at trial from Young and an FBI Agent established that there [is] no street designated as 'Eighteenth Street’ in Springfield, Illinois.” Ante at 694, n. 3. In fact, the situation is not so simple. As the ordinance the majority supplies makes clear, there is no longer a street in Springfield that bears the formal name "Eighteenth Street.” But, as is often the case with street renamings, it turns out that in common parlance the old name has not died away. It is striking that in another appeal filed in this court, United States v. McClain, No. 01-1740, 2001 WL 1231512, the brief for the United States contains the following assertion with respect to streets in Springfield, Illinois: "Eric Jackson stopped at a stop sign at the corner of Eighteenth and Edwards Street.” Brief of Plaintiff Appellee at 3. The brief for the defendant-appellant in that case twice refers to an Eighteenth Street in Springfield. First, it reports that "Officer Anderson, while on routine patrol on April 23, 2000 near the intersection of 18th Street and Cook Street in Springfield, Illinois, observed two men fighting on the side of the road.” Brief and Argument of Defendant-Appellant at 6. Later, it says "[a]s Jackson approached the stop sign at 18th and Edwards, he saw Defendant Appellant.” Id. at 8. While someone consulting the Internet map source MapQuest (http:// www.mapquest.com) would find only South Martin Luther King, Jr. Drive between South 17th Street and South 19th Street, the alternative map source MapBlast! (http://www.mapblast.com) shows the exact same street as 18th Street. Local newspapers also appear to refer to the street as 18th Street at times. See, e.g., Police Beat, State Journal Register (Springfield), July 9, 2001, at 16, available at 2001 WL 23495817 (reporting that a Springfield resident "told police Saturday night that a 27-year-old man, whose name he didn’t know, crawled onto the front porch of his home in the 1000 block of South 18th Street after the 27-year-old had been *709beaten”); UIS Weekly, January 8, 2001, al 1, available at http://www.uis.edu/weekly/jan08.pdf (reporting on Annual Unity Day and directing marchers to go to a particular staging area and "then proceed west to Pilgrim Rest Missionary Baptist Church, 1800 South 18th Street, Springfield”). Naturally, if Harris did not take issue with the plainly inaccurate statement about 18th Street at trial, there is little that we as an appellate court could or should do here. But it further suggests that the evidence was not so overwhelming as the majority paints it to be.