Court Opinion

ID: 9414697
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 16:00:42.307823+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:17:58.453137
License: Public Domain

United States Court of Appeals
                            For the Eighth Circuit
                        ___________________________

                                No. 21-3360
                        ___________________________

                            United States of America

                                      Plaintiff - Appellee

                                        v.

                            Matthew Barrett Robbins

                                   Defendant - Appellant
                                 ____________

                     Appeal from United States District Court
                 for the Northern District of Iowa - Cedar Rapids
                                  ____________

                         Submitted: September 23, 2022
                             Filed: August 2, 2023
                                 ____________

Before LOKEN, BENTON, and KOBES, Circuit Judges.
                           ____________

KOBES, Circuit Judge.

      Matthew Robbins was convicted of robbery affecting interstate commerce, 18
U.S.C. §§ 2, 1951(a), conspiracy to commit robbery affecting interstate commerce,
18 U.S.C. §§ 2, 1951(a), and using, carrying, and brandishing a firearm during a
crime of violence resulting in murder, 18 U.S.C. §§ 2, 924(c), (j). Basically, the
Government’s theory was that a drug dealer was robbed and killed, and his body was
tossed into a burn pit behind Robbins’s house. The district court 1 denied Robbins’s
motions for acquittal and a new trial, and we affirm.

                                         I.

      We first turn to the district court’s denial of acquittal, which we review de
novo. United States v. Matheny, 42 F.4th 837, 842 (8th Cir. 2022). We view the
evidence “in the light most favorable to the jury verdict and giv[e] the verdict the
benefit of all reasonable inferences.” United States v. Birdine, 515 F.3d 842, 844
(8th Cir. 2008). Reversal is appropriate “only if no reasonable jury could have found
[Robbins] guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.” Id.

      Robbins argues that the Government did not prove beyond a reasonable doubt
that he robbed James Booher, a drug dealer, of both methamphetamine and drug
proceeds. We disagree.2

     Robbins was convinced that Booher sold him bad methamphetamine. To get
payback, plans were made to lure Booher to Robbins’s house and rob him. On the
day Booher disappeared, text messages suggested that he was supposed to bring
methamphetamine and $150 to Robbins’s house in exchange for sex with one of
Robbins’s associates.

      Before Booher went to Robbins’s house, he visited his ex-wife, who
overheard a call with Robbins. When Robbins asked Booher if he had any
methamphetamine, Booher’s ex-wife watched Booher pull a bag of
methamphetamine out of his pocket. Booher’s ex-wife also saw Booher give her

      1
         The Honorable Leonard T. Strand, Chief Judge, United States District Court
for the Northern District of Iowa.
       2
         Because we conclude there was sufficient evidence Robbins robbed Booher
of drug proceeds and methamphetamine, we need not consider whether the district
court’s jury instructions required the Government to prove both.
                                         -2-
son $10 and leave her home with cash. As he was leaving, Booher told his ex-wife
that “he was going to buy a hooker.”

       When Booher got to Robbins’s house, he had baggies of methamphetamine.
Booher and a couple of others then used methamphetamine together. Shortly after,
Robbins arrived, angry and carrying a shotgun. A witness heard yelling coming
from Robbins’s living room and, moments later, a gunshot. 3 The next day, a
different witness saw one of Robbins’s associates with two bags of
methamphetamine. When the witness asked what happened, Robbins implied that
he and the associate had robbed someone of the methamphetamine. The witness
also saw the associate and Robbins splitting up $140, which is the amount Booher
would have had after giving his ex-wife’s son $10.

       All things considered, sufficient evidence supported findings that the robbery
involved methamphetamine and drug proceeds. The evidence at trial showed that
Booher was a drug dealer who sold methamphetamine and had no source of
legitimate income. Robbins highlights some facts he suggests point the opposite
way, 4 but we aren’t convinced. The district court didn’t err in denying acquittal.
See United States v. Williams, 342 F.3d 350, 355 (4th Cir. 2003) (holding that
sufficient evidence supported a finding that cash constituted drug proceeds where
victim was a known drug dealer and had cash on his person).

      3
        Soon after, Robbins’s couch was taken to a backyard burn pit, Robbins’s
associate scrubbed blood off the walls, and Robbins was seen chopping something
up and lugging a tub filled with garbage bags out his back door.
      4
        Before getting to Robbins’s house, Booher asked his supplier for more
methamphetamine, but the supplier didn’t have any to sell. At the time, Booher paid
his supplier for previously fronted drugs. And the Government did not show that
Robbins got drugs from another supplier before going to the house. According to
Robbins, these facts support an inference that Booher did not have
methamphetamine or drug proceeds at the time of the robbery.
                                        -3-
                                          II.

      We turn next to the district court’s denial of Robbins’s motion for a new trial,
which we review for an abuse of discretion. Manning v. Jones, 875 F.3d 408, 410
(8th Cir. 2017).

       Robbins first argues that the district court wrongly denied him a new trial
because the verdict was against the weight of the evidence. On the facts discussed
in Part II, the verdict was not against the weight of the evidence.

        Robbins next challenges the admission of testimony. At trial, one expert
testified that she found fragments in a burn pit at Robbins’s home that she couldn’t
rule out as human. A different expert testified that she found male DNA in some
fragments, but said it was inconclusive whether the DNA was Booher’s.

       Robbins says that the DNA and bone fragment evidence should not have been
admitted. He argues that it was (1) irrelevant because it was inconclusive and
unreliable and (2) unfairly prejudicial because it caused the jury to speculate that the
DNA belonged to Booher. We disagree.

       Robbins’s concerns speak to the weight of the evidence, not its admissibility.
The evidence was admissible because it advanced the Government’s theory of the
case—that Booher was killed during a robbery and his body was destroyed in a
backyard burn pit. It also wasn’t unfairly prejudicial, considering the evidence
suggesting that Booher was murdered. See generally United States v. Fechner, 952
F.3d 954, 958 (8th Cir. 2020) (“Unfairly prejudicial evidence is so inflammatory on
its face as to divert the jury’s attention from the material issues in the trial.”).

                                          III.

      The judgment of the district court is affirmed.
                     ______________________________
                                          -4-