Court Opinion

ID: 9482387
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 08:48:39.834648+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:48:57.369362
License: Public Domain

DAVID A. NELSON, Circuit Judge,
concurring.
As Judge Lively’s opinion intimates, the significance of Grady may ultimately prove to be limited to single transaction situations, as opposed to situations where, as in Garrett and Calderone, criminal activity involving numerous separate transactions was continued over a long period of time. Even if Grady turns out to have the broader significance attributed to it by the majority in Calderone, however, I am not persuaded that our original disposition of the double jeopardy claim in the instant case was erroneous.
The defendants in Calderone were prosecuted initially for participation in a large conspiracy that involved the distribution of heroin, cocaine and marijuana over a period of 42 months. After the “big conspiracy” case was concluded, the defendants were prosecuted for participation in a “small conspiracy” that involved the distribution of heroin alone over a 15-month period within the same time frame. The small conspiracy appears to have been part and parcel of the big one; as Judge Newman explained in his concurring opinion,
“the conduct alleged to show the existence of the big conspiracy ... would suffice to establish the element of the smaller conspiracy.... Evidence that defendants have agreed to sell heroin and other drugs over a long period of time will surely establish the element of an agreement to sell only heroin during *739an interval within that longer period.” Calderone, 917 F.2d at 726.
In the case at bar, by contrast, we are not dealing with a small conspiracy that was part of a larger one. Here it has long since been established that there were two independent conspiracies. One was headed by defendant Evans, and the other was headed by Randall Garrett; one focused on the importation of cocaine, and the other involved the importation of marijuana; and although there was an overlap of personnel, a majority of the people involved with Mr. Evans apparently were not involved with Mr. Garrett. There was also evidence that Evans played no supervisory or organizational role in the illegal activities directed by Garrett; that Garrett exercised no control over the people involved in the activities directed by Evans; and that for the most part, at least, as the district court found, “the sources of supply as between the two conspiracies were not similar.” See United States v. Evans, 865 F.2d 261 (6th Cir.1988). On these facts, I do not believe that Grady, even when viewed through the lens of Calderone, requires us to accept the double jeopardy claim that we rejected the last time this case was before us.