Court Opinion

ID: 9454847
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 19:01:36.748099+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:39:04.256944
License: Public Domain

In the

     United States Court of Appeals
                  For the Seventh Circuit
                      ____________________
No. 21-3221
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
                                                      Plaintiff-Appellee,
                                   v.

ROYEL PAGE,
                                                  Defendant-Appellant.
                      ____________________

         Appeal from the United States District Court for the
                     Eastern District of Wisconsin.
    No. 2:17-cr-00175-MYS-9 — Michael Y. Scudder, Circuit Judge. *
                      ____________________

    ARGUED NOVEMBER 9, 2022 — DECIDED AUGUST 4, 2023
                ____________________

   Before ROVNER, JACKSON-AKIWUMI, and LEE, Circuit
Judges.
    JACKSON-AKIWUMI, Circuit Judge. Royel Page presents two
challenges to his conviction for participating in a conspiracy
to sell heroin. He contends the government presented insuffi-
cient evidence at trial to justify his conviction. He also

   * Of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, sitting

by designation.
2                                                   No. 21-3221

contends the district court committed plain error by failing to
instruct the jury on the difference between a buyer-seller re-
lationship, which is how Page characterizes his connection to
the top drug dealer in his case, and a conspiracy, where two
parties share some joint purpose in building a drug business
together. We agree that the evidence at trial warranted a
buyer-seller instruction to the jury, so we reverse and remand
his conviction on that ground.
                                I

    In 2017, a grand jury returned a thirty-four count indict-
ment against twelve defendants involved in selling heroin.
Page was charged in just two of those counts, and not with
conspiracy. Based on wiretap investigations and a search of
Page’s apartment, among other evidence, prosecutors alleged
Terrance Hamlin purchased heroin from Torrence Harris and
distributed those drugs to purported mid-level distributors
like Page. Two years later, a grand jury returned a supersed-
ing indictment against Page, Harris, Hamlin, and others,
charging them with a drug-trafficking conspiracy involving
over 100 grams of heroin. The superseding indictment also
charged Page with twelve counts of attempting to distribute
and possession with intent to distribute heroin.
    In 2021, Page went to trial as the only defendant who did
not plead guilty. During trial, the government relied on the
wiretaps and items found during the search of Page’s apart-
ment, including clear plastic bags, latex gloves, suspected her-
oin, a scale, and a bottle of lactose (sometimes used to cut her-
oin). The government also pointed to surveillance of Page get-
ting into Hamlin’s car for a short time. Hamlin served as a key
witness in the government’s case. The government presented
No. 21-3221                                                    3

evidence that Hamlin used to sell drugs to Page’s father—the
family connection that introduced Page and Hamlin. Hamlin
had known Page’s father for over 40 years, since middle
school. Hamlin and Page’s relationship was so quasi-familial
that Hamlin listed Page’s contact in his phone as “Neph Roy,”
and Page was said to refer to Hamlin as “Uncle Bone.” Page
did not present testimony or evidence at trial, as was his right.
   The instructions provided to the jury included our cir-
cuit’s pattern instruction on “Membership in Conspiracy,”
which states, in relevant part:
       To be a member of a conspiracy, a defendant
       does not … need to know all of the other mem-
       bers or all of the means by which the illegal
       goals of the conspiracy were to be accom-
       plished. The government must prove beyond a
       reasonable doubt that the defendant was aware
       of the illegal goals of the conspiracy and know-
       ingly joined the conspiracy.
       A defendant is not a member of a conspiracy
       just because he knew and/or associated with
       people who were involved in a conspiracy,
       knew there was a conspiracy, and/or was pre-
       sent during conspiratorial discussions.
       […]
       In deciding whether the defendant joined the
       charged conspiracy, you must base your deci-
       sion only on what the defendant did or said. To
       determine what that defendant did or said, you
       may consider the defendant’s own words or
       acts. You may also use the words or acts of other
4                                                     No. 21-3221

       persons to help you decide what the defendant
       did or said.
Jury Instructions at 26 (citing Fed. Crim. Jury Instr. 7th Cir.
5.10 (2022 ed.)).
   Counsel for Page did not propose a jury instruction that
would have highlighted the difference between a drug con-
spiracy and a conventional buyer-seller relationship. The jury
convicted Page on all counts and the district court imposed a
below-guidelines sentence of 90 months in prison.
                                II

    Page contends that the district court should have in-
structed the jury on the difference between a drug conspiracy
and a conventional buyer-seller relationship. He did not ob-
ject to this missing buyer-seller instruction at trial, so we re-
view the issue for plain error. United States v. DiSantis, 565
F.3d 354, 361 (7th Cir. 2009). Plain errors are those that are “(1)
clear and uncontroverted at the time of appeal and (2) affected
substantial rights, which means the error affected the out-
come of the district court proceedings.” United States v. Tru-
deau, 812 F.3d 578, 589 (7th Cir. 2016).
    To get to the heart of the matter, it helps to understand
first what constitutes a conspiracy, and what does not. To se-
cure a conviction for conspiracy to distribute drugs, the gov-
ernment “must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the de-
fendant knowingly agreed, perhaps implicitly, with someone
else to distribute drugs.” United States v. Hidalgo-Sanchez, 29
F.4th 915, 924-25 (7th Cir. 2022). We have said that liability for
participating in a drug trafficking conspiracy involves two
main principles: First, a defendant must “have a stake in the
No. 21-3221                                                                   5

venture” and exhibit “informed and interested cooperation.”
United States v. Vizcarra-Millan, 15 F.4th 473, 507 (7th Cir.
2021). Second, there must be “evidence of an agreement to ad-
vance further distribution—beyond the initial transaction.”
Hidalgo-Sanchez, 29 F.4th at 925.
    Characteristics that tend to distinguish a conspiracy from
a buyer-seller relationship include: “sales on credit or con-
signment, an agreement to look for other customers, a pay-
ment of commission on sales, an indication that one party ad-
vised the other on the conduct of the other’s business, or an
agreement to warn of future threats to each other’s business
stemming from competitors or law enforcement authorities.”
Id. An individual purchasing quantities of drugs beyond
those for personal consumption, frequently, and on credit,
leads to “an inference of conspiracy.” Id. But an evaluation of
the existence of a conspiracy is done through a “totality-of-
the-circumstances approach.” Vizcarra-Millan, 15 F.4th at 507.
And under the law of this circuit—in contrast to some of our
sister circuits 1—repeated sales of distribution-level quantities

    1 Our circuit does not restrict the availability of the buyer-seller in-
struction in ways other circuits do. Some of our sister circuits, for example,
have held that a defendant is not entitled to a buyer-seller instruction
when there is any pattern of large drug sales. See, e.g., United States v. Till-
man, 765 F.3d 831, 835 (8th Cir. 2014) (“Tillman’s participation in the con-
spiracy spanned years, with multiple drug transactions and multiple cus-
tomers. Because it was not a single, isolated sale, the buyer-seller instruc-
tion was not supported by the evidence.”); United States v. Hackley, 662
F.3d 671, 679 (4th Cir. 2011) (“[W]e have held that evidence of a continuing
buy-sell relationship when coupled with evidence of large quantities of
drugs, or ‘continuing relationships and repeated transactions,’ creates a
reasonable inference of an agreement.”). At least one circuit has held that
a buyer-seller instruction is only applicable if the evidence shows that ap-
pellee was a buyer for personal use. See United States v. Mitchell, 596 F.3d
6                                                              No. 21-3221

of drugs are not enough by themselves to create conspiracy
liability. Id. (holding “circumstantial evidence of an agree-
ment to distribute drugs” may allow for an inference of a reg-
ular buyer-seller relationship).
    In the past, we have said that the line between a buyer-
seller relationship and a conspiracy can be “as much an art as
a science” and “blurry.” Vizcarra-Millan, 15 F.4th at 507;
United States v. Askew, 403 F.3d 496, 503 (7th Cir. 2005). Still,
two precepts are clear: One, if the evidence shows only that
two people are in a buyer-seller relationship, that is insuffi-
cient for a conspiracy conviction. Hidalgo-Sanchez, 29 F.4th at
925. Two, if the evidence is equally probative of a conspiracy
or of a buyer-seller relationship, the tie goes to the defendant.
Id.
    Stated another way, when the evidence shows either pos-
sibility is equally likely—a conspiracy or a buyer-seller rela-
tionship—the evidence is not enough to convict for conspir-
acy. United States v. Johnson, 592 F.3d 749, 755 (7th Cir. 2010)
(noting that in situations when “evidence is essentially in eq-
uipoise [and] the plausibility of each inference is about the
same,” a jury “necessarily would have to entertain a reasona-
ble doubt on the conspiracy charge.”). In cases where this is
true—where the evidence is in equipoise—“we have never
found a failure to give the buyer-seller instruction to be harm-
less.” United States v. Cruse, 805 F.3d 795, 816 (7th Cir. 2015)
(stating this applies when “a reasonable jury could have
found that the defendant was merely a buyer from the

18, 25 (1st Cir. 2010) (“We hold that the district court did not plainly err in
failing to give a buyer-seller instruction because the record does not sup-
port the theory that Mitchell was a mere buyer for personal use.”).
No. 21-3221                                                  7

conspiracy” (quoting United States v. Meyer, 157 F.3d 1067,
1075 (7th Cir. 1998) (cleaned))).
    With this background, we turn to Page’s argument and the
government’s evidence at trial. Page argues the court should
have used the Seventh Circuit Pattern Criminal Jury Instruc-
tion 5.10(A) on the “Buyer/Seller Relationship”:
       A conspiracy requires more than just a buyer-
       seller relationship between the defendant and
       another person. In addition, a buyer and seller
       of [name of drug] do not enter into a conspiracy
       to [distribute [name of drug]; possess [name of
       drug] with intent to distribute] simply because
       the buyer resells the [name of drug] to others,
       even if the seller knows that the buyer intends
       to resell the [name of drug]. The government
       must prove that the buyer and seller had the
       joint criminal objective of further distributing
       [name of drug] to others.

See Fed. Crim. Jury Instr. 7th Cir. 5.10(A) (2022 ed.).
   Page contends that his involvement with Hamlin is an im-
perfect match to the conspiracy elements, necessitating the
buyer-seller instruction, and we agree. To explain, we discuss
the three main pieces of evidence the government alleged
pointed to a conspiracy—all of which barely satisfy the factors
suggesting a conspiracy and do as much to suggest the exist-
ence of a buyer-seller relationship.
    First, the government highlighted a single instance when
Hamlin allowed Page to return tainted heroin and use the re-
sulting credit to purchase more heroin. In the wiretapped con-
versations, Page expressed concern to Hamlin about the
8                                                   No. 21-3221

quality of the heroin Hamlin had sold him, and the problems
Page’s customers were having boiling it down. Page asked to
swap it out for a different kind of heroin because one of his
customers was too consistent a buyer to be sold substandard
product. Hamlin testified that he agreed to take back the her-
oin based on these concerns. Later that day, Page bought 17.5
grams of heroin and paid for it with a $250 credit.
    True, sales on credit or consignment are one of the factors
we have found suggestive of a drug conspiracy. Johnson, 592
F.3d at 755. And in the government’s view, Page and Ham-
lin’s tainted heroin episode shows the kind of “shared stake
in the illegal venture” distinguishing a drug conspiracy from
a general buyer-seller relationship. Askew, 403 F.3d at 502 (up-
holding a conspiracy conviction where drugs were sold be-
tween individuals “sometimes at below average prices or vol-
ume discounts” and sometimes essentially on layaway); see
also, Hidalgo-Sanchez, 29 F.4th at 926-27 (upholding a conspir-
acy conviction even though there was not a “consistent pat-
tern” of sales on credit).
    Equally true, however, is that this single credit-based sale
in the context of Page and Hamlin’s long history is not enough
to rule out the possibility that the two were in a mere buyer-
seller relationship. See Vizcarra-Millan, 15 F.4th at 510-11
(holding a $100 discount or credit on one purchase was “ex-
tremely weak evidence of conspiracy”); United States v. Neal,
907 F.3d 511, 516 (7th Cir. 2018) (“[O]ccasional sales on credit
are consistent with an ordinary buyer-seller relationship.”
(cleaned)). And the government’s argument that Page and
Hamlin’s conversations demonstrate a relationship of en-
hanced trust and interest in the particulars of the other’s busi-
ness holds as true for co-conspirators as it does for a seller
No. 21-3221                                                      9

(Hamlin) invested in keeping a consistent, long-time, family-
like customer (Page) happy. Hamlin even testified at trial that
he cut Page’s price over the course of their relationship be-
cause Page was “a good customer.” A reasonable jury could
find from this evidence that Page and Hamlin were in a mere
buyer-seller relationship.
   The government’s second piece of evidence pointing to a
conspiracy was that Page and Hamlin discussed buying and
repackaging heroin for new customers in some northern re-
gion not identified in the record. However, these discussions
did not continue, much less translate into reality, because
Page was already in a separate business with buyers in that
region. These unfulfilled discussions do not demonstrate an
agreement to look for other customers, and they certainly are
not enough to obviate the need for a buyer-seller instruction.
   The government’s third piece of evidence pointing to a
conspiracy was that Hamlin warned Page to be discreet about
both the drug business and letting Page‘s cousin Deon get
wind of their dealings. This could suggest that Hamlin was
advising Page on how to manage his business, another factor
we have found suggestive of a drug conspiracy. Johnson, 592
F.3d at 755-56. But it is also similar to the kind of “self-preser-
vation” warning that does not create a conspiracy inference.
See Johnson, 592 F.3d at 757 (holding that a warning from a
drug buyer to an approaching seller of police presence of the
neighborhood was consistent with a buyer-seller relation-
ship). Not to mention that the evidence showed Page and
Hamlin had a relationship based on a longstanding familial
connection, making it equally likely that the warnings were
born of genuine solicitude, not a conspiratorial bond.
10                                                 No. 21-3221

    Aside from the three pieces of evidence summarized
above, there was little at trial to suggest a conspiracy beyond
evidence showing Page purchased “distribution quantities of
heroin”—as the government puts it—over a year and a half.
However, that kind of purchasing history alone is not enough
in our circuit to create an inference of a conspiracy. Vizcarra-
Millan, 15 F.4th at 506-07. It bears repeating: When the evi-
dence permits a reasonable jury to find the defendant “was
merely a buyer from the conspiracy,” this court “[has] never
found a failure to give the buyer-seller instruction to be harm-
less.” Cruse, 805 F.3d at 816. Because the government’s evi-
dence was comparatively thin, we agree that a buyer-seller
instruction was warranted, and the failure to offer one consti-
tuted plain error. We therefore remand Page’s conspiracy
conviction (Count 1) for a new trial with a properly instructed
jury.
                              III

    We agree with Page that the government did not provide
enough evidence at trial to render a buyer-seller jury instruc-
tion unnecessary. Page also challenges the sufficiency of the
evidence supporting his conspiracy conviction. But because
we remand for a new trial on Count 1 with a properly in-
structed jury, we need not reach this question.
                            REVERSED AND REMANDED.