Court Opinion

ID: 9463609
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 23:10:47.429107+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:38:11.101002
License: Public Domain

CLARK, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
I respectfully dissent. To demonstrate the basis for my disagreement, it is necessary to narrate the evidence as a whole, though this involves some repetition of Judge Roney’s statement. Mine, as his, is of course made viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the government, Glasser v. United States, 315 U.S. 60, 62 S.Ct. 457, 86 L.Ed. 680 (1942). On August 25, 1975, Patty DeMeritte, a porter at the Bahamas Airport, met Brad Colebrook and three other persons who were eventually identified as Joe Duckett, Barbara Gaston, and Charles Gray, as they arrived together at the front door of the Bahamas Airport. Although DeMeritte had known Colebrook for a long time from his position with the Bahama Customs, a position which he still held at that time, DeMeritte had never before seen the other three. The group had four pieces of luggage, three black and one red, and a handbag. Two pieces of luggage were “big, soft on rollers, and two of them — one of them was hard and the other soft. They had two rollers.” DeMeritte took two pieces of large black luggage on rollers and placed them at the Bahamasair International Counter 16 where the luggage would first clear domestic and then go through United States Customs onto Baha-masair International Flight 44 to Miami. By the time DeMeritte had done this and returned, Gaston and Gray had left Cole-brook and Duckett, and they were checking in at Bahamasair Counter 16.
Colebrook, with Duckett still standing beside him, then asked DeMeritte to take a red suitcase that was on rollers around customs and place it on the trolley which held luggage for Bahamasair International Flight 44 to Miami. DeMeritte did as Cole-brook requested. DeMeritte testified that he had never been asked to take luggage *1032around customs before and that Colebrook gave him a $20 tip for doing so. Between the time when DeMeritte took the red suitcase around customs and Duckett, Gaston, and Gray were next seen, Duckett checked in at the Bahamasair ticket counter. Cole-brook was not heard of or seen again.
The next Bahamas Airport employee witness to have any contact with this group was Bern T. Kenney, a United States Immigrations Officer whose responsibilities include pre-clearance of people and their luggage flying from the Bahamas into the United States. On August 25, 1975, Ken-ney and Robert Boeman, a United States Customs Inspector whose responsibilities were identical to Kenney’s, were clearing two separate lines of people flying to Miami on Bahamasair International Flight 44, the lines being positioned about 10 feet apart. Gaston and Gray were standing in Kenney’s pre-clearance line. Duckett was standing in Boeman’s pre-clearance line. As Gaston and Gray moved up in their line to Ken-ney’s station, Duckett left the place in Boe-man’s line, walked over to Gaston and Gray “to get a key, or something from them,” and then returned to his position in his own line.
Thirty minutes later, Duckett was undergoing pre-clearance at Boeman’s station. Duckett identified himself to Boeman as Felton Sutton and presented for Boeman’s inspection one of the black suitcases and the handbag brought to the terminal by Cole-brook, Duckett, Gaston, and Gray. After accepting Duckett’s written customs declaration, which was in the name of Feton Sutton, Boeman asked Duckett for proof of his United States citizenship. While Duck-ett was searching through his pockets for some type of identification, Boeman saw a United States passport in the handbag, which was lying partially open on the pre-clearance table. Boeman took the passport and told Duckett, “This is all you need.” At that moment, Duckett produced a birth certificate in response to Boeman’s initial request for identification. The passport was that of Joe Duckett, III. The birth certificate was in the name of Feton Sutton.
In response to Boeman’s questions about whose passport and luggage he was carrying, Duckett told Boeman that the passport, the luggage, and its contents belonged to a friend of his. Duckett said that he and a friend had shared a hotel room in Nassau the night before. Earlier that morning, Duckett was not sure when, his friend had departed the hotel for an undisclosed destination and had asked Duckett to carry his personal effects with him to Miami as his friend was returning to Miami that same day.
Boeman thereupon commenced a search of the black suitcase. A close examination of the inner breast pocket of a white suit revealed a small residue of a grass-like substance which was field tested and proved to be marijuana. Because of the positive results of the field test, Duckett was required to undergo a strip search. This was conducted by a Bahamiam police officer with Boeman present and observing. The search produced nothing. Duckett was again questioned as to the whereabouts of the owner of the suitcase. In response to Duckett’s answers that the owner might have gone to Freeport, or on to Miami, the passenger lists of ticket stubs were checked to see if anyone by the name of Joe Duckett had flown from the Bahamas Airport that morning. No such name was found.
Before leaving, Duckett asked Boeman if he could give him a signed statement to present to Miami Customs that Duckett had been cleared by Nassau Customs to avoid being checked again in Miami. Boeman told him that it was not possible to do that. Duckett was then released to go into the departure lounge but was not seen or heard from again.
As Boeman was returning to his pre-clearance station, a Bahamas Air Porter came off the ramp with a red suitcase marked “Blue Light” on the handle and presented it to Boeman for customs inspection. The porter knew the red suitcase had not cleared customs because it did not have a pre-clearance stamp, which all properly *1033customs-inspected luggage receives. Boe-man opened the red suitcase which was the same one Colebrook had asked DeMeritte to carry around customs. It contained what proved to be 13V2 pounds of southeastern Asia heroin. Boeman put everything back into the red suitcase, relocked it, placed it onto the Bahamasair baggage cart for Flight 44 to Miami. Boeman’s customs supervisor then telephoned the U.S. Customs Office in Miami, notifying the Miami Customs Supervisor Arango what Boeman had discovered and requesting surveillance on the red bag when it was picked up in Miami.
Arango set up a surveillance unit to cover Bahamasair International Flight 44 from Nassau when it landed in Miami. He told his people to look for a red suitcase with the brand name “Blue Light” on the handle. Arango or his agents saw the red suitcase as it was unloaded off Bahamasair Flight 44 in Miami, placed on the baggage cart, and wheeled to the Bahamasair baggage claim area. Arango saw Gray pick up the red suitcase, carry it approximately 12 or 15 feet, and set it alongside several black suitcases. A porter came shortly thereafter, picked up the black suitcase, but left the red suitcase and then followed Gray. Ga-ston then came into the baggage claim area and looked around as she was approaching the red suitcase. She picked up the red suitcase and was subsequently arrested by Arango near the front entrance of the airport.
A voter registration card bearing the name Feton Sutton, Duckett’s Nassau alias, was found on Gaston, as were several personal papers belonging to Duckett and an address book with the initials J.D. Gray was also arrested as he was leaving the airport; a business card of Colebrook’s was discovered in his possession. No one saw Duckett disembark in Miami from Flight 44.
This scenario makes it perfectly plain to me that the jury could reasonably infer that Duckett was a member of a conspiracy to import heroin and knowingly acted to further its end. That a conspiracy exists may be easily inferred from the actions of Cole-brook, Gaston, and Gray, and evidence found on Gaston and Gray after they were arrested in Miami. That Duckett not only knew Colebrook, Gaston, and Gray, but also was closely associated with their illicit activity at the Bahamas Airport, is just as clear. These two inferences are insufficient to implicate him in the conspiracy. But what else might the jury reasonably infer? After DeMeritte placed two black suitcases at counter 16 and returned where the four were initially standing, Gaston and Gray had left to cheek in with the airlines, and Colebrook and Duckett was standing together. They had the red suitcase, a black suitcase, and a handbag. Colebrook asked DeMeritte to take the red suitcase past customs. The most obvious inference is that Colebrook wanted DeMeritte to believe that, in his capacity as a customs official, he was doing a special favor for one of the people he came to the airport with. Cole-brook could not appear to be the approving customs official for his own luggage. He needed to appear to act for a traveler he had inspected. Duckett was his foil. The jury could reasonably infer that the conspirators intended for Colebrook to appear to be using his influence as a customs official to get Duckett’s red suitcase through customs without further inspection. The jury could also reasonably infer that Duckett stood there while Colebrook gave his instructions to DeMeritte so that it would appear to DeMeritte that Colebrook was using his influence on Duckett’s behalf and thus give to Colebrook’s actions the desired appearance. Duckett’s offering of an alias to Boeman (the same alias later found on Gaston), his falsehood about possession of a “friend’s” luggage and passport, and his request to Boeman for some assurance that his luggage would not be inspected again by Miami customs, are equally inconsistent with the notion that Duckett was not a member of the conspiracy. Rather, the jury had every reason to infer that the remaining conspirators would not have conducted their criminal activity with an outsider in their midst who was actually watching and hearing the key event: the *1034diversion of the heroin-filled red suitcase past regular inspection.
This jury could have concluded that Duckett was an innocent lamb who just happened to wind up among friends who were heroin-smuggling wolves or that he knew exactly what was up and participated in the conspiracy. Since it is so reasonable to my mind that the likelihood he did not participate in the conspiracy “was too slim to be troubling” to the jury, United States v. Alvarez, 548 F.2d 542, 545 (5th Cir. 1977), I do not understand how we can reverse their verdict. Thus, I would affirm.