Court Opinion

ID: 9753426
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 19:13:59.087826+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:42:12.566233
License: Public Domain

USCA11 Case: 23-11376    Document: 28-1     Date Filed: 08/28/2023   Page: 1 of 6

                                                  [DO NOT PUBLISH]
                                   In the
                United States Court of Appeals
                        For the Eleventh Circuit

                          ____________________

                                No. 23-11376
                          Non-Argument Calendar
                          ____________________

       UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
                                                      Plaintiﬀ-Appellee,
       versus
       TERRANCE WELLONS,

                                                  Defendant-Appellant.

                          ____________________

                 Appeal from the United States District Court
                     for the Southern District of Florida
                   D.C. Docket No. 9:98-cr-08148-CMA-1
                          ____________________
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       2                        Opinion of the Court                    23-11376

       Before ROSENBAUM, ABUDU, and ANDERSON, Circuit Judges.
       PER CURIAM:
               Terrance Wellons appeals the revocation of his supervised
       release. See 18 U.S.C. § 3583(g). The district court found that
       Wellons violated the conditions of his release by committing grand
       theft, in violation of Fla. Stat. § 812.014(1)(2)(c). Wellons maintains
       that the evidence shows he was merely an innocent bystander to a
       theft committed by another person. We affirm because the court’s
       view of the evidence is reasonable and supported by the record.
                                            I.
               Wellons began serving his five-year term of supervised re-
       lease in 2019, after President Barack Obama commuted the remain-
       der of Wellons’s 420-month prison sentence for drug-trafficking
       and gun crimes. In April 2023, the probation office petitioned to
       revoke his supervised release after he was arrested and charged
       with grand theft, in violation of Fla. Stat. § 812.014(a)(2)(c). 1
              At the revocation hearing, the government presented wit-
       nesses and video evidence about the theft from a Home Depot on
       February 23, 2023. Wayne Effort, a Home Depot loss prevention
       officer, testified that he observed Wellons enter the Home Depot
       with Willie Faulk, who had attempted to steal items from the store
       before. Near the tool corral, Faulk placed a table saw in the cart,

       1 Wellons was also charged with felony retail theft, but the government dis-

       missed that ground for revocation at the revocation hearing.
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       23-11376               Opinion of the Court                         3

       while Wellons added some car-cleaning supplies. Faulk then
       pushed the cart to the garden center, and Wellons walked “behind
       him making sure [no one] was watching.” At the garden center,
       Faulk added two trimmers to the cart while Wellons “stayed on the
       edge of the aisle looking left and right to see if anyone was com-
       ing.” Once the cart was full, Faulk and Wellons spoke, and then
       Faulk started walking with the cart towards the entrance door.
       Wellons followed a few paces behind Faulk and kept “looking left
       to right going out.” Faulk was arrested just after leaving the store.
       Meanwhile, Wellons hesitated when he heard a fire alarm and po-
       lice sirens going off, and he was apprehended soon after. The total
       amount of merchandise stolen was $824.72. The government
       played portions of Home Depot surveillance footage during Ef-
       fort’s testimony.
               In Effort’s training and experience, retail thefts usually in-
       volved “one person pushing the cart” and another person acting as
       a lookout, plus a getaway driver waiting outside. Effort further
       testified that Wellons’s actions were consistent with acting as a
       lookout during the theft.
              The government also called as a witness Kendra Strong, a
       police officer for the Boynton Beach Police Department, and intro-
       duced footage from her body-worn camera. Strong received up-
       dates about the two suspects from Effort, and she was involved in
       both arrests. Wellons denied any involvement in or awareness of
       the theft. He had some money in his pockets, enough to buy the
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       4                       Opinion of the Court                  23-11376

       cleaning supplies he had added to the cart. And he was not carrying
       any items from the store.
              Wellons argued that the evidence failed to show his partici-
       pation in the theft beyond his mere presence with Faulk, the person
       who stole the items. The government responded that the evidence
       reflected that Wellons operated as a lookout while Faulk placed
       items in the cart.
              The district court found that the government proved by a
       preponderance of the evidence that Wellons violated the condi-
       tions of his supervised release by committing the offense of grand
       theft with Faulk. In the court’s view, it was “abundantly clear”
       from the surveillance footage and Effort’s testimony that Wellons
       and Faulk were working together and that Wellons was not simply
       present at the wrong place at the wrong time. After revoking
       Wellons’s supervised release, the district court sentenced him to
       eight months of imprisonment followed by an additional two years
       of supervised release. This appeal followed.
                                         II.
               We review a district court’s revocation of supervised release
       for an abuse of discretion, United States v. Vandergrift, 754 F.3d 1303,
       1307 (11th Cir. 2014), and its findings of fact for clear error, United
       States v. Almand, 992 F.2d 316, 318 (11th Cir. 1993). “[W]hen a fact
       pattern gives rise to two reasonable and different constructions, the
       fact finder’s choice between them cannot be clearly erroneous.”
       United States v. Rodriguez, 34 F.4th 961, 970 (11th Cir. 2022).
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       23-11376               Opinion of the Court                          5

               A district court “may revoke a defendant’s term of super-
       vised release and impose a prison sentence when it finds by a pre-
       ponderance of the evidence that the defendant violated a condition
       of his or her supervised release.” United States v. Hofierka, 83 F.3d
       357, 363 (11th Cir. 1996); 18 U.S.C. § 3583(e)(3). “A preponderance
       of the evidence is evidence which is more convincing than the evi-
       dence offered in opposition to it.” United States v. Watkins, 10 F.4th
       1179, 1184 (11th Cir. 2021) (quotation marks omitted). This stand-
       ard requires the government to show only “that the existence of a
       fact is more probable than its nonexistence.” Id. (quotation marks
       omitted).
              In Florida, a person commits theft if he knowingly obtains
       someone else’s property with intent to either deprive the other per-
       son of a right to the property or appropriate the property to his
       own use. Fla. Stat. § 812.014(1). A person commits grand theft in
       the third degree if the stolen property is, among other things, val-
       ued at more than $750 but less than $20,000. Id. § 812.014(2)(c).
               A person is punishable as a principal for aiding and abetting
       a crime if he “intended that the crime[] be committed” and did
       “some act to assist another in committing the crime[].” Garcia v.
       State, 899 So. 2d 447, 449 (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. 2005). Mere presence
       at the scene of the crime is insufficient to establish participation in
       the offense. Id. at 450. Instead, “one must have a conscious intent
       that the crime be done and must do some act . . . which was in-
       tended to and does incite, cause, encourage, assist, or advise
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       6                      Opinion of the Court                 23-11376

       another person to actually commit the crime.” K.B. v. State, 170 So.
       3d 121, 123 (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. 2015) (quotation marks omitted).
              Here, the district court did not abuse its discretion by revok-
       ing Wellons’s supervised release. The court determined by a pre-
       ponderance of the evidence that Wellons aided and abetted the
       commission of grand theft. Having reviewed the surveillance foot-
       age and the revocation hearing transcript, we cannot say that the
       court clearly erred in finding that Wellons was not simply present
       at the scene of the theft. Rather, his actions were consistent with
       an inference that he participated in the crime and acted as a lookout
       for Faulk to help avoid detection. He entered the store with Faulk
       and walked around with or near him, added items to the cart Paulk
       was pushing, and was observed looking around as if to help Faulk
       to avoid detection, including when Faulk was leaving the store
       without paying.
              While the evidence did not rule out the possibility Wellons
       was unaware of any theft plans, that possibility cannot support re-
       versal on this record. “[W]hen a fact pattern gives rise to two rea-
       sonable and different constructions, the fact finder’s choice be-
       tween them cannot be clearly erroneous.” Rodriguez, 34 F.4th at
       970. Because the district court’s construction of the evidence was
       reasonable, the district court did not clearly err in finding that
       Wellons violated the conditions of his supervised release by com-
       mitting a new crime. Accordingly, we affirm the revocation of
       Wellons’s supervised release.
             AFFIRMED.