U.S. v. Ledford

• Citation: 443 F.3d 702
• Decision Date: 15 November 2005
• Docket Number: No. 04-1213.,04-1213.
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Ruben Dean LEDFORD, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (10th Circuit)

Page 702

443 F.3d 702

UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Ruben Dean LEDFORD, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 04-1213.

United States Court of Appeals, Tenth Circuit.

Filed November 15, 2005.

Ordered Published March 27, 2006.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

John W. Suthers, Attorney General, Jerry N. Jones, Craig Williams, Office of the

United States Attorney, Denver, CO, for Plaintiff-Appellee.

Raymond P. Moore, Fed. Public Defender, Robert William Pepin, Office of the Federal Public Defender, District Of Colorado and Wyoming, Denver, CO, for Defendant-Appellant.

Before EBEL, BRORBY, and HENRY, Circuit Judges.

HENRY, Circuit Judge.^*

A jury convicted Ruben Dean Ledford on one count of being a convicted felon and armed career criminal in possession of a firearm, in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 922(g)(1) and 924(e)(1). Mr. Ledford appeals his conviction, arguing that the district court improperly admitted a hearsay statement during the trial and improperly instructed the jury. We exercise jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291 and affirm.

I. BACKGROUND

In February 2003, police received a report of domestic violence at a residence occupied by Mr. Ledford and his girlfriend, Kathleen Carey. When Adams County Sheriff's Deputies Eric Brodheim and Mike Shipley arrived at the house, Deputy Brodheim met Ms. Carey outside the house and began taking a report from her. Deputy Shipley searched the house for Mr. Ledford but discovered that he had departed through the back door. Rec. vol. IV, at 155, 189. Ms. Carey then led Deputy Brodheim to a bedroom and removed a .41 caliber handgun from the top drawer of a dresser. Id. at 157. Deputy Brodheim also recovered six rounds of .41 caliber, hollow-point bullets. Id. at 161.

Meanwhile, Deputy Shipley found Mr. Ledford walking down a nearby street. Id. at 190. Deputy Shipley arrested Mr. Ledford, advised him of his rights under Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966), drove him back to the house to find out what Deputy Brodheim wanted to charge him with, and eventually took him to the police station. Id. at 190-95.

At the police station, Deputy Brodheim again advised Mr. Ledford of his Miranda rights, and began questioning him. Id. at 163-65. Deputy Brodheim asked Mr. Ledford about the gun. Id. at 167. Mr. Ledford responded that he knew he was not supposed to have a gun because he was a convicted felon. He stated that, a couple of months earlier, he had received the gun from a friend, who wanted him to fix it. Id. Mr. Ledford also said the gun was functional. Id. Subsequent tests confirmed that the gun was functional. Id. at 205-09.

Mr. Ledford was charged with being a felon in possession of a firearm, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1). To obtain a conviction under this statute, the government must establish three elements beyond a reasonable doubt: (1) the defendant was previously convicted of a felony; (2) the defendant thereafter knowingly possessed a firearm; and (3) the possession was in or affecting interstate commerce. United States v. Taylor, 113 F.3d 1136, 1144 (10th Cir.1997). Prior to his jury trial, Mr. Ledford stipulated that he had previously been convicted of a felony and that possession of the gun was in or affecting interstate commerce. Rec. vol. IV, at 13-14. The government therefore only had to prove that Mr. Ledford knowingly possessed the gun.

At trial, the government called Deputy Brodheim. During his testimony regarding his initial encounter with Ms. Carey, the following exchange took place:

Q[uestion by Mr. Williams, the prosecutor]: And where were you?

A[nswer by Deputy Brodheim]: I remained at the residence to continue taking a report from Miss Carey.

Q: And without telling us exactly what she said with regard to the incident, did she tell you generally about the incident?

A: Yes, she did.

Q: Now towards the end of this did she express some concern?

A: Yes, she did.

Q: And what was that concern?

MR. PEPIN [Mr. Ledford's counsel]: I object to that. That's hearsay, your Honor.

MR. WILLIAMS: Your Honor, we have briefed this pretrial and we don't believe that it is hearsay. We're not offering it for its truth value, if you will allow me to refer to it as "it." We're not trying to prove the truth of this statement. It goes, number one, to the declarant's state of mind and it is by definition not hearsay.

THE COURT: 801(d)(2)(A) I think covers anything that the defendant may have said to Ms. Carey. And as to her statement to the officer, it is received not for the truth of the matter asserted, but under the state-of-mind exception to the hearsay rule. So under ... 801(d)(2)(A) and state-of-mind exception to the hearsay rule, the objection is overruled.

MR. WILLIAMS: Thank you, your honor. We're talking specifically about what Ms. Carey ... said to you that the defendant said to her.

A: She told me that Reuben Ledford told her that if she called the cops he would kill her.

Q: What happened between you and Miss Carey at that point?

A: She told me that there was a weapon in the house that belonged to Mr. Ledford and she would like me to secure the weapon for her safety.

Rec. vol. IV, at 155-56. Mr. Ledford's counsel did not object to Deputy Brodheim's testimony that Ms. Carey said the gun belonged to Mr. Ledford. Id. at 156-57.

Mr. Ledford later testified that the gun was not his. Id. at 224-226. He also testified, however, that a friend had "wanted me to look at it [to] see if I can figure it out—if I can fix it." Id. at 224-225. In addition, he admitted on cross-examination that he had told a bail bondswoman shortly after he was arrested that "two or three weeks" earlier a friend had said he had a "pistol that needed some work done on it." Id. at 252-54.

Prior to the jury instruction conference, both the government and Mr. Ledford tendered instructions defining "possession" of an illegal weapon, the only disputed element of the charge. Mr. Ledford's instruction stated that "[a] person who, although not in actual possession, knowingly has both the power and the intention at a given time to exercise dominion or control over a thing, either directly or through another person or persons, is then in constructive possession of it." Aplt's Br., Attach. 3. The district court provided a draft of the possession instruction containing "and the intention," to which the government objected under United States v. Colonna, 360 F.3d 1169, 1179 (10th Cir.), cert. denied, 543 U.S. 823, 125 S.Ct. 37, 160 L.Ed.2d 34 (2004). See Rec. vol. III, at 281.

In Colonna, we held that in joint occupancy situations, "[i]t is not necessary to show that a defendant intended to exercise... dominion or control," but only that a defendant had "knowledge of and access to the weapon[]...." 360 F.3d at 1179. Mr. Ledford's counsel argued that despite the holding in Colonna, eliminating intent language from the instruction converted the offense into one of strict liability, thereby violating due process. Id. at 282-87. The court ruled that it was bound by Colonna, noting that eliminating an intent requirement did not convert the offense into a strict liability offense because the government still had to prove Mr. Ledford's knowledge of and access to the weapon. Id. at 283, 286, 287. The court gave an instruction that did not require the government to prove intention to exercise dominion and control. Id. at 302. The jury returned a guilty verdict, and the court sentenced Mr. Ledford to 200 months' imprisonment, followed by five years of supervised release.

II. DISCUSSION

On appeal, Mr. Ledford contends that the district court erred in overruling his hearsay objection to Deputy Brodheim's testimony regarding a statement made by Ms. Carey: that she was scared because Mr. Ledford had told her he would kill her if she called the police. He also contends that the district court erred in giving a "possession" jury instruction that did not include language requiring intent. We address each argument in turn.

A. The District Court Acted Within Its Discretion By Admitting the Statement.

We review a district court's evidentiary rulings for an abuse of discretion, considering the record as a whole. See Abuan v. Level 3 Communications, Inc., 353 F.3d 1158, 1171 (10th Cir.2003). "`[W]e should hardly be warranted in reversing for the admission of evidence simply because the judge did not place his ruling on the ground that would most readily have supported it.'" United States v. Knox, 124 F.3d 1360, 1362 (10th Cir. 1997) (quoting United States v. Ross, 321 F.2d 61, 69 (2d Cir.1963)). We may "`affirm the rulings of the lower court on any ground that finds support in the record, even where the lower court reached its conclusions from a different or even erroneous course of reasoning.'" Id. (quoting Keyes v. School Dist. No. 1, 521 F.2d 465, 472-73 (10th Cir.1975)). Finally, if a party objects to a district court's hearsay ruling based solely on the Federal Rules of Evidence, we review for nonconstitutional harmless error. United States v. Jefferson, 925 F.2d 1242, 1253-54 (10th Cir. 1991) (distinguishing between the nonconstitutional harmless error standard for review of objections based solely on the Rules of Evidence and the constitutional harmless error standard for objections implicating the Confrontation Clause, under which a court may find error harmless only if it is convinced that the error was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt).

1. The statement was not hearsay.

Hearsay is an out-of-court statement "offered in evidence to prove the truth of the matter asserted," FED.R.EVID. 801(c), and is inadmissible, subject to certain exceptions. See FED.R.EVID. 802. A statement offered to prove something other than the truth of the matter asserted is not hearsay.

The testimony at issue here involves two out-of-court statements, one by Ms. Carey and one by Officer Brodheim. In particular, Ms. Carey related what Mr. Ledford said to her (the first...