U.S. v. Hoyte
| Decision Date | 21 April 1995 |
| Docket Number | Nos. 94-5340,s. 94-5340 |
| Citation | 51 F.3d 1239 |
| Parties | 41 Fed. R. Evid. Serv. 1103 UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Obed HOYTE, Defendant-Appellant. UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Anif Christopher WILLIAMS, Defendant-Appellant. UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Kenton Omar PERRIN, Defendant-Appellant. UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Kenton Omar PERRIN, Defendant-Appellant. to 94-5342 and 94-6500. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit |
ARGUED: J. Lloyd Snook, III, Snook & Haughey, P.C., Charlottesville, VA, for appellants. Kelli Renee Orndorff, Student Counsel, U.S. Attorney's Office, Roanoke, VA, for appellee. ON BRIEF: John S. Hart, Green & O'Donnell, Harrisonburg, VA, for appellant Hoyte; Michael T. Hemmenway, Dygert & Associates, Charlottesville, VA, for appellant Perrin. Robert P. Crouch, Jr., U.S. Atty., Ruth E. Plagenhoef, Asst. U.S. Atty., Roanoke, VA, for appellee.
Before WILKINS and LUTTIG, Circuit Judges, and LAY, Senior Circuit Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, sitting by designation.
Affirmed by published opinion. Senior Judge LAY wrote the opinion, in which Judge WILKINS and Judge LUTTIG joined.
Obed Hoyte, Anif Christopher Williams, and Kenton Omar Perrin were convicted under 21 U.S.C. Sec. 846 and 18 U.S.C. Secs. 2, 924(c), and 1959(a)(1) for conspiracy to distribute and distribution of cocaine base, use of a firearm, and murder for the purpose of improving or maintaining their positions in a RICO enterprise. On appeal they raise numerous trial errors. We affirm the judgments of conviction. 1
The three defendants were operating a drug distribution ring in Charlottesville, Virginia. Dwayne Durrett was a crack user and occasional dealer for the defendants. Durrett was found murdered on the night of March 17, 1993, by the side of U.S. Route 250. He had been shot three or possibly four times. A nine millimeter bullet casing was found near the body.
Several witnesses testified at trial that the three defendants had been looking for Durrett the night of his murder and that Durrett was avoiding them. Durrett was observed to have had a sizeable quantity of crack shortly before his murder that he may have stolen from the defendants. Testimony also established that Hoyte owned a nine millimeter pistol.
A key witness for the Government was Densie Beckford. He had been named in the original indictment with eight other codefendants. He testified he had seen Hoyte and Williams shoot at Durrett and stand over his body. Beckford heard Hoyte say Williams then drove the car back and he, along with Hoyte and Perrin, put Durrett in it. Beckford also told of a later conversation he overheard in which Hoyte and Williams said that after they had taken Durrett out of the car, Hoyte told Williams to shoot him again to make sure he was dead.
Beckford had entered into a plea agreement prior to trial. It was brought out at trial that Beckford had made two prior inconsistent statements about Durrett's murder. When he was first arrested in May 1993, Beckford denied all knowledge of the murder. In October of 1993, while negotiating a plea bargain, he told an FBI agent a second story to the effect that he had heard something about Durrett's murder from Hoyte but had not personally observed it. When Beckford told that story to a polygraph examiner, he failed the test. After jury deliberations began, an FBI agent told one of the defense attorneys that after Beckford had failed the polygraph test, Beckford had told him a completely different story. This version of the incident was that the defendants had enticed Durrett into their car with a promise of giving him some marijuana and then shot him later.
In their joint appeal, the defendants contend (1) the court erred in denying a new trial because of Beckford's undisclosed statement; (2) they were prejudiced by testimony referring to their ethnic background and to a certain rap music tape in which Hoyte said "murder;" and (3) there was insufficient evidence to support a conviction for murder "for the purpose of ... maintaining or increasing position in" a RICO enterprise under 18 U.S.C. Sec. 1959. In addition, they contend the court erred in denying Hoyte a continuance, in failing to dismiss the charges against Williams on double jeopardy grounds, and in refusing to direct a verdict in Perrin's favor.
The defendants claim the Government's failure to disclose all the accounts Beckford gave of the murder violated their constitutional right to a fair trial. Under Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83, 87, 83 S.Ct. 1194, 1196-97, 10 L.Ed.2d 215 (1963), the defendants have the right to favorable evidence that is of material import in the determination of guilt or punishment.
To prevail on this issue, the defendants must show the undisclosed statement is both favorable to them and material. United States v. Bagley, 473 U.S. 667, 682, 105 S.Ct. 3375, 3383, 87 L.Ed.2d 481 (1985) (quoting Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 694, 104 S.Ct. 2052, 2068, 80 L.Ed.2d 674 (1984)).
Beckford's undisclosed statement was that "they" (the defendants) lured Durrett into the car by offering him marijuana, intending to kill him. In this version of the murder, Beckford did not specifically single out which defendants lured Durrett into the car. The trial court concluded the statement was accordingly not specifically exculpatory to any of the three defendants.
If we consider Beckford's undisclosed story as true, it is clear it is not favorable in the sense it does not specifically exculpate anyone. The statement can be generally understood as showing that Perrin along with Hoyte and Williams was involved in luring Durrett into the car. There are two other statements that implicate the defendants including Perrin in the shooting of Durrett. First, there is testimony that on the same day of the shooting, Perrin was riding in an automobile with Hoyte and Williams looking for Durrett. There is also the testimony of Pernell Washington that in response to his inquiry about the murder, Perrin laughed and said that "He [Durrett] shouldn't have f----- with us." Further, there was credible testimony that Hoyte owned a nine millimeter gun and that a shell casing for a nine millimeter gun was found at the scene of the murder. In light of the totality of the evidence, we conclude Beckford's undisclosed statement was not exculpatory to any of the three defendants.
If we consider Beckford's undisclosed statement as false, it may be favorable to the defendants in the sense of impeaching Beckford's testimony. See Giglio v. United States, 405 U.S. 150, 154-55, 92 S.Ct. 763, 766, 31 L.Ed.2d 104 (1972) (). The defendants argue that full disclosure of all of Beckford's prior inconsistent statements would tend to show he kept changing his story until he invented a version the Government liked.
The trial court held Beckford's additional story would not have changed the trial's outcome because Beckford was impeached in so many other ways. Counsel cross-examined Beckford about his two prior inconsistent stories. The jury learned Beckford used several aliases and had false ID. The jury heard Beckford was a drug dealer and had signed a plea agreement. They did not have to believe his statement that he expected nothing in return for testifying. Counsel brought out that, in exchange for Beckford's testimony, the quantity of drugs he was charged with would be reduced, he would receive a decrease in his offense level for acceptance of responsibility, one of the charges against him would be dismissed, and he would receive a recommendation for sentencing at a lower level than the Guidelines would otherwise allow. The trial court found, given the extent to which Beckford was impeached, there was no reasonable possibility that airing the undisclosed version would have changed the result of the case.
We agree with the trial court's analysis. 2 Although the nondisclosure of the statement did give rise to a colorable argument, we conclude on the basis of the overall evidence that further impeachment of Beckford would not, within reasonable probability, have caused a different result. 3
Defendants argue the trial court erred in permitting the government and its witnesses to refer to them as "Jamaicans" and in refusing to declare a mistrial after the jury heard testimony that Hoyte made a rap tape in which he used the word "murder."
Defendants rely on United States v. Doe, 903 F.2d 16 (D.C.Cir.1990), where the court found inadmissible expert testimony describing how "Jamaican" drug dealers had "taken over" the crack trade in Washington D.C. The court noted the prosecutor's mention of that fact in closing argument and his repeated references to the defendants as "Jamaicans." Defendants also cite United States v. Rodriguez Cortes, 949 F.2d 532, 542 (1st Cir.1991), where the court similarly found inadmissible a card identifying the defendant as a Colombian which was "used as the basis for making generalizations about all Colombians."
We note both Doe and Rodriguez Cortes deal with evidence that had little probative value and significant prejudicial effects. Here, the term was relevant and had more than marginal probative value. Several witnesses who bought drugs from the defendants or knew them through their own participation in the drug trade, only knew the defendants by their street names, one of...
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