U.S. v. Sanders

Decision Date21 March 2008
Docket NumberNo. 07-1176.,07-1176.
PartiesUNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. DeAngelo SANDERS, Defendant-Appellant.
CourtU.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit

J. Christopher Moore (argued), Office of the United States Attorney, Criminal Division, Fairview Heights, IL, for Plaintiff-Appellee.

Traci B. Berquam (argued), Lord Bissell & Brook, Chicago, IL, for Defendant-Appellant.

Before POSNER, FLAUM, and ROVNER, Circuit Judges.

ROVNER, Circuit Judge.

Defendant-Appellant DeAngelo Sanders was indicted on the charges of possession of an unregistered firearm in violation of 26 U.S.C. §§ 5845, 5861(d) and 5871, and possession of a firearm as a felon in contravention of 18 U.S.C. §§ 922(g)(1) and 924(e)(2)(B)(i) and (ii). Following a trial, a jury found Sanders guilty on both counts. The district court sentenced Sanders to 295 months' imprisonment on Count 1 and 120 months on Count 2, to be served concurrently. Sanders now appeals his conviction and sentence, and we affirm.

The charges arose out of an incident on December 6, 2005. As a result of work with an informant, the police were aware that Amid Kennedy was going to be involved in a proposed transaction involving firearms, which initially was to involve the purchase of a gun but ultimately was to involve the trading of a sawed-off shotgun for a pistol. The police were present at the site of the planned transaction to arrest the participants. Kennedy drove to the site accompanied by Sanders in the front passenger seat, who was acting as his bodyguard, and J.W., a minor, in the backseat. Both Sanders and Kennedy were felons. According to the trial testimony, as the police stopped the vehicle, Sanders removed a shotgun from his pants and placed it on the floor beneath him. The police recovered the sawed-off shotgun with one round chambered, from that location. In subsequent conversations with the police, Sanders admitted that he had obtained the shotgun from his cousin and that they had jointly sawed off the barrel.

In order to prove that Sanders knowingly possessed a firearm, the government had to establish that Sanders "consciously possessed what he knew to be a firearm." United States v. Jones, 222 F.3d 349, 352 (7th Cir.2000). The National Firearms Act, which prohibits the possession of an unregistered firearm, defines "firearm" as including a shotgun with an overall length of less than 26 inches or a barrel length of less than 18 inches. 26 U.S.C. §§ 5861(d), 5845. Therefore, the government had to prove that Sanders consciously possessed the shotgun and that he knew that the shotgun had an overall length of less than' 26 inches or a barrel length of less than 18 inches. Jones, 222 F.3d at 352. Such knowledge can be inferred from evidence that the defendant handled the shotgun if the appearance of the shotgun would have revealed those characteristics. Id. That evidence similarly can establish possession of a firearm for the felon-in-possession charge, which additionally requires proof that the defendant previously had been convicted of a crime punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year, and that the possession of the firearm was in or affecting interstate commerce. In this appeal, Sanders does not contest that he is a felon nor does he rebut the showing regarding interstate commerce.

Instead, Sanders maintains that the district court erred in denying his motion for judgment of acquittal because the evidence was insufficient to establish that he knew the shotgun was less than 26 inches in length or that the barrel was less than 18 inches. We note initially that Sanders raised his motion for acquittal at the close of the government's case, but did not subsequently renew that motion. Sanders argues that the issue is nonetheless preserved because the defense rested at the close of the government's case, and therefore that the motion for acquittal was effectively made at the close of all evidence. Accordingly, Sanders argues that we should review the issue de novo and determine whether, after viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the prosecution, any rational trier of fact could have found the essential elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt. We need not consider whether the motion was sufficient to preserve the issue or whether the plain error standard should instead apply, because even under the standard advocated by Sanders, his claim cannot succeed. See United States v. Sachsenmaier, 491 F.3d 680, 683 (7th Cir.2007); United States v. DeLeon, 247 F.3d 593, 596 n. 1 (5th Cir.2001).

Sanders focuses his sufficiency of the evidence argument on the overall length of the shotgun, arguing that the overall length of the shotgun was 24 inches and therefore was only 2 inches under the overall length requirements of a legal shotgun. He argues that such a small discrepancy would not be noticeable, and therefore that knowledge of the inadequate shotgun length cannot be inferred. Sanders fails to recognize, however, that the barrel length of the shotgun was significantly less than the legal length. The legal length of a shotgun barrel is 18 inches, and the sawed-off shotgun possessed by Sanders was only 11 and 7/16 inches long. That is more than one-third shorter than the legal length, and is a large enough difference that it would be obvious to someone who handled it that the barrel was not 18 inches long. That is the only knowledge required for a jury to find a violation of the statute.

The jury was presented with evidence that Sanders handled the gun, including Sanders' own acknowledgment and the testimony that he had the shotgun in his possession in the vehicle and placed it on the floor at the time of the arrest. That would be enough for a jury to infer the requisite knowledge, but we have much more here. Sanders also admitted that he and his cousin sawed off the shotgun. That is compelling evidence that Sanders had knowledge that the shotgun was shorter than the legal limit, as Sanders himsglf modified the gun to achieve that result. The district court properly denied the motion for judgment of acquittal.

Sanders next asserts that the district court erred in its response to a question from the jury during deliberation. Regarding the charge of possession of an unregistered firearm, the jury was instructed that the government had to prove "that the defendant knew that the firearm possessed the characteristic of an overall length of less than 26 inches or a barrel less than 18 inches in length." The jury sent the district court the following question on its second day of deliberation:

Number one, Judge's instruction to us. The defendant is charged in Count 1 of the indictment with the offense of possession of a shotgun having a barrel length of 11 and a quarter inches and overall length of 24 and a half inches. Number 2, Count I states, second, the defendant knew that the firearm...

To continue reading

Request your trial
9 cases
  • State Of Conn. v. Kitchens, SC 18421
    • United States
    • Supreme Court of Connecticut
    • January 5, 2011
    ...153 (2d Cir. 2009) (finding waiver because defense counsel indicated challenged instruction was satisfactory); United States v. Sanders, 520 F.3d 699, 702 (7th Cir. 2008) (finding waiver because defense counsel agreed to, and argued in favor of, challenged instruction). In the present case,......
  • State v. Kitchens
    • United States
    • Supreme Court of Connecticut
    • January 5, 2011
    ...142, 153 (2d Cir.2009) (finding waiver because defense counsel indicated challenged instruction was satisfactory); United States v. Sanders, 520 F.3d 699, 702 (7th Cir.2008) (finding waiver because defense counsel agreed to, and argued in favor of, challenged instruction). In the present ca......
  • United States v. Shaw, 09–2669.
    • United States
    • United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (1st Circuit)
    • February 29, 2012
    ...required to divorce themselves from their common sense nor to abandon the dictates of mature experience”); see also United States v. Sanders, 520 F.3d 699, 701 (7th Cir.2008) (noting that jury could infer that defendant knew barrel length was shorter than 18 inches from evidence that defend......
  • State v. Bellamy
    • United States
    • Supreme Court of Connecticut
    • October 25, 2016
    ...and defendant, having been “[p]resented with this option ... indicated that the instruction was satisfactory”); United States v. Sanders , 520 F.3d 699, 702 (7th Cir. 2008) (claim of instructional error was waived because defense counsel expressly stated that she preferred 323 Conn. 434chal......
  • Request a trial to view additional results

VLEX uses login cookies to provide you with a better browsing experience. If you click on 'Accept' or continue browsing this site we consider that you accept our cookie policy. ACCEPT