U.S. v. Meredith
| Citation | 824 F.2d 1418 |
| Decision Date | 04 August 1987 |
| Docket Number | Nos. 86-5061,s. 86-5061 |
| Parties | UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Melvin MEREDITH, a/k/a Monk, Defendant-Appellant. UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Gregory PARKER, Defendant-Appellant. UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Nathaniel HICKS, Jr., a/k/a Bubbles, Defendant-Appellant. UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Rubin PARKER, a/k/a Eddie Bo, Defendant-Appellant. UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Charles Audie FRISBY, Defendant-Appellant. UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Avon DOCKINS, Defendant-Appellant. UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Steve GARLAND, Defendant-Appellant. to 86-5068. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit |
Francis Samuel Brocato (Brocato & Keelty, on brief), Allen Martin Lenchek, Washington, D.C., Arthur Michael Frank, Baltimore, Md. (Gerald M. Richman, Columbia Md., Myles R. Eisenstein, Robert T. Durkin, Jr., Steven A. Wilder, Baltimore, Md., on brief), for defendants-appellants.
Harvey Ellis Eisenberg, Asst. U.S. Atty. (Breckinridge L. Willcox, U.S. Atty., Baltimore, Md., on brief), for plaintiff-appellee.
Before PHILLIPS, ERVIN, and CHAPMAN, Circuit Judges.
This is a consolidated appeal from the convictions of seven defendants involved in a heroin ring in Baltimore. Defendants were convicted of conspiring to distribute heroin and other related offenses. On appeal, they raise several procedural and substantive issues. Because we find no reversible error below, we affirm the convictions of these defendants.
The present case involves the activities of a Baltimore heroin ring from 1983 to October 30, 1985. This is not the first time we have encountered this Baltimore drug ring. In September, 1982, a special narcotics grand jury returned a thirteen-count indictment against fifteen defendants, including ringleader Clarence Meredith. 1 After a jury trial, eight of those defendants were convicted of various narcotics offenses. We reversed their convictions on procedural grounds. See United States v. Ricks, 776 F.2d 455 (4th Cir.1985), rev'd on reh, 802 F.2d 731, cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 107 S.Ct. 650, 93 L.Ed.2d 705 (1986). Prior to the indictment in Ricks, Clarence became a fugitive from justice and remained so until his arrest on October 30, 1985. During his period as a fugitive, Clarence regrouped the vestiges of his drug ring and added new members to it, creating the group involved in the instant appeal.
As ringleader, Clarence was assisted by defendants-appellants Rubin Parker, Gregory Parker, Nathaniel Hicks, Jr., Avon Dockins, and Melvin Meredith, Clarence's brother. Two other Meredith brothers, Andrew and Lawrence, helped Clarence and Rubin cut, package, and distribute "raw" (uncut) and street-quality heroin. Clarence maintained a "stash house" in Cockeysville, Maryland, for the storage and cutting of heroin prior to its distribution. His brother Andrew often acted as a liaison, delivering the heroin from the stash house for sale to Melvin and other ring members.
Through Rubin's recruitment of "street distribution lieutenants," Clarence expanded his territory in the Baltimore area. These lieutenants included Hicks and James "Scotty" Wiggins. The lieutenants supervised the sale of heroin in their particular territories. Clarence held regularly scheduled meetings with his street lieutenants. At these meetings, heroin was distributed to the lieutenants for further distribution, and the lieutenants turned over money they had collected for previously distributed heroin. Lawrence or Andrew ran the meetings, either with Clarence or alone. The meetings almost always took place on Wednesday or Saturday evenings.
The first arrest relevant to this case occurred on July 15, 1985, when officers of the Baltimore City Police Department apprehended Wiggins. At the time of his arrest, Wiggins had in his possession 396 bags of street-quality heroin. After Wiggins agreed to cooperate with law enforcement authorities in capturing members of the drug ring, he was sent back into the ring to obtain large quantities of heroin for redistribution. Wiggins wore a recording device so that he could monitor the drug group's activities.
On July 20, 1985, Wiggins met with Hicks and defendant-appellant Charles Frisby, who had attended some of the ring's meetings. The three men gathered in anticipation of a scheduled meeting which never occurred. While they waited for the other ring members, Wiggins, Hicks, and Frisby discussed the drug group's activities. Wiggins recorded this conversation, which was the basis for Frisby's conviction.
Through Wiggins, law enforcement authorities also monitored a ring meeting on October 26, 1985. At that meeting, it was established that Wiggins, Gregory, Parker, and Dockins were the only members who still had some heroin available for sale. The leaders arranged another meeting for October 30, 1985, for the purpose of supplying the lieutenants with more heroin.
At the October 30 meeting, Clarence and members of his group were arrested. After the arrest, several members, including Andrew and Lawrence Meredith, pleaded guilty and agreed to cooperate with the government. Andrew and Lawrence provided the government with information leading to a search of the Cockeysville stash house and the seizure of narcotics debt sheets. These sheets reflected narcotics distribution activities involving Hicks, Wiggins, Dockins, Gregory Parker, and others. Law enforcement authorities also seized various items used in the cutting of heroin.
Andrew and Lawrence supplied the government with information which implicated defendant-appellant Steve Garland in the drug conspiracy. Andrew indicated that he had obtained large quantities of glassine bags and mannitol (a material used with quinine as a cutting agent for heroin) from Modern Music House, a record shop which Garland and his parents owned. Andrew bought these items from Garland in increasing quantities as Clarence's drug operations grew. Andrew and Lawrence Meredith established that other ring members had made similar purchases from Garland. Pursuant to search warrants executed on December 11 and 16, 1985, large quantities of quinine hydrochloride, mannite, and glassine bags were seized from Modern Music House.
On November 1, 1985, a grand jury for the District of Maryland returned a single-count conspiracy indictment against the seven defendants involved in this appeal, along with sixteen co-defendants. On December 20, 1985, a superseding indictment was returned. In Count 2 of this indictment, the seven defendants in this appeal, Melvin Meredith, Rubin Parker, Gregory Parker, Avon Dockins, Nathaniel Hicks, Jr., Charles Frisby, and Steve Garland [collectively called "the ring members" or "defendants"], were charged with conspiring to distribute heroin, in violation of 21 U.S.C. Sec. 846 (1982). Additional counts charged all of the defendants except Garland with knowingly and intentionally possessing heroin with the intent to distribute and with distributing heroin on specific dates, in violation of 21 U.S.C. Sec. 841(a) (1982).
The jury trial in the United States District Court for the District of Maryland began on February 24, 1986. At the close of the government's case-in-chief, counsel for the defendants moved for a judgment of acquittal. The court granted this motion only as to one of the distribution counts against Melvin Meredith. On March 12, 1986, the jury returned a guilty verdict on all the remaining counts. Each defendant timely noted his appeal.
The ring members raise numerous procedural and substantive errors in the proceedings below. Some of these alleged errors relate to Count 2, the conspiracy charge against all seven defendants; others relate to charges against individual defendants. We review the attacks on the conspiracy convictions first, then take up the issues concerning the separate charges.
The ring members urge a reversal of their conspiracy convictions on two procedural grounds, both relating to the jury selection process. They argue that the trial court erred in failing to provide them with additional peremptory challenges and in determining that there was substantial compliance with the Jury Selection and Service Act. Neither of these contentions has any merit.
The award of peremptory challenges in a criminal case is governed by Rule 24(b) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure. That rule reads, in pertinent part:
If the offense charged is punishable by imprisonment for more than one year, the government is entitled to 6 peremptory challenges and the defendant or defendants jointly to 10 peremptory challenges.... If there is more than one defendant, the court may allow the defendants additional peremptory challenges and permit them to be exercised separately or jointly.
Prior to voir dire in this case, the trial judge proposed giving each defendant an additional challenge, conditioned upon the government receiving three additional challenges. Defendants' attorneys, however, would not stipulate to this arrangement. They pointed out that the trial judge had announced, in chambers, that he would give the defendants unconditional extra challenges. The trial judge acknowledged this, but asked defense counsel how the defendants would be prejudiced if he decided not to allow these extra challenges. Defense counsel did not offer any convincing responses. 2
The trial court ultimately awarded the government six peremptory challenges and the seven defendants ten peremptory challenges, to be exercised jointly. The judge also provided that, if a defendant contended that he was prejudiced by an inability to exercise additional challenges, the judge would examine the merits of that contention in camera and then decide whether or not to allow the defendant additional peremptory challenges. The trial judge subsequently...
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