U.S. v. Langston
| Decision Date | 02 July 1992 |
| Docket Number | 91-2013,Nos. 91-2003,s. 91-2003 |
| Citation | 970 F.2d 692 |
| Parties | UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Parker D. LANGSTON, Defendant-Appellant. UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Huey Lee FRANCIS, Defendant-Appellant. UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Enoch McILROY, Defendant-Appellant. UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. William McILROY, Defendant-Appellant. UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. James McILROY, Defendant-Appellant. UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Speck Aron ROSS, Defendant-Appellant. to 91-2016, 91-2024. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Tenth Circuit |
Mary Y.C. Han, Albuquerque, N.M., for defendant-appellant Huey Lee Francis.
Richard J. Knowles, Albuquerque, N.M., for defendant-appellant Enoch McIlroy.
Ward Casey, Fort Worth, Tex., for defendant-appellant William Kelly McIlroy.
Nancy Hollander of Freedman, Boyd, Daniels, Peifer, Hollander, Guttmann & Goldberg, P.A., Albuquerque, N.M., for defendant-appellant Speck Aron Ross.
Presiliano Torrez, Asst. U.S. Atty., Albuquerque, N.M. (Don J. Svet, U.S. Atty., and Louis E. Valencia, Asst. U.S. Atty., Albuquerque, N.M., on the brief), for plaintiff-appellee.
Randy Schaffer, P.C., Houston, Tex., on the brief, for defendant-appellant Parker D. Langston.
David L. Plotsky, Albuquerque, N.M., on the brief, for defendant-appellant James McIlroy.
Before BRORBY and HOLLOWAY, Circuit Judges, and KANE, District Judge. *
Following a jury trial and guilty verdicts in September 1990, the defendants-appellants were convicted on counts of an indictment charging them with participating in a criminal drug manufacturing conspiracy, inter alia. In their appeals the defendants challenge the convictions on the grounds that: (1) the district court erred in refusing to suppress evidence obtained in an unreasonable automobile search; (2) the discretionary choice of a federal forum by state investigators deprived them of due process; (3) the government engaged in prosecutorial misconduct at trial, including the presentation of false testimony; (4) the search of a small, enclosed trailer, not described in a warrant that authorized the search of nearby property, violated the Fourth Amendment; and (5) the district court erred in admitting hearsay evidence. In addition, three of the defendants assert that the evidence was insufficient to support their convictions of the criminal drug conspiracy and of aiding and abetting in the manufacture of amphetamine.
The appeals have been consolidated and will be decided by this opinion. We find no reversible error and accordingly affirm.
In mid-July 1989, the New Mexico State Police began investigating a suspected clandestine drug laboratory at the 56,000-acre C.A. Ranch. The investigation followed a tip by ranch employees that suspicious events began occurring after a group of men arrived as the guests of one of the owners, Joseph M. Lloyd, who was living and working on the ranch. A few days later, Lloyd and his guests departed separately from the ranch. The state police located Lloyd's car, in which defendant Francis was a passenger, soon after it left the ranch. Searching the trunk, a state trooper found approximately 11 pounds of amphetamine in plastic bags. In a subsequent search at the ranch, state and federal investigators seized approximately one pound of amphetamine, laboratory equipment, and chemicals.
As a result of a plea agreement, Lloyd testified as a government witness in the defendants' prosecution. Viewed in the light most favorable to the government, Lloyd's testimony, as well as other prosecution evidence, showed that five of the defendants, Francis, the three McIlroys, and Ross, visited the ranch on an invitation that Lloyd extended through a mutual friend. Lloyd testified that he had invited the defendants to visit the ranch for the purpose of reconnoitering for deer hunting.
Lloyd explained at trial that the visitors failed to show up late on July 5 at a prearranged meeting place near Sweetwater, Texas, from which he was supposed to have guided them to the ranch. The government presented evidence that in Lloyd's absence, a truck driven by defendant Langston transported to the ranch the equipment and chemicals for an amphetamine laboratory, as well as four men, defendants Francis, Enoch and William McIlroy, and Ross.
Lloyd testified that upon his return to the ranch on July 6, he was surprised to find three waiting visitors, Francis, William McIlroy, and Ross. Accompanying the three men to the basement of the main ranch house, Lloyd observed what was described to him as an amphetamine laboratory.
The government's evidence showed that before Lloyd's arrival, the ranch foreman, Rogers, gave Enoch McIlroy a ride to Tucumcari, New Mexico, to meet James McIlroy, his father. Following Lloyd's return to the ranch, James and Enoch McIlroy arrived in a pickup truck towing a small, enclosed trailer carrying ether.
Lloyd testified that all of the visitors took turns overseeing the amphetamine cooking process 24 hours a day. On approximately July 8, the visitors moved the operation to a trailer house in order to conduct a potentially violent chemical reaction. On July 11, William McIlroy, expressing concern about discovery, left the ranch and did not return.
The government's evidence showed that the ranch foreman and his wife became suspicious, at least in part because the visitors seemed to stay up all night and because in the evenings a strong, stinging chemical odor permeated the ranch headquarters area. On July 11, the foreman Rogers and a ranch employee reported the activities at the ranch to a New Mexico State Police lieutenant in nearby Las Vegas. In response, the state police visited the ranch and conducted aerial surveillance.
The prosecution presented evidence that because the final chemical process involved the use of potentially dangerous ether, the visitors moved the operation to the ruins at an abandoned homesite on the ranch. Lloyd rented a generator in Santa Fe on July 12 to supply power to the remote laboratory. On July 13, as the laboratory operators were conducting the final process, Langston made a second, brief visit to the ranch.
Beginning late on July 15, four of the defendants (Enoch and James McIlroy, Huey Francis, and Speck Ross) spent five or six hours cleaning up the main house and packaging the equipment. Enoch and James McIlroy and Ross then left the ranch. Late in the morning on July 16, Lloyd and Francis left the ranch bound for Fort Worth. The foreman's wife reported their departure to the state police.
A state police officer spotted and followed the car that Lloyd was driving near Tucumcari, New Mexico. Lloyd testified that he stopped voluntarily when the officer pulled up alongside him. Searching the trunk, the officer found a plastic garbage bag containing approximately 11 pounds of amphetamine. Later in the day, narcotics agents executing a search warrant at the C.A. Ranch seized laboratory equipment and chemicals from the basement of the main ranch house and from the trailer that James and Enoch McIlroy had towed to the ranch. In addition, the agents discovered approximately one pound of amphetamine in a night table in a bedroom in the house.
Lloyd eventually began cooperating with the government, and on October 24, 1989, gave a statement about the laboratory operation that implicated the defendants. In November 1989, a grand jury returned an indictment naming the six defendants. 1
At trial, the appealing defendants did not testify. Instead, the defense presented witnesses whose testimony primarily challenged the credibility of Lloyd's testimony on behalf of the government. The testimony of an expert witness called by the defense challenged the credibility of Lloyd's denial on direct examination that he used amphetamine following his arrest. Several character witnesses testified for Langston. In addition, the defendants asserted legal errors, including the admission of evidence seized in violation of the Fourth Amendment and prosecutorial misconduct.
Following the jury trial in September 1990, the six defendants who are here appealing were convicted of: (1) conspiracy to manufacture more than 500 grams of amphetamine, and (2) the manufacture of more than 500 grams of amphetamine. In addition, Francis, James McIlroy, and Ross were convicted of possession with intent to distribute more than 500 grams of amphetamine and aiding and abetting. Francis was convicted of the carrying or use of a firearm during and in relation to a drug trafficking crime. Mike South was acquitted on all charges.
Francis contends that the district court erred in denying his motion to suppress the amphetamine seized from the trunk of Lloyd's automobile. Francis asserts that the court should have suppressed the seized amphetamine as the fruit of an improper, warrantless automobile search. In reviewing the denial of a motion to suppress evidence, we "accept the trial court's findings of fact, unless clearly erroneous." United States v. McAlpine, 919 F.2d 1461, 1463 (10th Cir.1990). We review the district court's legal conclusions de novo. E.g., United States v. Wright, 932 F.2d 868, 877 (10th Cir.), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 112 S.Ct. 428, 116 L.Ed.2d 448 and cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 112 S.Ct. 450, 116 L.Ed.2d 467 (1991).
The evidence presented at the suppression hearing, viewed favorably to the trial judge's ruling on the motions to suppress, showed the following: Late in the morning on July 16, 1989, Lloyd and Francis left the C.A. Ranch in a 1984 Oldsmobile Ninety-Eight. Locating the car while patrolling the Tucumcari area, New Mexico State Police Officer Siebenaler drove alongside it. The officer testified that after he made eye contact with Lloyd, who was driving, Lloyd slowed and then stopped the car on the...
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