U.S. v. Childress

Decision Date13 September 1995
Docket Number90-3223,Nos. 90-3222,s. 90-3222
Citation58 F.3d 693,313 U.S. App. D.C. 133
PartiesUNITED STATES of America, Appellee, v. Willie George CHILDRESS, Appellant. to 90-3230, and 93-3066 to 93-3073.
CourtU.S. Court of Appeals — District of Columbia Circuit

Appeals from the United States District Court for the District of Columbia (No. 89cr00162-09).

Stephen C. Leckar, appointed by the court, argued the cause for appellants Jeffrey L. Thompson and Raynice Thompson.

W. Gary Kohlman, appointed by the court, argued the cause for appellant Constance D. Perry.

William J. Garber, appointed by the court, argued the cause for appellant Rachelle Edmond.

Stuart F. Johnson, appointed by the court, argued the cause for appellant Robert McNeil Hardy.

Dennis M. Hart, appointed by the court, argued the cause for appellant Ronald Morgan.

Ernest W. McIntosh, Jr., appointed by the court, argued the cause for appellant Willie George Childress.

Arthur M. Levin, appointed by the court, argued the cause for appellant Columbus Daniels.

Sol Z. Rosen, appointed by the court, was on the joint briefs for appellant Melvin E. Stewart.

Helen M. Bollwerk, Assistant U.S. Atty., with whom Eric H. Holder, Jr., U.S. Atty., and John R. Fisher, Richard L. Chamovitz, James R. Cooper, and S. Hollis Fleischer, Asst. U.S. Attys., were on the brief, argued the cause for appellee.

Before WALD, BUCKLEY, and WILLIAMS, Circuit Judges.

Opinion PER CURIAM. 1

Separate opinion dissenting in part filed by Circuit Judge STEPHEN F. WILLIAMS.

PER CURIAM:

This is a consolidated appeal arising from the second and third trials of members of a narcotics conspiracy led by Rayful Edmond III. See United States v. Edmond, 52 F.3d 1080 (D.C.Cir.1995). We remand the conspiracy conviction of Robert Hardy and the murder and weapons convictions of Columbus Daniels for further proceedings, and we affirm all remaining convictions. In addition, we remand the cases of all appellants except Ronald Morgan for resentencing.

I. INTRODUCTION

Appellants all stand convicted of participating in or conducting business with the Edmond narcotics conspiracy, an organized enterprise that sold massive quantities of cocaine in the District of Columbia in the late 1980s. The activities of the organization are detailed in Edmond, 52 F.3d at 1084-86. Twenty-nine people were originally indicted on a number of counts of conspiracy, narcotics-related activities, weapons offenses, and murder and other crimes of violence. In August 1989, the district court severed the counts of the indictment alleging weapons offenses and crimes of violence from those alleging conspiracy and drug-related activity. The court further divided the defendants indicted for drug crimes and conspiracy into two groups according to their roles in the enterprise, designating the leaders and principal members of the organization as Group I and the more peripheral actors--including all of the appellants here--as Group II.

Three trials were held. The Group I defendants were tried in late 1989; their appeals are the subject of Edmond. The appellants in this case were tried in the Group II proceedings beginning in February 1990. The government's evidence, which is described in detail in our analysis of the defendants' attacks on its sufficiency, indicated that Willie Childress made at least one fifty-kilogram delivery of cocaine to the Edmond organization; that Columbus Daniels was a local courier for the group; that Rachelle Edmond stored large quantities of the group's drugs and cash; that Robert Hardy ran errands for the enterprise; that Ronald Morgan purchased a kilogram of cocaine from the group; that Constance Perry counted and deposited narcotics proceeds; that Melvin Stewart ran errands and sold cocaine; and that Jeffrey and Raynice Thompson packaged large amounts of drugs for street sale. The jury convicted all nine of conspiracy to distribute and to possess with intent to distribute more than five kilograms of cocaine in violation of 21 U.S.C. Secs. 841(a) and 846. It also convicted five defendants of additional crimes: Rachelle Edmond and the Thompsons were convicted of Travel Act violations on a conspiracy theory (18 U.S.C. Sec. 1952(a)); Stewart was convicted of unlawful distribution of cocaine (21 U.S.C. Secs. 841(a)(1) and (b)(1)(C)); and Morgan was convicted of possession with intent to distribute over 500 grams of cocaine (21 U.S.C. Secs. 841(a)(1) and (b)(1)(B)(ii)(II)).

The trial on the weapons and murder charges--the third trial--took place in June 1990. The government's evidence suggested that appellant Columbus Daniels accompanied organization kingpin Rayful Edmond to a nightclub where the two met with a drug dealer who had purchased narcotics from Edmond. The three argued about money that the dealer still owed the organization. After the argument, Daniels shot the dealer seven times on Edmond's signal, killing him. The jury convicted Daniels of second-degree murder while armed and of carrying a pistol without a license.

In August 1990, the district court granted appellant Morgan's motion for acquittal of the conspiracy charge on the grounds that his single corroborated purchase of cocaine from the Edmond organization and his uncorroborated confession of multiple drug dealings could not establish that he was a regular participant in the narcotics enterprise. The court denied all of appellants' other post-trial motions, United States v. Childress, 746 F.Supp. 1122 (D.D.C.1990). Appellants were sentenced in September 1990.

All appellants now challenge their convictions in the Group II and III trials and the denial of their joint motion for a new trial. Eight of the appellants--all but Morgan--also challenge the length of their sentences. We have considered all of the objections raised by appellants, but given the enormous number of issues involved, we address only those meriting separate discussion. We reject those challenges we do not discuss. We begin with appellants' joint objections and then proceed to their individual ones.

II. JURY AND COURTROOM PROCEDURES

Appellants jointly challenge the district court's overall conduct of the Group II trial. They claim that they were denied a fair trial by the district court's decisions to empanel an anonymous jury and keep it sequestered, to hold the trial in a secure courtroom, and to find the jury impartial notwithstanding its exposure to pretrial publicity. None of these decisions requires a new trial. 2

A. Anonymous and Sequestered Jury

Following the trial of the Group I defendants, the United States moved that the jury in the Group II trial be kept anonymous and sequestered. The district court granted the motion, United States v. Edmond, 730 F.Supp. 1144 (D.D.C.1990), ordering that the names, addresses, and workplaces of the Group II venire pool be withheld from all counsel and the media. To justify its order, the court cited numerous attempts by members of the Edmond group and their associates to disrupt the Group I trial and to intimidate witnesses with threats and actual violence. In addition, it credited a prosecutor's declaration that several potential witnesses refused to testify in the Group II trial out of fear and noted an FBI agent's sworn declaration that, according to a reliable informant, a reward was available on the street to anyone who assassinated a key government witness. Id. at 1146-47.

As a substitute for revealing the prospective jurors' names, addresses, and places of employment or business, id. at 1149, the court gave the venire members a twenty-three-page questionnaire designed to solicit information about their demographics, general lines of work, and familiarity with the events and parties in the case, id. at 1159-65. It also sought to downplay the significance of the jury's anonymity and sequestration. Throughout the voir dire, the court told the venire members that keeping the jury anonymous and sequestered was "a common practice followed in many cases in federal court" and "in no way unusual"; it was being done "to protect your privacy ... [and] so that no one can later say that the integrity of the process was tainted by any improper outside contact or conduct." The court emphasized to the potential jurors that these precautions indicated nothing about the defendants' guilt or innocence and it repeated its explanation for the safeguards in its charge to the jury at the close of the trial.

Appellants now argue that the use of anonymous juries violates the Constitution because they create a prejudicial trial atmosphere and deny defendants meaningful opportunities to conduct voir dire and exercise peremptory challenges intelligently. In terms of their own trial, they claim that the government's assertions of potential danger to the jury were vague and did not implicate any specific Group II defendants; they also argue that the dangerousness of the Group I defendants and their behavior at the first trial cannot justify empaneling an anonymous, sequestered jury in the second case. Finally, they say, the district court's repeated anonymity instructions and statements that anonymity was routine (statements that in their view were obviously false), combined with the pressures of sequestration, subliminally communicated to the jurors that the defendants were especially dangerous and most likely guilty.

We reject these arguments. No court--state or federal--has ever held that the use of anonymous juries is per se unconstitutional, and no federal court has ever overturned a conviction rendered by an anonymous jury for that reason alone. In our recent decision upholding the empaneling of an anonymous jury in the Group I trial, we joined the Second, Third, Seventh, and Eleventh Circuits in approving of their use in some cases. See Edmond, 52 F.3d 1080; see also United States v. Wong, 40 F.3d 1347 (2d Cir.1994); United...

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