U.S. v. Jackson
| Citation | 914 F.2d 1050 |
| Decision Date | 17 September 1990 |
| Docket Number | No. 90-1039,90-1039 |
| Parties | 31 Fed. R. Evid. Serv. 408 UNITED STATES of America, Appellee, v. Kevin JACKSON, Appellant. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit |
James C. Delworth, St. Louis, Mo., for appellant.
Richard Poehling, St. Louis, Mo., for appellee.
Before BOWMAN, WOLLMAN and BEAM, Circuit Judges.
Kevin Jackson appeals his conviction and his resulting sentence on one count of possession with intent to distribute cocaine in violation of 21 U.S.C. Sec. 841(a)(1) (1988). He raises three issues: (1) the District Court 1 erred in finding that the government's explanations for its peremptory challenges against three black venire members were constitutionally acceptable; (2) the District Court erred in admitting evidence seized from a bedroom in Jackson's apartment; and (3) the District Court erred in increasing the base offense level under United States Sentencing Commission Guidelines Manual, Sec. 2D1.1 (Nov. 1989) based on possession of a firearm during commission of a drug offense. We affirm.
On June 10, 1989, police officers went to Jackson's apartment in Jennings, Missouri, acting on information that Terry Guy, who was wanted on assault charges, was there. Jackson allowed the officers to enter the apartment, and told them that Guy was not there, but that Tina Thomas, an acquaintance of Guy, was. The officers spoke with both Jackson and Thomas, who allegedly was subletting a room in Jackson's apartment.
While in the apartment, the officers noticed white powder on a kitchen table, and the muzzle of a gun and some currency partially visible underneath a living-room couch. The police looked under the couch and also found thirty-eight bags of cocaine there. The gun turned out to be a loaded 9-millimeter pistol. Jackson and Thomas then were placed under arrest. After being transported to the police station in Ferguson, Jackson signed a consent-to-search form. Three officers returned to Jackson's apartment, where they found four bags of cocaine in Jackson's room, and seventeen bags of cocaine, a pistol, and approximately $9,000 in cash in Thomas's room.
Indicted by a federal grand jury, Jackson testified at trial that he never had seen any of the drugs, currency, or guns found in his apartment. He also objected to the introduction of the seventeen bags of cocaine seized from Thomas's room, and testified that Thomas had sublet the room from him.
The jury returned a guilty verdict. At the sentencing hearing, the District Court increased Jackson's base offense level by two levels, based on its finding that Jackson was in possession of the gun found underneath the living-room couch. Jackson was sentenced to a term of imprisonment of thirty-seven months, with four years of supervised release. He appeals, raising the three issues mentioned at the beginning of this opinion.
Jackson, who is black, claims that the prosecution improperly exercised its peremptory challenges by striking three of the six black members from the jury panel. The District Court found that Jackson had made a prima facie case of purposeful racial discrimination, and accordingly directed the prosecution to provide a neutral explanation for its challenges of the three black venire members. See Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79, 96-97, 106 S.Ct. 1712, 1722-23, 90 L.Ed.2d 69 (1986).
The government then explained to the court its reasons for challenging the jurors in question. According to the government, one venire member was struck because she was young, single, unemployed, and had no stable history of employment; another was struck because she was young, separated, living at home, and unresponsive to questions; and the third venire member was struck because she was single and had a nephew who was incarcerated in a Missouri penitentiary. The prosecutor stated that based on his extensive trial experience he was looking for jurors with some experience and a commitment to the community, as such jurors generally have a better understanding of life and of what happens on the city streets where drug trafficking crimes tend to occur. The District Court ruled that these reasons were neutral and not pretextual and therefore upheld the three peremptory challenges at issue.
Batson and our own decisions applying Batson make it clear that the District Court's findings are entitled to considerable deference, 476 U.S. at 98, n. 21, 106 S.Ct. at 1724, n. 21 (); we may upset them only if they are "clearly erroneous." United States v. Nicholson, 885 F.2d 481, 482 (8th Cir.1989) (); United States v. Battle, 859 F.2d 56, 58 (8th Cir.1988) ().
For each of the challenges at issue, the prosecution offered a race-neutral explanation of the kind previously upheld by this court. In Nicholson, we accepted as sufficient the prosecution's race-neutral explanation that it preferred older, married males with stable employment records. 885 F.2d at 482-83. Similar explanations were upheld in United States v. Ross, 872 F.2d 249, 250 (8th Cir.1989). Here, the District Court accepted the explanations given by the government as acceptably race-neutral and found that the government's reasons for exercising its peremptory challenges were not a pretext for racial discrimination. This finding is not clearly erroneous, and it disposes of Jackson's Batson claim.
Jackson argues that the District Court erred by allowing into evidence the seventeen bags of cocaine found in the room of Jackson's apartment that allegedly was sublet to Thomas. A trial court's rulings on the admissibility of evidence are to be given...
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