U.S. v. Saunders

• Decision Date: 03 September 1992
• Docket Number: No. 91-3841,91-3841
• Citation: 973 F.2d 1354
• Parties: 36 Fed. R. Evid. Serv. 840 UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Miles Davis SAUNDERS, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit

Page 1354

973 F.2d 1354

36 Fed. R. Evid. Serv. 840

UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Miles Davis SAUNDERS, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 91-3841.

United States Court of Appeals Seventh Circuit.

Argued June 9, 1992.

Decided Sept. 3, 1992.

John W. Vaudreuil, Asst. U.S. Atty. (argued), Office of U.S. Atty., Madison, Wis., for plaintiff-appellee.

T. Christopher Kelly, Madison, Wis. (argued), for defendant-appellant.

Before FLAUM and RIPPLE, Circuit Judges, and FAIRCHILD, Senior Circuit Judge.

FLAUM, Circuit Judge.

A jury convicted Miles Saunders of conspiring to possess cocaine with the intent to distribute and of possessing cocaine with the intent to distribute. Saunders contends he is entitled to a new trial because the district court violated his sixth amendment right to confront witnesses in limiting the scope of cross-examination. He also challenges the sufficiency of the evidence supporting his conviction, the jury instructions, and the constitutionality of §§ 3E1.1 and 4B1.1 of the Sentencing Guidelines. We affirm.

I.

In August 1990, while frequenting a bar in Minneapolis, Saunders met a man named Greg James, who was in town from Chicago visiting friends. Several weeks later, after running into each other again, Saunders agreed to loan James roughly $200 to fix his car. They kept in touch, and in April 1991, got together at a shopping mall in Chicago, along with a friend of Saunders named Gina. Shortly thereafter, Saunders called James, offering to forgive the car loan, and give him some money as well, if James would deliver a package to him in Minneapolis. James agreed to the deal, and Saunders gave James his pager number and explained that Gina would make arrangements to deliver the package to him in Chicago. On the morning of May 1, 1991, Gina called James and they agreed to meet at a Popeye's restaurant in Harvey, Illinois. After borrowing a car--apparently, his was still on the fritz--from a friend named Ronnie Anderson, James received the package from Gina, put it in a dog food bag in the trunk of Anderson's car, and left for Minneapolis.

Later that day, Wisconsin state trooper Leslie Block stopped James for tailgating. After giving him a warning ticket, the trooper explained the state's drug interdiction program and sought permission to search the car. A consent search of the trunk revealed 13 baggies of what appeared to be cocaine, and Block arrested James. Subsequent tests demonstrated that each baggie held one ounce of pure cocaine, with a total street value of $23,000. James later told investigators that he was transporting the cocaine from Chicago to Minneapolis for an individual known to him as "L.A.," and that he had been given the drugs by a woman named Gina. After James agreed to cooperate with authorities, Special Agent David Matthews of the Wisconsin Department of Justice devised a plan in which James would travel to the Wisconsin Dells under his supervision, place a call to "L.A.'s" pager number, and arrange a delivery. James would tell "L.A." that he had the drugs, but that he needed a ride because his car had broken down.

Early the next morning, James placed several calls to the pager number as planned. At 12:50 a.m., Saunders returned the call to a pay phone at a Perkins Restaurant. James told Saunders his car had broken down and Saunders agreed to come pick up James and the package, telling James to get a motel room and to relay the room number to his pager. James checked into room 226 at a Super 8 Motel in the Wisconsin Dells and paged Saunders as planned. Saunders returned the call, acknowledging that he had received the room number. Finally, at 7:15 a.m., Saunders called back to say that he was on his way.

Saunders arrived at the motel at 12:35 p.m., going directly to room 226, which agents had fitted with a microphone. He was accompanied by two friends, one of whom, Sharon Ford, also knew Saunders as "L.A." and also had his pager number. James asked Saunders if he knew how much "stuff" was in the bag; Saunders responded that he did not, and asked nothing else about the "stuff." After about five minutes, all of the individuals in the room left, at which time they were arrested by law enforcement agents. In an interview with Matthews immediately following his arrest, Saunders denied knowing James, making any calls to James, receiving any pager calls within the last 24 hours, or having the nickname "L.A." When asked why he came to the Wisconsin Dells and went directly to room 226 at the motel, he offered no explanation.

One week later, a federal grand jury returned a one-count indictment charging Saunders with the conspiracy count. The indictment mentioned James as a co-conspirator but not as a defendant. Later in May, the grand jury returned a superseding indictment adding James as a defendant and co-conspirator, and charging both Saunders and James with a second count for possession with intent to distribute. The government later discovered that Saunders had a 1990 felony conviction for possessing cocaine with intent to distribute and served notice of its plan to seek an enhanced 30-year prison term and $2 million fine based on that prior conviction.

Saunders filed a motion to sever his trial from James,' which the court granted without opposition from the government. James subsequently entered into a plea agreement with the government and received a 16-month prison sentence which is not at issue in this appeal. After a two-day trial, a jury found Saunders guilty on both counts. Saunders moved for a judgment of acquittal notwithstanding the verdict challenging the sufficiency of the evidence and claiming James' testimony against him was "too incredible to justify guilty verdicts." The district court denied the motion.

During the presentence investigation, Saunders confessed to the crime. However, he maintained that he was not the sole intended recipient of the 13-ounce shipment and was supposed to split it with two other individuals in Minneapolis. He also asserted that it was Ronnie Anderson who was responsible for the shipment and who had asked James to transport the cocaine to Minneapolis. Saunders explained that after he sold his share of the delivery (4 ounces), he was supposed to keep $1,500 and deliver the remaining proceeds to Anderson. The presentence report recommended a two-level reduction based on this acceptance of responsibility. The district court declined to grant the reduction, and sentenced Saunders to 262 months imprisonment on each count, to be served concurrently, followed by a six-year term of supervised release. This appeal followed.

II.

Saunders first maintains that the district court violated his sixth amendment right to confront witnesses by limiting the scope of his cross-examination of Trooper Block. See Chambers v. Mississippi, 410 U.S. 284, 294-95, 93 S.Ct. 1038, 1045-46, 35 L.Ed.2d 297 (1973) (right to cross-examine essential procedural safeguard to the factfinding process); Alford v. United States, 282 U.S. 687, 694, 51 S.Ct. 218, 220, 75 L.Ed. 624 (1931) (right to explore relevant facts on cross-examination essential to a fair trial). At trial, the government objected when Saunders asked Block on cross-examination if he had found marijuana seeds inside the car after stopping James. The district court sustained the objection on relevance grounds, and Saunders claims this ruling thwarted his principal theory of defense.

According to that theory, James actually was transporting the drugs for Anderson, and trying to protect Anderson at trial by attributing ownership of the drugs to Saunders. Saunders maintains that evidence regarding the marijuana seeds was relevant under Fed.R.Evid. 401 because it buttressed his defense theory in two ways: first, evidence suggesting that Anderson's car had been used in the past to transport drugs would have impeached James' claim that Anderson knew nothing of his intent to transport drugs when loaning him the car. Second, it would have strengthened the inference that the cocaine found in that car belonged to Anderson, rather than Saunders.

A trial court has broad discretion in assessing the admissibility of evidence, and we may reverse its rulings only if the court abused its discretion. United States v. Abayomi, 820 F.2d 902, 908 (7th Cir.), cert. denied, 484 U.S. 866, 108 S.Ct. 189, 98 L.Ed.2d 142 (1987). However, if, as Saunders suggests, the district court's ruling implicates his constitutional rights, we review the ruling de novo. Id. at 909. The confrontation clause secures the right to cross-examine witnesses, but does not prohibit reasonable limits on the cross-examination of a prosecution witness. Davis v. Alaska, 415 U.S. 308, 316, 94 S.Ct. 1105, 1110, 39 L.Ed.2d 347 (1974); Chambers, 410 U.S. at 294-95, 93 S.Ct. at 1045-46; Jones v. Berry, 880 F.2d 670, 673 (2d Cir.1989). Accordingly, "courts have striven to distinguish between the core values of the confrontation right and more peripheral concerns which remain within the ambit of the trial judge's discretion." Dorsey v. Parke, 872 F.2d 163, 166 (6th Cir.) (citations omitted), cert. denied, 493 U.S. 831, 110 S.Ct. 103, 107 L.Ed.2d 67 (1989). Beyond certain essential areas of cross-examination, such as those involving key witnesses or issues, the right to cross-examine is subject to limits imposed by the trial court in the exercise of its discretion. Id. Here, the district court minimally curtailed cross-examination on one peripheral issue, and thus made a straightforward evidentiary ruling that we review for abuse of discretion. Abayomi, 820 F.2d at 909; United States v. Jungles, 903 F.2d 468, 478 (7th Cir.1990).

We conclude that the district court did not abuse its discretion in preventing Saunders from probing Block about the marijuana seeds. The charges in this case focused on the shipment and delivery of cocaine between James and Saunders, and not on the source of the cocaine in Chicago. The marijuana seeds were...