U.S. v. Sease

• Citation: 659 F.3d 519
• Decision Date: 21 October 2011
• Docket Number: No. 09–5790.,09–5790.
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff–Appellee,v.Arthur SEASE, Defendant–Appellant.
• Court: United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (6th Circuit)

659 F.3d 519

UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff–Appellee,

v.Arthur SEASE, Defendant–Appellant.

No. 09–5790.

United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit.

Argued: Aug. 31, 2011.Decided and Filed: Oct. 21, 2011.

ARGUED: Robert C. Brooks, Memphis, Tennessee, for Appellant. Nathaniel S. Pollock, United States Department of Justice, Washington, D.C., for Appellee. ON BRIEF: Robert C. Brooks, Memphis, Tennessee, for Appellant. Nathaniel S. Pollock, Jessica Dunsay Silver, United States Department of Justice, Washington, D.C., for Appellee.Before: COLE, ROGERS, and GRIFFIN, Circuit Judges.

OPINION

COLE, Circuit Judge.

Defendant–Appellant Arthur Sease, a former Memphis police officer, appeals his convictions stemming from a conspiracy to stage drug buys for the purpose of seizing drugs and money for personal gain. The jury returned guilty verdicts against Sease on forty-four counts, including violations of 18 U.S.C. § 241 (conspiracy to deprive another of their civil rights under the color of law), § 242 (deprivation of civil rights under the color of law), and § 1951 (robbery and extortion under the color of official right interfering with interstate commerce), and the district court sentenced Sease to life plus 255 years in prison. Sease challenges the sufficiency of the evidence supporting his convictions, arguing that he did not violate the rights of the participants in the staged drug buys because there was probable cause to arrest the drug dealers and seize the drugs and money. We AFFIRM the convictions.

I. BACKGROUND

Arthur Sease was a Memphis police officer until he was fired by the department in late 2004. The jury found that Sease was the principal co-conspirator in a plan to acquire money and drugs from drug dealers for his own benefit and the benefit of his coconspirators. Three other Memphis police officers—Antoine Owens, Andrew Hunt, and Alexander Johnson—as well as other associates and relatives of Sease, were involved in the conspiracy.

Sease's convictions are based on fourteen separate incidents. The incidents follow the same basic plan. Sease would arrange for a drug buy or a drug sell (using drugs taken in a previous incident) using a non-officer contact as the front person. As the deal was occurring, either Sease or one of his fellow co-conspirator officers would arrive at the scene to make a purported arrest and seize the money and drugs involved in the deal. The participants would then be released, and Sease and his conspirators would split the proceeds without reporting the incidents.

The first incident lays out most clearly the conspiracy's general operational plan that was followed in later incidents. In November or December 2003, Sease arranged for his cousin to set up a drug deal with Dejuan “Nard” Brooks. Acting outside of his assigned beat, Sease observed the deal in an unmarked police car while wearing plain clothes. When Brooks's SUV pulled up next to Sease's cousin's vehicle, Sease radioed for Owens to come to the scene in uniform in a patrol car. Owens approached the two vehicles with his weapon drawn and removed both Brooks and Sease's cousin from their vehicles. Operating under Sease's instructions to “make it look real,” Owens roughed up Sease's cousin and placed him in the back of the patrol car. Meanwhile, Sease searched Brooks's SUV and found a bag containing a half-kilogram of cocaine, which Sease placed in the front seat of his unmarked vehicle. Owens also seized $11,000 from Brooks, then released him without an arrest. Once Brooks left, Sease's cousin was released from Owens's patrol car, and the drugs were dropped off at a South Memphis house, where they were later used to set up another drug sale. Owens, Sease, and Officer Johnson then split the $11,000 in cash.

On February 16, 2008, a federal grand jury returned a fifty-one-count indictment against Sease. The counts and charges were:

Count 1, conspiracy against rights in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 241.

Count 2, conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute controlled substances in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 846.

Twelve counts (Counts 3–14) of robbery and extortion under the color of law interfering with interstate commerce in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1951 (the “Hobbs Act”).

Eleven counts (Counts 15–25) of possession of a controlled substance in violation of 21 U.S.C. §§ 841(a)(1) and 846.

Twelve counts (Counts 26–37) of deprivation of rights under the color of law, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 242.

Thirteen counts (Counts 38–50) of using a firearm in relation to the commission of a drug trafficking crime in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 924(c).

Count 51, money laundering, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1956(a).

Sease was convicted on February 5, 2009, on forty-four of the fifty-one counts, with the jury returning not guilty verdicts on Counts 12, 25, 34, 47, 50, and 51 (Count 19 was dismissed prior to trial). The district court sentenced him to life in prison plus 255 years. Sease appeals all of his convictions.

II. ANALYSIS

A.

As a preliminary matter, the parties disagree as to the way the issues should be framed on appeal, and thus the corresponding standard of review. Sease asserts that his appeal is based on a challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence presented by the government that forms the basis of the conviction. Sease argues that the stops were not in fact violations of the civil rights of the drug dealers, and were otherwise appropriate actions in light of his status as a police officer. Accordingly, there is no evidence to support his convictions, which are predicated on civil rights violations.

The government argues that Sease's challenge is not in fact to the sufficiency of the evidence, but rather to the jury instructions given with regard to the requirements of legal searches and seizures under the Fourth Amendment. The jury returned a question to the district judge during deliberations, asking “[w]e the jury, want a better understanding of what is unreasonable search and seizure?” [sic] In the Supplemental Instruction, the Judge instructed the jury “that seizure of money, drugs, or other personal property solely for the personal enrichment of an individual law enforcement officer is not a legitimate law enforcement purpose.” The government's view is that Sease's Fourth Amendment argument is in reality an objection to that instruction, as it essentially instructs the jury that Sease's actions were per se Fourth Amendment violations.

Sease is correct that his appeal is properly understood as a challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence. The offenses for which Sease was charged and convicted are predicated on the illegality of the searches and seizures he conducted. For example, Sease's convictions under 18 U.S.C. § 242 for deprivation of rights under the color of law require the government to show that the defendant “depriv[ed] [any person] of [the] rights, privileges, or immunities secured or protected by the Constitution or laws of the United States....” If Sease's actions were in fact legal, the government could not prove the deprivation of rights element of the offense, and the convictions must be overturned.

However, Sease did not properly preserve this argument for appeal. To properly preserve a sufficiency of the evidence issue for appeal, the defense must make a motion for a judgment of acquittal “at the end of the prosecution's case-in-chief and at the close of evidence.” United States v. Damra, 621 F.3d 474, 494 (6th Cir.2010) (quoting United States v. Kuehne, 547 F.3d 667, 696 (6th Cir.2008)). Sease moved for a judgment of acquittal at the close of the government's case-in-chief, though it was phrased in general terms without reference to the Fourth Amendment violations. However, Sease did not renew his motion at the end of the government's rebuttal witnesses. Failing to renew the motion “constitutes a waiver of the objections to the sufficiency of the evidence.” Damra, 621 F.3d at 494 (internal citations and quotations omitted). Therefore, Sease's challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence must be rejected unless the convictions represent a “manifest miscarriage of justice.” Id. (internal citation and quotations omitted).

Moreover, as explained in more detail below, the district court properly concluded that the stops and searches conducted by Sease and his co-conspirators were constitutional violations. Thus, Sease's convictions are supported by sufficient evidence under any standard, let alone a “manifest miscarriage of justice” standard.

B.

For sufficiency of the evidence challenges, “the relevant question is whether, after viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the prosecution, any rational trier of fact could have found the essential elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt.” Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 319, 99 S.Ct. 2781, 61 L.Ed.2d 560 (1979) (emphasis in original). “This is a very heavy burden” for the convicted defendant to meet. United States v. Jones, 641 F.3d 706, 710 (6th Cir.2011) (citation and quotations omitted). To sustain a conviction for deprivation of rights under the color of law under 18 U.S.C. § 242 (and, by extension, conspiracy to deprive rights under 18 U.S.C. § 241), the government must show that a constitutional violation has occurred. Section 242 “incorporate[s] constitutional law by reference ...” United States v. Lanier, 520 U.S. 259, 265, 117 S.Ct. 1219, 137 L.Ed.2d 432 (1997). Liability can only be imposed where “in the light of the pre-existing law the unlawfulness [under the Constitution is] apparent.” Lanier, 520 U.S. at 271–72, 117 S.Ct. 1219 (quoting Anderson v. Creighton, 483 U.S. 635, 640, 107 S.Ct. 3034, 97 L.Ed.2d 523 (1987)).

Sease argues that this case is governed by Whren v. United States, 517 U.S. 806, 116 S.Ct. 1769, 135 L.Ed.2d 89 (1996). In Whren, plain-clothed officers made a traffic stop on an individual who stopped for an unusually long time at a stop sign, and then dashed off at a high rate of speed....