United States v. Coles

• Decision Date: 29 January 2021
• Docket Number: CRIMINAL NO. 1:16-CR-212
• Parties: UNITED STATES OF AMERICA v. KEVIN COLES, DEVIN DICKERSON, TOREY WHITE, JERELL ADGEBESAN, KENYATTA CORBETT, NICHOLAS PREDDY, JOHNNIE JENKINS-ARMSTRONG, TERRENCE LAWSON, and TYRONE ARMSTRONG, Defendants
• Court: U.S. District Court — Middle District of Pennsylvania

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA v. KEVIN COLES, DEVIN DICKERSON, TOREY WHITE,JERELL ADGEBESAN, KENYATTA CORBETT, NICHOLAS PREDDY,JOHNNIE JENKINS-ARMSTRONG, TERRENCE LAWSON,and TYRONE ARMSTRONG, Defendants

CRIMINAL NO. 1:16-CR-212

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE MIDDLE DISTRICT OF PENNSYLVANIA

January 29, 2021

(Judge Conner)

MEMORANDUM

In accordance with the court's July 16, 2020 pretrial and trial scheduling order, defendants in the above-captioned action have filed their first-tier pretrial motions. We addressed defendants' discovery motions in a memorandum and order dated January 7, 2021. This memorandum addresses defendants' remaining, first-tier motions.

I. Factual Background & Procedural History

A grand jury sitting in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, returned a five-count indictment in August 2016 charging defendants Kevin Coles and Devin Dickerson with various drug-trafficking and firearms offenses. The grand jury has since returned three superseding indictments. The first, returned April 12, 2018, added a sixth charge against Coles and Dickerson. The grand jury then returned a second superseding indictment on December 20, 2018, adding 16 counts, including several capital charges, and nine new defendants: Torey White, Christopher Johnson, Jerell Adgebesan, Kenyatta Corbett, Michael Buck, Nicholas Preddy, Johnnie Jenkins-Armstrong, Terrance Lawson, and Tyrone Armstrong. We assigned learned capital counsel to each death-penalty-eligible defendant (Coles, Dickerson, White, Johnson, Adgebesan, Corbett, Buck, and Jenkins-Armstrong) in accordance with 18 U.S.C. § 3005.

We convened a telephonic conference on March 15, 2019, to discuss pretrial scheduling. We appointed a coordinating discovery attorney at defendants' request, set a discovery schedule, and established February 3, 2020, as the government's deadline to provide notice of intent to seek the death penalty pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 3593(a). We then imposed a status-report requirement, tasking the government to file reports at 45-day intervals concerning, inter alia, the status of discovery and whether the government had made an initial decision not to seek the death penalty as to any eligible defendant.

The grand jury returned a third superseding indictment on January 29, 2020. That indictment, inter alia, added a new capital charge against the death-penalty-eligible defendants, (see Doc. 499 at 24); added a new noncapital charge against those defendants and Preddy, (id. at 18-19); and added Preddy to all new and existing capital counts, making him death-penalty-eligible for the first time,(id. at 12-17, 20-23). The third superseding indictment charges defendants in 22 counts, as follows¹:

• Count One: conspiracy to commit Hobbs Act robbery in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1951(a) and Pinkerton v. United States, 328 U.S. 640 (1946), against Coles, Dickerson, White, Adgebesan, Corbett, Preddy, and Jenkins-Armstrong;

• Count Two: Hobbs Act robbery, and aiding and abetting same, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1951(a) and 18 U.S.C. § 2, against Coles, Dickerson, White, Adgebesan, Corbett, Preddy, and Jenkins-Armstrong;

• Counts Three, Four, and Five: using, brandishing, and discharging a firearm during and in relation to a crime of violence (Hobbs Act robbery and killing a witness) resulting in the deaths of Phillip Jackson, Brandon Cole, and Wendy Chaney,² respectively, and aiding and abetting same, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) and (j) and 18 U.S.C. § 2, against Coles, Dickerson, White, Adgebesan, Corbett, Preddy, and Jenkins-Armstrong;

• Count Six: conspiracy to use, brandish, and discharge a firearm during and in relation to a crime of violence (Hobbs Act robbery and killing a witness) resulting in the death of Chaney, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 924(c), (j), and (o), against Coles, Dickerson, White, Adgebesan, Corbett, Preddy, and Jenkins-Armstrong;

• Count Seven: conspiracy to commit murder for hire in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1958 and Pinkerton, against Coles, Dickerson, White, Adgebesan, Corbett, Preddy, and Jenkins-Armstrong;• Counts Eight, Nine, and Ten: murder of witnesses (Chaney, Jackson, and Cole, respectively), and aiding and abetting same, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1512(a)(1)(C) and 18 U.S.C. § 2, against Coles, Dickerson, White, Adgebesan, Corbett, Preddy, and Jenkins-Armstrong;

• Count Eleven: conspiracy to murder witnesses (Chaney, Jackson, and Cole) in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1512(k), against Coles, Dickerson, White, Adgebesan, Corbett, Preddy, and Jenkins-Armstrong;

• Count Twelve: conspiracy to distribute and possess with intent to distribute 1,000 grams and more of a mixture and substance containing a detectable amount of heroin, in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 846, against Corbett and Adgebesan;

• Count Thirteen: possession with intent to distribute heroin, and aiding and abetting same, in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1) and 18 U.S.C. § 2, against Corbett and Adgebesan;

• Count Fourteen: conspiracy to distribute and possess with intent to distribute at least 100 grams of a mixture and substance containing a detectable amount of heroin, and at least 28 grams of a mixture and substance containing a detectable amount of cocaine base and cocaine HCL, in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 846, against Coles and Dickerson;

• Counts Fifteen and Sixteen: possession with intent to distribute a mixture and substance containing a detectable amount of heroin, and a mixture and substance containing a detectable amount of both cocaine HCL and cocaine base, and aiding and abetting same, in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1) and 18 U.S.C. § 2, against Coles and Dickerson, respectively;

• Count Seventeen: possession with intent to distribute a mixture and substance containing a detectable amount of heroin and a mixture and substance containing a detectable amount of cocaine base, and aiding and abetting same, in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1) and 18 U.S.C. § 2, against Coles and Dickerson;

• Count Eighteen: distribution of a mixture and substance containing a detectable amount of heroin resulting in serious bodily injury, and aiding and abetting same, in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1) and (b)(1)(C) and 18 U.S.C. § 2, against Coles and Dickerson;• Count Nineteen: possession of firearms in furtherance of a drug-trafficking crime as alleged in Counts Fourteen through Eighteen, and aiding and abetting same, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 924(c)(1), 18 U.S.C. § 2, and Pinkerton, against Coles and Dickerson;

• Count Twenty: conspiracy to murder a witness (codefendant Adgebesan) in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1512(k), against Preddy, Jenkins-Armstrong, Lawson, and Armstrong;

• Count Twenty-One: attempted murder of a witness (codefendant Adgebesan) in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1512(a)(1)(A) and (C), against Preddy, Jenkins-Armstrong, Lawson, and Armstrong; and

• Count Twenty-Two: accessory after the fact with respect to Hobbs Act robbery and murder, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 3, against Lawson and Armstrong.

(See Doc. 499 at 8-41). We appointed learned counsel for Preddy shortly after the third superseding indictment was returned.

On June 4, 2020, following two concurred-in extensions of its Section 3593(a) deadline, the government notified defendants and the court that it would not seek the death penalty as to any eligible defendant. After hearing from counsel, we issued a memorandum and order authorizing the formerly death-penalty-eligible defendants to continue with two attorneys. We then entered a pretrial and trial scheduling order which established four tiers of pretrial motions: non-fact-based motions (to sever, to dismiss, for bill of particulars, and concerning discovery), due October 23, 2020; fact-based and suppression motions, due January 11, 2021; expert motions, due August 2, 2021; and motions in limine, due November 5, 2021. That order also established an August 2, 2021 deadline for the parties to provide notice of their experts and adopted the government's proposal for a November 5, 2021 early-disclosure date for its Jencks Act material. We have since modified this scheduleonly to the extent it pertains to fact-based and suppression motions, extending that deadline to February 10, 2021.

Defendants filed 19 individual and omnibus first-tier motions. (See Docs. 586, 588, 590, 592, 652, 660, 662, 664, 666, 668, 670, 672, 673, 676, 679, 679-3, 680, 683, 685). After several extensions of briefing deadlines at the government's request, defendants' first-tier motions became ripe for disposition on January 4, 2021. We issued a memorandum opinion on January 7, 2021, addressing defendants' myriad discovery motions. This memorandum takes up defendants' remaining motions.

II. Discussion

Coles, Dickerson, White, Adgebesan, Preddy, Jenkins-Armstrong, Lawson, and Armstrong have each filed one or more pretrial motions seeking wide-ranging relief. Their requests can be catalogued into four groups. Preddy asks the court to strike purportedly prejudicial surplusage from the third superseding indictment. Coles, Dickerson, White, and Jenkins-Armstrong seek dismissal of multiple counts of the indictment. Coles, Dickerson, and White additionally seek a bill of particulars providing more detail about their alleged involvement in the charged offenses. And all defendants request that we sever various charges and defendants for trial. We will address these manifold requests seriatim.

A. Motion to Strike Surplusage

Preddy asks the court to strike certain language from the third superseding indictment, (see Doc. 654 at 3-6), and Jenkins-Armstrong joins in that motion, (see Doc. 686 at 1). These defendants take issue with the indictment's references to the street gang known as the "Black Guerilla Family" or "BGF." (See Doc. 654 at 3-6).Paragraph 3 of the indictment describes BGF as a "nationwide gang engaged in criminal activities, including murder, robbery, extortion, narcotics trafficking, obstruction of justice, and witness intimidation," and alleges that Preddy, Jenkins-Armstrong, Lawson, Armstrong,...