United States v. Daniells
| Docket Number | 19-2188 |
| Decision Date | 22 August 2023 |
| Parties | UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Appellee, v. MITCHELL DANIELLS, Defendant, Appellant. |
| Court | United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (1st Circuit) |
1
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Appellee,
v.
MITCHELL DANIELLS, Defendant, Appellant.
No. 19-2188
United States Court of Appeals, First Circuit
August 22, 2023
APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF MASSACHUSETTS [Hon. George A. O'Toole, Jr., U.S. District Judge]
Inga L. Parsons, with whom Law Offices of Inga L. Parsons and Matthew Gilmartin were on brief, for appellant.
Karen Eisenstadt, Assistant United States Attorney, with whom Rachael S. Rollins, United States Attorney, and Nathaniel R. Mendell, Acting United States Attorney, were on brief, for appellee.
Before Barron, Chief Judge, Lipez and Montecalvo, Circuit Judges.
BARRON, CHIEF JUDGE.
In this appeal, Mitchell Daniells challenges his two federal, gun-related convictions. The first is for willfully violating 18 U.S.C. § 922(n), the federal prohibition on the receipt of a firearm by someone "under indictment for a crime punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year," see id. § 924(a)(1)(D). The second is for willfully violating 18 U.S.C. § 922(a)(1)(A), the federal prohibition on "dealing in firearms" without a license.
Daniells contends that the former conviction must be reversed due to insufficient evidence or, in the alternative, vacated due to instructional errors. He contends that the latter conviction must be vacated on the ground that he was denied effective assistance of counsel in violation of the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Alternatively, he contends the Sixth Amendment entitles him to an evidentiary hearing about whether his counsel had an actual conflict of interest, such that we must remand as to this conviction for that hearing to be held.
Finally, Daniells contends that, even if his convictions may stand, his sentence cannot. Here, he asserts that a "trafficking of firearms" enhancement under the United States Sentencing Guidelines ("Guidelines") was wrongly applied to him at his sentencing. See U.S.S.G. § 2K2.1(b)(5).
We vacate the § 922(n) conviction because we conclude that there was an instructional error as to the "willfully" element
of that offense. We leave the § 922(a)(1)(A) conviction in place but remand to the District Court for an evidentiary hearing on Daniells's actual-conflict-based Sixth Amendment claim. We also vacate Daniells's sentence based on his claim that he was wrongly subject to the "trafficking of firearms" enhancement.
I.
A federal grand jury in the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts indicted Daniells on June 16, 2015. The indictment charged Daniells with one count of violating § 922(n) for receiving a firearm -- specifically, a firearm that he then sold to another individual in March 2015 -- while he was "under indictment" for a crime punishable by more than one year's imprisonment ("Count 1"). Daniells was arrested on the charge shortly after he was indicted.
The grand jury handed up a superseding indictment on March 22, 2017, that added one count for dealing in firearms without a license in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(a)(1)(A) ("Count 2"). That statute provides in relevant part that "[i]t shall be unlawful . . . for any person . . . except a licensed importer, licensed manufacturer, or licensed dealer, to engage in the business of importing, manufacturing, or dealing in firearms, or in the course of such business to ship, transport, or receive any firearm in interstate or foreign commerce."
Roughly a year later, the grand jury handed up a second superseding indictment. It added a count for obstruction of justice in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1503 ("Count 3"), and a count for witness tampering in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1512(b)(1) ("Count 4").
An eight-day trial began on May 21, 2019. After the government rested its case, Daniells moved for judgment of acquittal on all counts pursuant to Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 29, but the District Court denied the motion. Daniells renewed the motion after the close of evidence, but the District Court denied the motion once again.
The jury delivered its verdict on May 30, 2019. The jury found Daniells guilty on Counts 1 (receiving a firearm while under indictment) and 2 (dealing in firearms without a license), but not guilty on Counts 3 (obstruction of justice) and 4 (witness tampering).
The Supreme Court of the United States decided Rehaif v. United States, 139 S.Ct. 2191 (2019), about three weeks after the jury's verdict. The Court held in that case that for the government to obtain a conviction for the offense of "knowingly," 18 U.S.C. § 924(a)(1)(D), violating the prohibition set forth in § 922(g) on certain categories of individuals possessing a firearm, the government must "prove both that the defendant knew he possessed a firearm and that he knew he belonged to the relevant
category of persons barred from possessing a firearm," see Rehaif, 139 S.Ct. at 2200.
Daniells filed a motion pursuant to Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 33 based on Rehaif. The motion asked the District Court to reconsider the denial of Daniells's motion for acquittal on Count 1 on the ground that, under Rehaif, the evidence did not suffice to show that he acted "willfully" or, in the alternative, to grant him a new trial on Count 1 in consequence of what he claimed was an instructional error that Rehaif exposed regarding the "willfully" element of the offense that § 922(n) sets forth. The District Court denied the motion.
The District Court sentenced Daniells on November 12, 2019, to 97 months in prison -- 37 months of imprisonment on Count 1, and 60 months of imprisonment on Count 2, to be served consecutively. The District Court entered the judgments of conviction against Daniells and his sentence the following day. This timely appeal followed.
II.
We start with Daniells's challenge to the District Court's denial of his Rule 29 motion with respect to his § 922(n) conviction.[1] He contends that the evidence does not suffice to satisfy either the "under indictment" element or the "willfully"
element of the underlying offense. After recounting the relevant undisputed facts, we will explain why we conclude that there is no merit to the challenge.
A.
Daniells purchased at least three firearms in his own name, one in December 2012 and two in March 2013, at gun shops in Pennsylvania. He held a license to carry a firearm in that state at the time of the purchases.
As to each purchase, Daniells filled out Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives ("ATF") Form 4473. The form explained through a questionnaire that certain prospective gun buyers are "prohibited" from "receiving or possessing" a firearm, including those who are "under indictment or information in any court for a felony, or any other crime for which the judge could imprison you for more than one year." The form elsewhere explained that § 922(n) is the source of that prohibition.[2]
In March 2014, an officer from the Weston, Massachusetts police department arrested Daniells for carrying a loaded gun without a Massachusetts firearm license. See Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 269, § 10(a). The arresting officer applied in the Waltham
District Court in Massachusetts for a criminal complaint against Daniells. The officer did so by signing a criminal complaint form before a clerk magistrate, and the criminal complaint issued from the court the next day.[3]
A second criminal complaint, endorsed by that same officer, issued against Daniells on October 8, 2014 (together with the March 2014 complaint, the "Massachusetts criminal complaints"). It also concerned the earlier arrest but set forth a separate charge that related to the ammunition in the loaded firearm that Daniells had purchased in his own name. See id. § 10(n).[4] Daniells was arraigned on these state charges but released on bail.
In January 2015, a man named William Roberts, a former co-worker of Daniells's who lived in Pennsylvania, posted on Facebook that he was looking for a roommate so that he could make ends meet. Daniells expressed interest and mentioned to Roberts that he had a way that Roberts could potentially earn some money.
Daniells and Roberts met days later and went to a gun store together. There, Daniells identified two guns that he wanted Roberts to purchase and provided money to Roberts to use to complete the sale.
Following a similar pattern, Daniells and Roberts met the following month at a different gun store in Pennsylvania. Roberts purchased four Taurus guns at the store, each of which Daniells had identified for Roberts to buy.
On each occasion, Roberts gave the guns to Daniells after buying them. And, on each occasion, Daniells provided Roberts around $100 for the guns.
After Daniells was back in Massachusetts, he drove with a friend, Paul Copithorne, to meet Benjamin Figueroa in Fall River, Massachusetts. Daniells used a drilling tool once there to remove the serial number from one of the four Taurus guns and then gave the gun to Figueroa. Copithorne testified that, on a later occasion, he helped remove the serial number from another of the
Taurus guns before he saw Daniells give Figueroa a box that he believed contained that gun.
At some point in mid-March 2015, a man named Timothy Bailey approached Daniells at a park in Boston to ask if Daniells had any guns for sale. Bailey had a potential customer who had inquired about obtaining a gun, and Bailey wanted to profit from making the sale. Bailey could not buy a gun from a licensed dealer himself, because he had been convicted of a felony. See 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1). Daniells told Bailey that he did not have any guns at that point but would obtain some soon thereafter, and the two men exchanged phone numbers.
On March 26, 2015, Daniells took another trip to Pennsylvania. This time, he did so with a friend named Kenneth Brobby, who was unemployed at the time. The two men...
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