United States v. Godwin

• Decision Date: 03 September 2014
• Docket Number: No. 13–10184.,13–10184.
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff–Appellee, v. Maynard Kenneth GODWIN, a.k.a. KG, Eric Steven Ellis, Defendants–Appellants.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eleventh Circuit

765 F.3d 1306

UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff–Appellee,

v.Maynard Kenneth GODWIN, a.k.a. KG, Eric Steven Ellis, Defendants–Appellants.

No. 13–10184.

United States Court of Appeals,Eleventh Circuit.

Sept. 3, 2014.

Jason P. Mehta, Bonnie Ames Glober, Jay Carl Taylor, U.S. Attorney's Office, Jacksonville, FL, David Paul Rhodes, U.S. Attorney's Office, Tampa, FL, Wifredo A. Ferrer, Anne Ruth Schultz, U.S. Attorney's Office, Miami, FL, for Plaintiff–Appellee.

James A. Hernandez, Law Office of James A. Hernandez, Gerald Bettman, Christopher Alan Keese, Law Offices of Gerald S. Bettman, Jacksonville, FL, for Defendants–Appellants.

Appeals from the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida. D.C. Docket No. 3:10–cr–00276–MMH–TEM–2.

Before ED CARNES, Chief Judge, TJOFLAT and SILER,^* Circuit Judges.

ED CARNES, Chief Judge:

In a case of life imitating art imitating life, Maynard Kenneth Godwin was inspired by the fictional motorcycle gang in Sons of Anarchy, itself modeled on the real life Hells Angels, to form his own band of brigands called the Guardians. Under his leadership, the Guardians terrorized the citizens of Jacksonville, Florida, through a steady onslaught of home invasion robberies, armed bank robberies, and other crimes. Although not a full-fledged, card-carrying member of the Guardians, Eric Steven Ellis personally participated in at least two of those crimes, received a share of the proceeds from a third, and otherwise associated with several of the gang's members.

Following a joint trial before two separate juries, one for each codefendant, Godwin and Ellis were convicted under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) for racketeering, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1962(c), and conspiracy to commit racketeering, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1962(d). They challenge their respective convictions. Godwin contends that the district court erred in excusing two members of his jury, one before the trial started and the other during deliberations, while Ellis challenges the sufficiency of the evidence to support his racketeering and conspiracy convictions.

I.

As often seems to be the protocol with criminal gangs, the members of the Guardians were given monikers befitting their roles. Godwin bestowed on himself the apt title “Boss.” Bill Harper and Billy Hesson were the Lieutenants; Andrew Wilkie was the Enforcer; Frank Godwin was the Road Captain; and Brock Skov, owing to his computer savvy, was called Tech. ¹ The members wore dog tags inscribed with the organization's name, their nicknames, and their rank; some sported “Guardian” tattoos; and several rode motorcycles, used steroids, and lifted weights. Although Godwin did not formally name and officially organize the group into the Guardians until early to mid–2009,² its members were involved in criminal activities together before then.

Godwin sold various drugs, principally cocaine and oxycodone, and fenced stolen merchandise from his home and later from his store, “Guardians of Jacksonville,” which he opened in 2010. At Skov's residence, Godwin stockpiled a cache of body armor and firearms for Guardian members and associates to use with his permission. Jonathan Hart and David Hicks were two such associates; Eric Ellis was a third. Like Guardian members, Ellis used steroids, lifted weights, and spent time at Godwin's house. He knew that the Guardians were a gang that did “goon stuff,” were “heavy into drugs,” and were led by Godwin. On one occasion in June or July of 2010, Ellis, Wilkie, and Harper convened at Godwin's house bedecked in black and carrying backpacks. Godwin called Skov at home to tell him that he was sending the three men “over there to get something from you,” and then turned and asked the men, “Do y'all want the one with the extended clip on it?,” obviously referring to a firearm.

Stockpiling guns, dealing drugs, and peddling purloined products were not the most serious of the Guardians' illicit endeavors. In a span of only fifteen months, beginning in May 2009, Guardian members and associates committed a slew of violent crimes, including four armed home invasion robberies, two armed bank robberies, one attempted bank robbery, and a savage beating. On May 21, 2009, Ellis, Harper, and Wilkie, acting at Godwin's command, thrashed Dillon Burkhalter to within an inch of his life, repeatedly hitting and kicking him in the face until he began choking on his own blood. Burkhalter, who rented a mobile home located next to one owned by Godwin, had been “messing up [his] trailer,” owed back rent to the owner of the trailer park, and apparently owed money to Godwin as well. When he was transported to the hospital with multiple facial fractures and cranial bleeding, Burkhalter was barely breathing, barely conscious, and utterly unresponsive, eventually lapsing into a coma for a period of three weeks.

Less than three weeks later, on June 12, 2009, Ellis, Hicks, and Wilkie broke into the home of Brigg and Lita Hart (no relation to Jonathan Hart) under cover of night. They roused Lita Hart from her bed at gunpoint, forced her to open the bedroom safe, and then absconded with $328,000 in cash, $750,000 in jewelry, and a veritable trove of firearms, including an H & K shotgun, two matching 9mm Mauser pistols, and a 9mm Ruger pistol with an extended magazine. The jewelry taken from the Harts' home included two black diamond rings, a diamond-studded gold necklace, several expensive watches, and assorted diamond bracelets.

Ellis received as his share of the loot a third of the $328,000 in cash, the diamond-studded gold necklace, and two expensive watches. And he stored five of the stolen firearms, including the matching Mauser pistols, at his apartment. Several of the other stolen firearms were added to the Guardians' arsenal at Skov's home. Ellis later gave Lita Hart's gold necklace to his brother, who broke it apart, put one of the two diamonds into his wife's wedding ring, and returned the other diamond to Ellis. Ellis sold the remaining diamond to a jewelry store for a total of $9,000, paid out over five separate checks, and kept the proceeds for himself. Wilkie and Hicks also sold some of the Harts' jewelry to Ron Gordon at San Juan Precious Metals, who was affectionately and alliteratively known to the Guardians as the “gold guy.”

On September 1, 2009, Hart, Hicks, and Wilkie unsuccessfully attempted to rob an EverBank branch, a feat that Hart and Hicks successfully completed the following month. Also in October 2009, Hart and Hicks committed a second home invasion robbery using a gun stolen from the June 2009 home invasion, while Wilkie and Hicks robbed a Wachovia Bank at gunpoint. On November 30, 2009, Wilkie and Hart committed a third home invasion, the robbery of the residence of Vicki and Harold Shafer, again using a firearm stolen during the June 2009 home invasion. Wilkie and Hart made off with over $400,000 in cash and jewelry, as well as a 2004 Lexus. After the robbery, Wilkie called Ellis and told him to come over to Hart's house, where Wilkie and Hart gave him $2,000 in stolen cash. Wilkie advised Hart that Ellis could double that money by selling cocaine. And in August 2010, Wilkie and Harper committed one last home invasion robbery, this one of Robert and Larita Holland, the proceeds of which they shared with Godwin. In all but one of the six robberies committed by Guardian members and associates between June 2009 and August 2010, the perpetrators wore dark clothes, masks, and gloves.

Ellis helped Wilkie organize some of the home invasion robberies, including those committed by Harper and Hicks. He also assisted Guardian members and associates in other ways. The day after the November 2009 robbery, Hart summoned Ellis, Wilkie, and Hicks to his home to determine who had taken his share of the proceeds from that crime. Ellis arrived with an “Uzi looking pistol,” and he vigilantly stood holding it the entire time. Although it was never determined who had filched the stolen proceeds, Hart believed that it was Hicks and, from that day forward, the Guardians severed all communication with him.

Around the same time period, Wilkie battered his girlfriend, Chelsea Folkestad, for asking too many questions about the Guardians. Folkestad had overheard Wilkie and Ellis discuss doing “jobs,” meaning home invasions and bank robberies. Wilkie called Ellis to help him with Folkestad and when Ellis arrived, he laid a bed sheet down on the bedroom floor and told Wilkie that he wanted to talk to Folkestad in the bathroom, leading Folkestad to believe that he was going to kill her and then wrap her body in the sheet. Ellis escorted Folkestad into the bathroom, where he issued a somewhat veiled threat: “If you don't say anything or don't bring this up or don't ask any more questions and just leave this alone ... it will be fine. Otherwise, you already know.”

For a two-and-a-half-month stretch from February 21 to May 8, 2010, Wilkie was in jail for, of all things, driving with a suspended license. In recorded jail calls, Wilkie, Godwin, Hart, and Harper discussed ways to get money to pay Wilkie's bail and pay his attorney, including by selling the H & K shotgun stolen during the June 2009 home invasion and by having the other men commit yet another home invasion robbery. Ellis' name frequently came up during those conversations. To help raise bail money for Wilkie, Ellis sold two of the expensive watches stolen during the June 2009 robbery to the Guardians' “gold guy” at San Juan Precious Metals.

Life as usual began to unravel for the Guardians after Wilkie's cousin, Christopher Stevens, contacted the police in the final months of 2009 and agreed to act as a paid informant for the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Beginning on February 19, 2010, and stretching through October of that year, Stevens engaged in a series of recorded drug buys of anabolic steroids, cocaine, and oxycodone from Wilkie, Harper,...