United States v. Haight
| Decision Date | 22 June 2018 |
| Docket Number | C/w 17-3002,No. 16-3123,16-3123 |
| Parties | UNITED STATES of America, Appellee v. Marlon HAIGHT, Appellant |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — District of Columbia Circuit |
Jenifer Wicks, Takoma Park, argued the causes and filed the briefs for appellant/cross-appellee.
Luke M. Jones, and Lauren R. Bates, Assistant U.S. Attorneys, argued the causes for appellee/cross-appellant. With them on the briefs were Jessie K. Liu, U.S. Attorney, and Elizabeth Trosman, Nicholas P. Coleman, and Christopher Macchiaroli, Assistant U.S. Attorneys.
Before: Garland, Chief Judge, and Kavanaugh and Srinivasan, Circuit Judges.
A jury convicted Marlon Haight of several drug- and gun-related offenses. The District Court sentenced Haight to 12 years and 8 months in prison.
Haight appeals his conviction on three grounds. He challenges the District Court's refusal to postpone his trial. He contests two of the District Court's evidentiary rulings at trial. And he raises an ineffective assistance of counsel claim. We affirm Haight's conviction except that, consistent with our ordinary practice, we remand for the District Court to address Haight's ineffective assistance claim in the first instance.
The Government cross-appeals Haight's sentence. The Government argues that Haight was subject to a 15-year mandatory-minimum sentence under the Armed Career Criminal Act because of Haight's three prior convictions for violent felonies and serious drug offenses. We agree with the Government. We therefore vacate Haight's sentence and remand for resentencing.
In 2014, the Metropolitan Police Department of Washington, D.C., received a tip that a man known as Boo was selling crack cocaine in the Lincoln Heights neighborhood of Washington. The tip came from Blaine Proctor, a cocaine user and long-time police informant. Proctor claimed to have bought cocaine from Boo on several occasions.
Proctor gave the police Boo's cell-phone number. Police Officer Herbert LeBoo ran the cell-phone number through a subscriber database and determined that the number belonged to Marlon Haight. Officer LeBoo then ran the name Marlon Haight through another database and matched the name to a photograph. Officer LeBoo showed the photograph to Proctor, who said, "That's Boo."
Under Officer LeBoo's supervision, Proctor then made three controlled purchases of crack cocaine from Boo. After the third controlled purchase, police officers executed a search warrant at the apartment where Boo had sold the cocaine to Proctor. No one answered the door, so the officers used a battering ram to enter the apartment. While most of the officers were breaking down the door, Officer Clifford, who was standing outside the apartment building, saw two men jump from one of the building's windows and run away before they could be apprehended. Officer Clifford later testified that he was "90 percent" sure that one of the jumpers was Marlon Haight, whose photo Officer Clifford had studied earlier that day.
Meanwhile, the other officers finished breaking down the door and entered the apartment. There, they found Russell Ferguson. Ferguson lived in the apartment. Ferguson denied that Haight was selling cocaine from the apartment. But Ferguson later cooperated with the police and changed his tune: He testified that he had allowed Haight and four other men to use his apartment to process and sell crack cocaine.
The police officers searched Ferguson's apartment and found cocaine, cocaine base, crack cocaine in small plastic bags, a scale, baking soda, and hundreds of empty plastic bags. They also found marijuana, a loaded handgun, ammunition, cash, and a cell phone with a picture of Haight on its home screen.
In the bedroom, the police saw that the screen to one of the windows had been pushed out. They found another cell phone sitting on the window sill. The police later determined that Haight had purchased that cell phone.
About a month later, the police located and arrested Haight. The police then applied for a search warrant to search Haight's own apartment. While they were waiting for the warrant, the police staked out Haight's apartment building. They saw Haight's girlfriend leave the building carrying a backpack. They stopped her and eventually searched the backpack. In the backpack, the officers found several pounds of marijuana, Haight's employment documents, and a sheaf of handwritten papers. The handwritten papers turned out to be rap lyrics and a skit script that included Haight's name and expressed Haight's desire to deal drugs in Lincoln Heights. Later that day, after securing the search warrant for Haight's apartment, the police searched the apartment. There, they found another gun and more ammunition.
The Government charged Haight with numerous drug and gun crimes. The jury found Haight guilty on six counts.
At sentencing, the Government argued that Haight was subject to a 15-year mandatory-minimum sentence based on his three prior convictions for violent felonies and serious drug offenses. The District Court ruled that one of the three convictions did not qualify as a violent felony. The District Court therefore concluded that Haight was not subject to the 15-year mandatory-minimum sentence. The District Court sentenced Haight to 12 years and 8 months in prison.
Haight appeals his conviction. The Government cross-appeals Haight's sentence.
In appealing his conviction, Haight first challenges the District Court's denial of his motion to postpone his trial. Haight also contests the District Court's decision to admit into evidence: (i) Officer LeBoo's testimony about Proctor's out-of-court statement identifying Haight; and (ii) the writings found in the backpack carried by Haight's girlfriend. Finally, Haight claims that his trial counsel was ineffective.
Haight's trial was originally scheduled to start in September 2015. Between September 2015 and February 2016, Haight moved three times to postpone the trial. The District Court granted each of those motions, eventually setting a June 2016 trial date. After granting the third motion and setting the June 2016 trial date, the District Court warned that Haight would need a compelling reason to postpone the trial any further.
In February 2016, the District Court held an evidentiary hearing on Haight's motion to suppress the writings found in the backpack. In early May, the District Court said that it was likely to deny Haight's motion to suppress the writings. In early June, two weeks before trial, the Government moved in limine to introduce the writings into evidence. Haight responded with a fourth request to postpone the trial. Haight argued that he needed more time to decide how to address the writings and to consult with a handwriting expert.
The District Court denied Haight's motion to further postpone the trial. On appeal, Haight contends that the District Court abused its discretion in denying his motion. We disagree.
Recognizing that "judges necessarily require a great deal of latitude in scheduling trials," we review a district court's denial of a motion to postpone a trial under the deferential abuse-of-discretion standard. United States v. Gantt , 140 F.3d 249, 256 (D.C. Cir. 1998). We expect district courts to weigh various commonsense factors, including the reasons for the requested postponement; the length of the requested postponement; whether any postponements have already been granted; the effect of further delay on the parties, witnesses, attorneys, and court; and whether denying a postponement will result in "material or substantial" prejudice to the defendant's case. Id.
The District Court acted well within its discretion here. The court considered the relevant factors and explained why a further postponement was not warranted: Haight had already requested and received three postponements, which had delayed his trial by nine months; Haight's experienced counsel had a month to consider how to address the writings; and the writings did not present any difficult or novel issues that justified further delay. The District Court's refusal to grant yet another postponement was entirely reasonable.
We review the District Court's two challenged evidentiary rulings for abuse of discretion. See United States v. Borda , 848 F.3d 1044, 1055 (D.C. Cir. 2017).
First , Haight argues that the District Court abused its discretion by admitting hearsay testimony. At trial, Officer LeBoo testified about Proctor's initial out-of-court photographic identification of Haight. Haight objected that Officer LeBoo's testimony on that point was inadmissible hearsay. The District Court disagreed with Haight and admitted the testimony.
Federal Rule of Evidence 802 renders hearsay generally inadmissible. But under Rule 801, a witness's testimony recounting a declarant's out-of-court statement is not hearsay if (i) the declarant's statement "identifies a person as someone the declarant perceived earlier," and (ii) the declarant "testifies and is subject to cross-examination about" the statement. Fed. R. Evid. 801(d)(1)(C). The declarant of the out-of-court statement is ordinarily "regarded as ‘subject to cross-examination’ when he is placed on the stand, under oath, and responds willingly to questions." United States v. Owens , 484 U.S. 554, 561, 108 S.Ct. 838, 98 L.Ed.2d 951 (1988).
Officer LeBoo's testimony recounting Proctor's out-of-court statement identifying Haight was not hearsay because the testimony fell squarely within Rule 801 : (i) Proctor's out-of-court statement—"That's Boo"—identified Haight as someone whom Proctor had perceived earlier, and (ii) Proctor testified at Haight's trial and was subject to cross-examination about that statement.
It is true that Haight's counsel did not actually cross-examine Proctor about the earlier identification of Boo. Defense counsel presumably chose that tack because, on direct examination by the Government, Proctor did not remember having identified Boo to Officer...
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