United States v. Huntsberry

• Decision Date: 10 April 2020
• Docket Number: No. 18-31269,18-31269
• Citation: 956 F.3d 270
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff - Appellee v. Jabori HUNTSBERRY, Defendant - Appellant
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit

956 F.3d 270

UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff - Appellee

v.Jabori HUNTSBERRY, Defendant - Appellant

No. 18-31269

United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit.

FILED April 10, 2020

Camille Ann Domingue, Assistant U.S. Attorney, U.S. Attorney's Office, Western District of Louisiana, Lafayette, LA, for Plaintiff - Appellee.

Christopher Albert Aberle, Mandeville, LA, for Defendant - Appellant.

Before HIGGINBOTHAM, JONES, and DUNCAN, Circuit Judges.

STUART KYLE DUNCAN, Circuit Judge:

Jabori Huntsberry challenges his convictions for various drug offenses and for possessing firearms as a convicted felon. Huntsberry claims the district court should have severed the felon-in-possession charge from the drug charges. He also claims the trial evidence was insufficient to support the felon-in-possession conviction, both as to his knowing possession of the firearms and his knowledge of his status as a convicted felon. We affirm.

I.

Because Huntsberry’s appeal turns on the sufficiency and strength of the evidence presented against him at trial, we begin by comprehensively recounting that evidence.

On December 14, 2017, Huntsberry was indicted for conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute marijuana, unlawful use of a communication facility, possession with intent to distribute approximately two pounds of marijuana, and for possessing a firearm as a convicted felon. His mother, Nanette Huntsberry ("Nanette"), was also indicted on the first three counts—everything but the firearms count. Prior to trial, Huntsberry moved to sever the firearms count from the drug counts, arguing that admission of his prior felony conviction would prompt the jury to see him as a "bad person." The district court denied the motion.

Huntsberry and Nanette proceeded to a joint jury trial. Before the Government presented its case-in-chief, the parties stipulated that Huntsberry was convicted of a felony in 2003 in Louisiana’s 15th Judicial District Court, and had never applied for or received a pardon.

The Government’s first witness, U.S. Postal Inspector Augustus Magee, testified that drug traffickers frequently use the U.S. Mail—in particular, Express Mail packages—to transport drugs. Magee explained that inspectors look for packages originating from a source city or state (noting California as an example), handwritten mailing labels, signature waivers, and the use of vacant or nonexistent return addresses.

Magee testified that the case at hand began in July 2013, during one of his routine reviews of packages at a postal center in Lafayette, Louisiana. That day, two packages from Fresno, California, bearing handwritten labels, caught his attention. Both were addressed to "N. Huntsberry," with one package listing P.O. Box 61711 in Lafayette as the recipient’s address and the other listing 5623 Albert Road in Abbeville, Louisiana. Magee discovered that P.O. Box 61711 was rented earlier that year by Nanette, whose home address was 5629 Albert Road in Abbeville. Magee then learned from the carrier for the area that Jabori Huntsberry resided in a mobile home at 5623 Albert Road, next door to his mother.

Continuing to investigate, on November 6, 2013, Magee located a similarly suspicious package at a Baton Rouge postal center. That package had been sent by Express Mail from "Debra Anthony" in Fresno, bore a handwritten label addressed to "Nakendra Moore"¹ at P.O. Box 2053 in Abbeville, and had a nonexistent return address. Magee learned that Huntsberry and Nanette had access to P.O. Box 2053. He confiscated the suspicious package and presented it to a drug detection dog, which gave a positive alert. Magee then obtained a search warrant for the package and found inside 80 oxycodone tablets, 159 hydrocodone tablets, and approximately two pounds of marijuana. Magee next conducted a "label review" and discovered that the same sender, Debra Anthony, had also mailed a package to Nanette’s P.O. Box 61711 in Lafayette on the same date as the drug package that was mailed to Moore’s P.O. Box 2053 in Abbeville. He noted the handwriting on the two mailing labels was very similar and the tracking numbers for the two packages were sequential.

Magee testified that additional suspicious packages from California arrived at the Abbeville post office on November 12, 15, and 20, 2013. On each of those dates, Magee contacted Sergeant Elliot Broussard of the Vermilion Parish Sheriff’s Office to conduct surveillance, and Magee obtained video footage from inside the post office to see who retrieved the packages from P.O. Box 2053. The surveillance revealed that Huntsberry retrieved the November 12 package, Nakendra Moore retrieved the November 15 package, and Nanette retrieved the November 20 package. On each occasion, the person who picked up the package traveled directly from the post office to 515 South Lamar Street in Abbeville, the residence where Moore and her longtime boyfriend Ivan Ardoin lived together. Another suspicious package also arrived on November 20 addressed to Nanette’s residence; surveillance revealed that Huntsberry accepted that package from the carrier and brought it into his trailer before departing for 515 South Lamar. In total, Magee reviewed 16 surveillance videos from the Abbeville post office covering August through November 2013. He related that Nanette made 10 trips to the post office to receive packages.

Over the next two months, Inspector Magee seized three other suspicious packages mailed from Fresno: a December 3, 2013 package addressed to "N. Huntsberry" at 5623 Albert Road (Huntsberry’s trailer); a second December 3, 2013 package addressed to "N. Huntsberry" at Nanette’s P.O. Box in Lafayette; and a February 1, 2014 package addressed to "Amazing Hair Salon" at 5623 Albert Road. Each package was presented to a drug detection dog, and after the dog alerted, Magee obtained a federal search warrant to open the package. The December 3 packages each contained between two and three pounds of marijuana. Due to time and manpower constraints, Magee did not execute the warrant on the February 1 package, and it was delivered in the ordinary course without first being opened.

Magee testified that he then decided to perform a controlled delivery of the next suspicious package. On February 14, 2014, he became aware of another Express Mail package sent from Fresno and addressed to "Amazing Hair Salon" at 5623 Albert Road. As before, a drug detection dog alerted to the package, and Magee then obtained a search warrant and opened the parcel. It contained two pounds of marijuana. In coordination with the Vermilion Parish Sheriff’s Office and the Abbeville post office, Magee arranged for another postal inspector, Jon Helluin, to pose as a letter carrier and deliver the package that afternoon. As part of the operation, Sergeant Broussard secured state search warrants for both Huntsberry’s and Nanette’s residences prior to the controlled delivery. Although the package was addressed to Huntsberry’s trailer, Inspector Helluin was instructed to deliver it to the residence next door (Nanette’s). Helluin later testified that around 4:00 p.m. he pulled into the driveway of 5629 Albert Road and stopped his vehicle; as he started walking toward the residence, he was met by Nanette in the driveway. Nanette signed for the package and then walked back into her house with it. Helluin then drove off.

Within minutes of learning that the controlled delivery was made, Magee, Broussard, and other local deputies executed the search warrants. Broussard was part of the entry team on the warrant for Nanette’s house. From her master bathroom, the team recovered the unopened marijuana package that had just been delivered and placed Nanette under arrest. In the master bedroom, they also recovered the empty box from the February 1, 2014 package addressed to Huntsberry’s trailer’s address. Broussard testified that after Nanette’s arrest, Huntsberry arrived and was also placed under arrest.

During the same time period, Vermilion Parish deputies executed the search warrant on Huntsberry’s mobile home. Magee testified that the deputies recovered the following items: Express Mail shipping labels pertaining to packages that had originated in Fresno (including a label corresponding to the November 6, 2013 package containing tablets and marijuana); a marijuana cigarette; a "vacuum-sealed bag that was opened that contained green vegetable matter" (suspected to be marijuana); packaging equipment including a digital scale; and MoneyGram wire transfer receipts. The deputies also found what they suspected to be a drug ledger—a composition book with notes that included various dollar amounts, "narcotics lingo," and dates that corresponded with wire transfers. The notebook had Huntsberry’s name on it and contained lyrics for rap songs (subsequent testimony revealed Huntsberry was an aspiring rapper).

In searching Huntsberry’s residence, the deputies also located two firearms—a Romarm AK-47 semi-automatic rifle manufactured in Romania and a Ruger 9mm pistol manufactured in Arizona—inside a closet "off of" what they took to be Huntsberry’s bedroom. The Government displayed the guns in court and eventually entered them into evidence. Broussard later conceded, on cross-examination, that he was unsure whether the bedroom where the firearms were found was in fact the master bedroom. Broussard did, however, state that the room "appeared" to be the master and "appeared" to be where Huntsberry regularly slept. Broussard testified Huntsberry lived in the trailer with "his girlfriend and some children." Broussard also recalled that the alleged drug ledger and the mailing labels were found "kind of together" in "the bedroom to the right." Broussard did not indicate whether this was the same bedroom in which the guns were found. Broussard admitted that no photographs were taken of where the firearms, drug ledger, and shipping labels were found inside the trailer. On redirect, he explained that "firearms are not...