United States v. Lucas
| Decision Date | 09 September 2021 |
| Docket Number | 19-6392,19-6394,19-6393,19-6390 |
| Parties | UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. ELANCE JUSTIN LUCAS (19-6390); MARCUS TERMAINE DARDEN (19-6392); DERRICK LAMAR KILGORE (19-6393); DECARLOS TITINGTON (19-6394), Defendants-Appellants. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit |
Four members of the Gangster Disciples street gang appeal their convictions for crimes committed during a decade-long racketeering conspiracy. Those crimes include a separate drug-trafficking conspiracy and a score of substantive drug firearms, and violent offenses (including assault and attempted murder). For the reasons that follow, their appeals are generally without merit. Aside from one procedural error during Mr. Lucas's sentencing, the district court committed no harmful error. Thus, we vacate the district court's sentence of Mr. Lucas and remand for resentencing. We affirm his conviction and all of the judgments as to the other appellants.
The Gangster Disciples (or "GDs") are a national street and prison gang founded in Chicago in the late 1960s from the merger of David Barksdale's and Larry Hoover's two respective gangs. This case grew out of an investigation of the gang's activities in Middle Tennessee.
The gang organizes itself hierarchically. Nationally, it is governed by a board of directors, on which Larry Hoover continues to sit as chairman despite serving a federal life sentence. The board appoints a "governor" in charge of each state and a "governor of governors" to supervise the governors in geographical groupings of states (for example, the governor of Tennessee also has responsibility over the governors of North Carolina, Kentucky, and other states). The gang divides states into regions, often named after the corresponding area codes, each of which a "regent" leads. For example, the "615" region, which this case concerns, contains Clarksville, Nashville, and Murfreesboro, among other cities in Middle Tennessee.
Generally, each city in a region has its own "deck," the gang's smallest organizational unit, which too is headed by a regent. A deck might claim members in nearby smaller cities (as Clarksville did Guthrie, a small town on the Kentucky side of the Tennessee-Kentucky border), and some larger cities have more than one deck. Each deck, region, or state has other "positions of authority" such as chief of security, enforcer, treasurer, secretary, and literature coordinator. And other members are secretly part of elite "blackout squads" called on to assassinate nonmembers or members of opposing gangs-or to execute fellow Gangster Disciples.
Each deck in good standing with the national gang has monthly meetings and collects monthly dues from each member. Dues are a flat fee that goes into the deck's "box," a metaphor for the deck's cash-on-hand. The deck in turn sends funds to the regional and state boxes. The box is, in part, a kind of social welfare: funds might be used to help members who needed food, were behind on personal bills, or needed to make bail. Monies might also go onto incarcerated members' commissary accounts. But the box also helped the gang perpetuate and attain its criminal objectives-through helping fugitive members, buying firearms, or investing in drugs to resell at a profit.
Membership in the Gangster Disciples has perks beyond access to box funds. Some members could be fronted drugs to sell (especially in return for the risk of transporting drugs by car) or given discounts by other members. Members can sell drugs in GD-controlled territory under the protection of the local deck, with territorial monopolies enforced against nonmembers through violence. Members have access to trap houses where guns and drugs can be stored. And members in good standing get reference numbers to prove their membership-and access these benefits- anywhere in the country.
The gang's literature consists of "the teachings of the honorable chairman," Mr. Hoover, and other elements such as the "I Pledge," the "We Pledge," the "Creed," and the "17 Laws." The gang purportedly adopted a new "720 concept" focused on "growth and development" in place of an older, more violent "360 concept." Indeed, much of the 720 literature espouses virtues such as love, self-sacrifice, and integrity.
But "things still stayed the same way that they was," as one member testified: "Still violence, still drug selling, still all of the same things that were going on under 360." The rules still emphasize "silence and secrecy" foremost-never to talk about gang business with outsiders, especially law enforcement. Members must "report all incidents, major and minor" to the deck- whether activity by rival gangs or law enforcement or violations by other members. And members must "aid and assist" other members "in all righteous endeavors," which might include attacks on other gangs or shielding fellow members from detection or arrest. The gang also forbids certain personal conduct, such as stealing from other Gangster Disciples, sex between two men, and the use of "addictive drugs" such as heroin, cocaine, or crack. (Marijuana use, however, is permissible, so long as it is not excessive.)
Violations of the gang's rules go through an internal analog of criminal procedure. If a member accused of a violation does not appear for a hearing on the matter, an officer may issue an order for that member's "GD arrest." A member may appeal a violation by requesting a "GD trial," complete with a prosecutor, defense lawyer, judge, and jury. There are even potential appeals to regional and state officers. Penalties for violations include fines paid to the box and "smashings": beatings that vary in severity by duration, number of assailants, and whether the member being smashed may "cover up" (defend himself). A member guilty of a severe violation might also be "smashed off" (beaten and expelled from the gang) or "eradicated" (put to death).
In the mid-2000s, the Clarksville deck was trying to establish its stature and reputation in the 615 region. Marcus Darden, already in a position of some authority in the deck, had ambitious goals for himself and for the Gangster Disciples in the region. In January 2006, several Gangster Disciples saw William Miller, a member of the rival Crips gang, "throwing down the pitchforks," a sign of disrespect toward one of the Gangster Disciples' symbols, the pitchfork. Mr. Darden saw this as the perfect opportunity to put his deck-and himself-"on the map."
The next day, Mr. Darden and Rex Whitlock, another member of the Clarksville deck, saw Mr. Miller. They confronted and shot him. In the words of Tray Galbreath, a deck member who helped conceal the firearms used to shoot Mr. Miller, that shooting "[l]et the streets know that GD is a power to be reckoned" with. And gang violence in Clarksville escalated "starting from that point on."
Even so, the deck continued to cycle through booms and busts, often corresponding with its leaders' respective freedom or custody. For example, Mr. Whitlock and Mr. Galbreath were the main suppliers of cocaine for the deck, running kilos up from Atlanta. When they were arrested in 2008, the cocaine supply in the 615 region dried up for some time. Because most members did not have legitimate jobs, they drew their income primarily from drug sales. So Mr. Whitlock's arrest ended the deck's times of plenty, at least temporarily.
Things changed when Danyon Dowlen assumed leadership of the deck. He had joined the Gangster Disciples in the late 1990s while in custody, and he was in and out of prison several times up through 2010. That December, when Mr. Dowlen was released from prison, he found the Clarksville deck scattered from a lack of structure and leadership. He received a call from the regent for the 615 region, asking for help getting the Clarksville deck back "on count" (in good standing).
Mr. Dowlen agreed, and in mid-2011, he called a meeting of about thirty Clarksville-area Gangster Disciples. At that meeting, the deck elected its officers. Mr. Dowlen became the head of the deck. Elance Lucas, Derrick Kilgore, and DeCarlos Titington were also at that meeting, and Mr. Titington too took on a position of authority. Mr. Darden, who had previously served as the deck's enforcer because he was "prone to violence," was not at the meeting because he was in prison. But after his release, he became Mr. Dowlen's second-in-command. Together, Mr. Dowlen and Mr. Darden tried "to get everything organized" and take the deck "to bigger heights" than before.
Mr. Darden succeeded Mr. Dowlen as the head of the Clarksville deck and eventually rose to the 615 regency. His continued goal was to "raise the stature of [the gang], to have the street fame of it, [and] to be revered as a power to be reckoned with." He "ran [the deck] with an iron fist," purging weak members-and potential police cooperators-instead surrounding himself with loyal allies whom he could trust to do the gang's business.
The violence only grew with Mr. Darden's rise to power. There were smashings and eradications, especially for cooperation with law enforcement, no matter how slight; the murder of Malcolm Wright, a Blood, in response to the Bloods' killing of a Gangster Disciple, see United States v Burks, 974 F.3d 622, 624-25 (6th Cir. 2020), cert. denied, 141 S.Ct. 1722 (2021) (mem.); and a retaliatory drive-by shooting against the Vice Lords, with Mr. Kilgore driving. One particularly violent member, Brandon Hardison, murdered Derrick...
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