United States v. Norwood
| Decision Date | 14 December 2020 |
| Docket Number | No. 19-2178,19-2178 |
| Parties | UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Deronarte NORWOOD, Defendant-Appellant. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit |
Julia K. Schwartz, Attorney, Office of the United States Attorney, Chicago, IL, for Plaintiff-Appellee.
David Lewarchik, Attorney, Lewarchik Law PLLC, Chicago, IL, for Defendant-Appellant.
Before Ripple, Brennan, and St. Eve, Circuit Judges.
Deronarte Norwood met a fifteen-year-old girl at a gas station in Indianapolis. Through a combination of drugs and manipulative affection, he enticed her to have sexual intercourse with him and then proceeded to prostitute her to countless men, all within a one-month timespan in 2015. A jury found him guilty of one count of attempted transportation of a minor across state lines with the intent that the minor engage in prostitution, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2423(a) and (e).1 The district court denied Mr. Norwood's post-trial motions for a new trial and sentenced him to 330 months’ imprisonment and five years’ supervised release.
Mr. Norwood filed this timely appeal, in which he alleges error at several stages of the district court proceedings.2 He now asks us to determine whether there is sufficient evidence to sustain the jury verdict. He also asks that we review various rulings made by the district court during trial as well as several matters that arose during the sentencing proceeding. After a review of the record and a study of the relevant authorities, we conclude that there is sufficient evidence to sustain the jury's verdict, that the district court's rulings during trial present no ground for reversal, and that the sentencing proceeding was free of error. Accordingly, we affirm the judgment of the district court in all respects.
Mr. Norwood first met the victim at a gas station in Indianapolis in April 2015 after she had run away from a state-run residential facility. Mr. Norwood provided the victim with marijuana and then took her to a hotel where he engaged in sexual intercourse with her. A day or two later, Mr. Norwood physically assaulted her and said that he could kill her.
In the month after they met, Mr. Norwood pressured the victim to engage in prostitution. As part of his efforts to market her services, he posted two advertisements on Backpage.com—the Internet's once leading marketplace for illicit sex services that has since been shut down by the United States Department of Justice. The advertisements showed the victim wearing only undergarments. Mr. Norwood set the first Backpage advertisement, posted on April 23, 2015, to target men in Chicago, Illinois, and Kenosha, Wisconsin. The second advertisement, created on May 8, 2015, and reposted on May 20, 2015, targeted men in Kenosha and Racine, Wisconsin. Both advertisements offered "out calls," meaning that the victim would go to the client's chosen location.
On May 8, the day Mr. Norwood posted the second Backpage advertisement, the victim received calls from eighty phone numbers with Wisconsin area codes. In total, the victim received over 4,000 phone calls and text messages from phone numbers with Wisconsin area codes during the period from May 1 through May 22, 2015. Of those calls and text messages, 3,457 came from phone numbers with the area code covering Racine and Kenosha, Wisconsin—the cities that Mr. Norwood set the second Backpage advertisement to target.
Throughout the time he attempted to prostitute her, Mr. Norwood also repeatedly had sexual intercourse with the victim and continued to threaten and assault her. Mr. Norwood, who lived in Illinois, booked hotel rooms along the Illinois-Wisconsin border for the victim to meet men who responded to the Backpage advertisements. And Mr. Norwood took all of the money that the victim received from the customers, which at times totaled a few hundred dollars per day.
On May 17, 2015, Mr. Norwood drove the victim from Illinois to Kenosha, Wisconsin. Historical cell tower data showed both Mr. Norwood's and the victim's phones departing from the Chicago area and traveling to Kenosha. After a few hours in Kenosha, the victim's phone location information showed her traveling to Milwaukee. A short time later, Mr. Norwood's cell phone location information showed him in Milwaukee near the victim's phone. Cell phone records from the early morning hours on May 17 showed 254 contacts with the victim's phone number from phone numbers with Wisconsin area codes. Also during that time, Mr. Norwood sent a message to a friend stating that he was "out here getting money."4 Mr. Norwood, on May 18, told a friend that he was in Milwaukee and asked the friend to send someone to his hotel.
Mr. Norwood and the victim traveled back to Illinois on May 18. He then booked a hotel room in Zion, Illinois, along the Illinois-Wisconsin border for that night. For the following nights, Mr. Norwood booked hotel rooms in Winthrop Harbor, Illinois, another town on the Illinois-Wisconsin border. At those hotels, Mr. Norwood arranged for the victim to provide sex services to male customers.
On May 21, after Mr. Norwood had beaten her, the victim called her Indiana-based foster mother for help. That same day, police located the victim at a hotel in Winthrop Harbor, Illinois. In the early hours of May 22, civilian employees with the Indiana Department of Child Services transported the victim back to Indiana—first to a temporary shelter, then to a hospital in Indianapolis where she underwent a medical evaluation.
A federal grand jury eventually indicted Mr. Norwood on a single count of attempted transportation of a minor across state lines with the intent that the minor engage in prostitution, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2423(a) and (e).5 Mr. Norwood proceeded to trial. There, the Government needed to prove that (1) Mr. Norwood knowingly attempted to transport the victim from Illinois to Wisconsin; (2) the victim was under the age of eighteen; and (3) Mr. Norwood intended that the victim engage in prostitution in Wisconsin.
The Government presented witness testimony and documentary evidence connecting Mr. Norwood to the Backpage advertisements. Additionally, the Government presented testimony and cell phone record information that showed Mr. Norwood's movements and the victim's movements during their month together, the contacts the victim received from phones with Wisconsin area codes, and several messages Mr. Norwood sent to friends via text message and Facebook messenger. The police officer who recovered the victim from the hotel in Winthrop Harbor also testified, as did the Indiana Department of Child Services staff who transported the victim back to Indiana from Illinois, and then took her for a medical examination.
A significant witness during Mr. Norwood's trial was Catana Philipps, the nurse who examined the victim at the Indiana hospital following her recovery. As part of Nurse Philipps's testimony, the Government offered a redacted copy of the victim's medical records from that examination. Mr. Norwood objected to the admission of those medical records, but the district court overruled the objection. The Government also offered a recorded jail call between Mr. Norwood and an unidentified female. In that call, Mr. Norwood made statements about prostituting a young "white girl."6 Mr. Norwood again objected, and the Court again overruled him.7
At the close of the Government's evidence, Mr. Norwood moved for judgment of acquittal. The district court denied the motion. Mr. Norwood then called a single defense witness, his cousin. At the close of the defense's evidence, Mr. Norwood did not renew his motion for judgment of acquittal.
The jury returned a guilty verdict. Following the verdict, Mr. Norwood moved for a new trial on juror bias or misconduct grounds. The district court denied that motion, and, with the juror issue resolved, held a sentencing hearing. At the sentencing hearing, the district court calculated the advisory guidelines range of 360 months to life imprisonment, then imposed a sentence of 330 months’ imprisonment. Mr. Norwood then timely filed this appeal.
Mr. Norwood takes issue with many aspects of his case, raising seven issues in total. As is often the case when a criminal defendant raises so many issues on appeal, some issues require more discussion than others. We start, as our case law instructs, with Mr. Norwood's sufficiency of the evidence challenge.8 We then move through the remaining issues presented in roughly the chronological order that they occurred in the district court. For some issues, we supplement our discussion with additional, more-detailed factual background.
We turn first to Mr. Norwood's submission that the evidence of record is insufficient to sustain his conviction. In assessing this contention, we review the evidence in the light most favorable to the Government and will overturn a verdict only when the record contains no evidence, regardless of how it is weighed, from which the jury could have found guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. United States v. Clark , 787 F.3d 451, 459 (7th Cir. 2015). When a defendant moves for a judgment of acquittal at the close of the Government's case but fails to renew that objection at the close of all evidence, however, we apply a more demanding standard and will reverse only if "we find a ‘manifest miscarriage of justice’ under the plain error standard of review." United States v. Rea , 621 F.3d 595, 601–02 (7th Cir. 2010) (quoting United States v. Hensley , 574 F.3d 384, 390 (7th Cir. 2009) ). Because Mr. Norwood failed to renew his motion at the close of his evidence, the more demanding standard applies.
Under 18 U.S.C. § 2423(a), the Government must prove that: (1) the defendant knowingly transported an individual in interstate or foreign commerce; (2) the transported individual was under the age of eighteen; and (3) the transportation was with the intent...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
State v. Jensen
...the law"). Federal courts of appeals’ interpretations of Bryant and Clark confirm that progression. See, e.g., United States v. Norwood, 982 F.3d 1032, 1043-44 (7th Cir. 2020) ; Issa v. Bradshaw, 910 F.3d 872, 876 (6th Cir. 2018) ; United States v. LeBeau, 867 F.3d 960, 980 (8th Cir. 2017).......
-
Commonwealth v. Robertson
...about what had occurred, not trying to create a record of events for the observing officer's benefit. See United States v. Norwood, 982 F.3d 1032, 1049 (7th Cir. 2020) ("an officer's mere presence" is not dispositive of confrontation clause inquiry as is "an officer's questioning"). Therefo......
-
United States v. Brooks
...F. App'x 317, 321 (6th Cir. 2018) ; United States v. Robinson , 872 F.3d 760, 770–72 (6th Cir. 2017) ; see also United States v. Norwood , 982 F.3d 1032, 1055–57 (7th Cir. 2020) ; United States v. Birchette , 908 F.3d 50, 55 (4th Cir. 2018). And we see no error. For centuries, courts have b......
-
United States v. Shaffers
...substantive evidence violated the Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment. We review that question de novo. United States v. Norwood , 982 F.3d 1032, 1042 (7th Cir. 2020). A. Factual and Procedural BackgroundAs noted above, Fulton was in the passenger's seat of Shaffers' car on the nigh......
-
Trials
...company call, wire, and travel records were nontestimonial because purpose of records was not to accuse defendant); U.S. v. Norwood, 982 F.3d 1032, 1051 (7th Cir. 2020) (victim’s statements to nurse about the circumstances and timeframe of assault were nontestimonial because primary purpose......