United States v. Rainone

• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit
• Writing for the Court: FLAUM, Circuit Judge.
• Citation: United States v. Rainone, 816 F.3d 490 (7th Cir. 2016)
• Decision Date: 14 March 2016
• Docket Number: No. 14–3154.,14–3154.
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff–Appellee, v. Mario RAINONE, Defendant–Appellant.

816 F.3d 490

UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff–Appellee,

v.Mario RAINONE, Defendant–Appellant.

No. 14–3154.

United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit.

Argued Jan. 22, 2016.

Decided March 14, 2016.

Debra Riggs Bonamici, Attorney, Office of the United States Attorney, Chicago, IL, for Defendant–Appellant.

Lisa M. Lopez, Attorney, Joseph R. Lopez, Ltd., Chicago, IL, for Defendant–Appellant.

Before BAUER, FLAUM, and HAMILTON, Circuit Judges.

FLAUM, Circuit Judge.

Mario Rainone appeals his conviction for unlawful possession of a firearm. The Addison Police Department ("APD") arrested Rainone for residential burglary after placing a GPS device on Rainone's vehicle. Following the arrest, APD officers obtained a search warrant for Rainone's residence, in which they discovered a handgun. At trial, the jury convicted Rainone.

Rainone asks this Court to vacate his conviction on three grounds. First, he argues that the district court erred by giving the jury a joint possession instruction. Second, he argues that the exclusionary rule should apply to any evidence obtained as a result of the APD's GPS surveillance. Third, he argues that testimony that the gun was stolen was irrelevant and unfairly prejudicial. We hold that none of these arguments entitle Rainone to a new trial, and thus we affirm the conviction.

I. Background

In December 2008, the APD began investigating Rainone in connection with a string of residential robberies. In January 2009, APD officers placed a GPS device on Rainone's vehicle without his consent or a warrant. With information gained from the GPS device, the APD arrested Rainone for burglary on February 12.¹

After arresting Rainone, the APD obtained a warrant to search Rainone's condominium. The next day, the APD searched the two-bedroom residence and recovered a Smith & Wesson .357 caliber revolver from the top drawer of the nightstand in the condominium's southeast bedroom. Officers also recovered many of Rainone's belongings from the bedroom, including mail addressed to Rainone, photographs of Rainone, and Rainone's birth certificate and Illinois identification card.

On March 5, 2009, a federal grand jury indicted Rainone for possession of a firearm by a convicted felon in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g). Rainone filed a number of pretrial motions, including a motion to dismiss the indictment and a motion to suppress evidence obtained as a result of the GPS search. The district court denied all of these motions.

On February 25, 2013, Rainone's case proceeded to trial. The only contested issue at trial was whether Rainone possessed the firearm. The government presented the testimony of three APD officers who described the search of Rainone's bedroom and the items recovered during the search.

In addition, the government presented the testimony of Michele Cozzo, Rainone's roommate. In exchange for immunity, Cozzo testified that Rainone resided in the southeast bedroom for several months prior to his arrest. Cozzo stated that, to her knowledge, no one other than Rainone stayed overnight in that bedroom. But Cozzo explained that in addition to herself and Rainone, several others, including Cozzo's mother, cousin, and ex-boyfriend, had keys to the condominium at various points in time. Further, Cozzo noted that other people, including herself, would sometimes enter Rainone's bedroom. She testified that a man named Vincent Forliano would regularly visit Rainone at the condominium. Finally, she testified that she never saw Rainone with a gun and that she never saw a gun in the condominium.

The government also presented the testimony of Bryan Thalin, the registered owner of the recovered firearm. Thalin testified that he purchased the gun in 1971 and that someone stole it from his home in October 2008. He stated that he was out of town when the gun was stolen and that he had never seen Rainone prior to trial.

Following the presentation of the evidence, the district court instructed the jury on the element of possession. Over Rainone's objection, the court gave a joint possession instruction explaining that multiple people can share possession of an object. After deliberating, the jury convicted Rainone of possession of a firearm by a felon. Rainone filed a motion for a new trial, which the district court denied. The district court sentenced Rainone to fifteen years' imprisonment, the statutory mandatory minimum. Rainone appeals.

II. Discussion

Rainone contends that his conviction should be vacated for three reasons: (1) the joint possession jury instruction was erroneous; (2) the district court incorrectly denied his motion to suppress; and (3) Thalin's testimony was inadmissible.

A. Joint Possession Jury Instruction

Rainone argues that the joint possession jury instruction offered at trial was unsupported by the evidence, outdated, and overbroad. Following the presentation of the evidence, the district court instructed the jury as follows:

More than one person may possess an object. If two or more persons share possession, that is called joint possession. If only one person possesses the object, this is called sole possession. The term "possess" in these instructions includes both joint and sole possession.

A person may possess an object even if other individuals may have had access to a location where the possession is alleged. Also, a person may possess an object even if other individuals share the ability to exercise control over the object.

We review whether a jury instruction "fairly and accurately summarizes the law" de novo. United States v. Erramilli, 788 F.3d 723, 730 (7th Cir.2015). But we review a district court's decision to give a particular instruction for an abuse of discretion. Id. We will reverse a conviction only if "the instructions as a whole misled the jury as to the applicable law." United States v. Curtis, 781 F.3d 904, 907 (7th Cir.2015) (citation and internal quotation marks omitted).

Rainone first contends that the district court abused its discretion by offering a joint possession instruction. According to Rainone, a joint possession instruction should only be offered when there is evidence that more than one person had possession and in this case, there was no evidence of joint possession.

Rainone mischaracterizes the evidence at trial. There was substantial evidence that more than one person could have possessed the gun. Cozzo testified that others had access to Rainone's bedroom and that guests would occasionally enter the room. The fact that other people had access to, and in fact did access, Rainone's bedroom supports a reasonable inference that they could have possessed the gun. Rainone even tried to use this evidence to his advantage at trial by suggesting that other people possessed the firearm. For example, during Rainone's opening statement, he argued that the firearm was recovered from "an area that people have joint access to" and he described all of the other individuals who had access to Rainone's bedroom. The joint possession instruction properly informed the jury that Rainone could still have possessed the gun even if others had also possessed the firearm.

Additionally, we have upheld joint possession instructions in similar cases. In United States v. Aldaco, 201 F.3d 979, 990 (7th Cir.2000), we held that a joint possession instruction was appropriate when police officers observed the defendant holding a gun while three other men were with him. We noted that "the fact that there were four men on the rooftop on the night in question supports the need for the instruction on joint possession." Id. More recently, in United States v. Lawrence, 788 F.3d 234, 246 (7th Cir.2015), we held that a joint possession instruction is "necessary" when contraband is recovered from a jointly-occupied residence. Like in Aldaco and Lawrence, there was sufficient evidence to support this instruction, and thus there was no error.

Rainone also argues that the instruction was a misstatement of the law because it was outdated and overbroad. He protests that the second part of the instruction did not conform to our Circuit's pattern jury instructions.² Beyond noting this inconsistency, Rainone does not specify what exactly is wrong with this instruction, although he does assert that it relieves the government's burden of proof.

Of course, pattern jury instructions cannot override precedent, and the district court's instruction is amply supported by our case law. In fact, the instruction offered at trial was almost identical to the instruction we upheld in United States v. Thornton, 463 F.3d 693, 696 (7th Cir.2006). And we recently upheld a similar instruction in Lawrence.See 788 F.3d at 245–46. In sum, the district court did not err by giving the joint possession instruction.

B. Motion to Suppress

Next, Rainone argues that his conviction should be vacated because the APD obtained the evidence against him as a result of an unconstitutional search. In 2009, the APD arrested Rainone after monitoring him using a GPS device attached to his vehicle. But in 2012, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its decision in United States v. Jones, ––– U.S. ––––, 132 S.Ct. 945, 949, 181 L.Ed.2d 911 (2012), which held that attaching a GPS device to a suspect's vehicle constitutes a search under the Fourth Amendment. Rainone contends that under Jones, the APD's GPS monitoring constituted a search, and because the APD did not obtain a warrant or Rainone's consent, the search violated the Fourth Amendment. Thus, according to Rainone, the district court should have granted his motion to suppress and excluded the evidence obtained as a result of the APD's unconstitutional GPS surveillance.

When reviewing a denial of a motion to suppress, we review a district court's factual findings for clear error and its legal conclusions de novo. United States v. Glover, 755 F.3d 811, 815 (7th Cir.2014). The exclusionary rule is a prudential doctrine designed to deter future constitutional violations by barring the introduction of evidence...