United States v. Stevenson
| Citation | 832 F.3d 412 |
| Decision Date | 09 August 2016 |
| Docket Number | No. 15-1942,15-1942 |
| Parties | United States of America v. Terrell Stevenson, Appellant. |
| Court | United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (3rd Circuit) |
Michelle L. Olshefski, Office of United States Attorney, 235 North Washington Avenue, P.O. Box 309, Suite 311, Scranton, PA 18503, Attorney for Appellee
Gino A. Bartolai, Jr., 238 William Street, Pittston, PA 18640, Attorney for Appellant
Before: SMITH, HARDIMAN, and SHWARTZ, Circuit Judges.
HARDIMAN
, Circuit Judge.
This appeal arises out of a federal investigation into a heroin distribution ring that operated out of a Scranton hip-hop radio station and recording studio called Hood Promo. Eight individuals associated with the hip-hop heroin hub were indicted on various federal drug and weapons charges. All of them pleaded guilty except for Appellant Terrell Stevenson.
Before Stevenson was brought to trial, the Defendants filed dozens of pretrial motions. Although most of the delay occasioned by the various motions and plea negotiations was “excludable time” under federal law, the Government conceded that Stevenson's rights under the Speedy Trial Act were nevertheless violated. Accordingly, Stevenson filed a motion to dismiss his indictment, which the District Court granted without prejudice to the Government's right to indict him anew on the same charges. Stevenson's principal claim in this appeal is that the District Court abused its discretion when it granted his motion to dismiss without prejudice. He also argues that the indictment failed to allege all the elements of the crime of fraud in relation to identification documents. In addition, he appeals the District Court's denial of his motions to suppress, the propriety of the District Court's conduct at trial, and the reasonableness of his 360-month sentence.
In December 2011, at the request of the Lackawanna County Drug Task Force, federal agents became involved in the search for an elusive heroin dealer named Siquana Wallace. Using a variety of investigatory methods, including confidential sources, physical surveillance, undercover purchases, body wires, and a pole camera, the agents concluded that Hood Promo was the Scranton hub of a heroin ring. The owner of Hood Promo—Lamar Thomas a.k.a. “Hood”—and another man—Greg Bush a.k.a. “G”—were suspected of transporting heroin from New York to Scranton and then distributing the drugs out of Hood Promo. One member of the drug trafficking organization was a 5'6” black male in his late twenties known as “Inf” or “Infinite,” who drove a gray BMW. In addition to concluding that “Inf” dealt heroin in nearby Wilkes–Barre, the agents learned that “Inf” was wanted in New York for drug-related crimes and that his real name was Terrell Stevenson.
While conducting surveillance outside Hood Promo on February 15, 2012, DEA Special Agent William Davis observed a black male arrive at the studio in a gray 2004 BMW, enter and exit the building, and begin driving in the direction of Wilkes–Barre. His “investigative instinct” roused, Davis ran the vehicle's registration and arranged for the local police to conduct a traffic stop after he learned the car was registered to Lamar Thomas. App. 962. The driver of the car—who agents later learned was Appellant Stevenson—produced a Georgia driver's license bearing the name Nathan Ernest Truitt. The police accordingly sent “Truitt” on his way.
Stevenson did not escape the DEA's grasp for long. Court-authorized wiretaps of Thomas's and Bush's phones and further investigation into Hood Promo led the authorities to home in on several suspects, including Stevenson. On May 22, 2012, Special Agent Davis submitted an affidavit in support of a search warrant application for five properties, one of which was Stevenson's residence. A magistrate judge issued the warrant and the DEA executed it, arresting Stevenson and his roommate Chris Taylor, and seizing hundreds of glassine baggies of heroin, a loaded handgun (found in Stevenson's room and later confirmed to be stolen), fraudulent driver's licenses and credit cards in the names of Gregory Matthew Henderson and Nathan Ernest Truitt (found on Stevenson's person), and various other inculpatory items and documents. In all, eight individuals were arrested around the same time in connection with the Hood Promo conspiracy.
The number of Defendants and the complexity of the case resulted in a lengthy and sometimes hectic pretrial process. On June 5, 2012, a federal grand jury returned an indictment against seven defendants, including Stevenson, who was charged with conspiracy to distribute and to possess with intent to distribute 100 grams or more of heroin within 1,000 feet of a school in violation of 21 U.S.C. §§ 846
and 841 ; unlawful use of a communication facility (i.e. , using a cellphone in furtherance of his illegal activity) in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 843(b) ; and unlawful possession of a stolen firearm in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(j). Because Stevenson refused to enter a plea at his June 13, 2012 arraignment, the District Court entered a plea of not guilty on his behalf and scheduled trial for August 20, 2012, setting July 16 as the deadline for filing pretrial motions. When that date arrived, Stevenson filed his first of eight unopposed motions to extend the pretrial motions deadline, all of which were granted by the District Court. The cycle repeated when a federal grand jury returned a superseding indictment on October 16, 2012, which was identical to the original indictment, except that it added an eighth defendant. The Court once again entered a plea of not guilty for Stevenson after he refused to enter a plea.
The next year involved a steady stream of pretrial motions and extension requests from the Defendants. Among them was a motion by Stevenson to suppress evidence seized from his residence for lack of probable cause to support the search warrant, which the District Court denied on October 25, 2013. From that day until February 7, 2014, the 70-day Speedy Trial Act clock was running (except for one excludable day). See 18 U.S.C. § 3161(c)(1)
, (h). Seizing on this inappropriate delay, Stevenson filed a motion to dismiss on June 16, 2014. After the Government conceded that at least 103 non-excludable days had passed since Stevenson's arraignment, the District Court agreed with Stevenson that the Speedy Trial Act required dismissal of the first superseding indictment.1 Unfortunately for Stevenson, the Court did not agree with his request to dismiss the indictment with prejudice.
Guided by three factors the Speedy Trial Act requires trial courts to consider, see 18 U.S.C. § 3162(a)(2)
, the District Court held that dismissal without prejudice was appropriate. The Court concluded that the first factor—the seriousness of the offense—weighed against dismissal with prejudice because courts have consistently agreed that drug trafficking and firearm offenses are serious. It also decided that the second factor—the facts and circumstances that led to the Speedy Trial Act violation—militated against dismissal with prejudice. In the District Court's view, the non-excludable delay was relatively harmless “in light of the repeated delays and the chaotic nature” of the case—much of which was attributable to the acts of the eight Defendants. App. 43. Finally, the Court viewed the third factor—the impact of a new prosecution on the administration of justice—as supporting dismissal without prejudice because Stevenson did not show that he was prejudiced by the Government's violation of the statute. For these reasons, the Court dismissed the charges against Stevenson contained in the first superseding indictment without prejudice on September 4, 2014.
The Government obtained a third superseding indictment against Stevenson on September 9, 2014. The charges in that indictment were the same as the one that preceded it, except for a new count of fraud in relation to identification documents in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1028(a)(7)
. Stevenson promptly moved to dismiss this new charge on the basis that the indictment failed to allege the interstate-commerce element of the offense, but the District Court found the indictment sufficient and denied the motion. In anticipation of defending against this charge, Stevenson moved to suppress evidence relating to the stop of his vehicle and his production of false identification. The Court denied the motion prior to trial, finding that Stevenson had provided no evidence to support his contention of an unlawful stop, but allowed Stevenson to re-argue the motion, ultimately concluding that the stop was supported by reasonable suspicion that “Inf” was the driver and that criminal activity was afoot.
After a one-week trial, the jury found Stevenson guilty on all counts except one: possession of a firearm in furtherance of drug trafficking. The Court sentenced Stevenson to 360 months' imprisonment on the conspiracy-to-distribute and possession-with-intent-to-distribute counts, 96 months on the communications-facility count, 120 months on each of the firearms-related counts, and 240 months on the fraud count—all to run concurrently. Stevenson appealed.2
Although Stevenson raises several challenges to his conviction and sentence, his principal argument is that the District Court abused its discretion when it dismissed the first superseding indictment without prejudice. He also takes issue with the adequacy of the facts alleged in the indictment to support the identification-document fraud charge, the District Court's refusal to suppress evidence gathered from the stop of his vehicle and the search of his residence, the propriety of the District Court's conduct during trial, and the reasonableness of his sentence. We address each argument in turn.
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