United States v. Thomas

• Decision Date: 12 February 1965
• Docket Number: No. 15549,15550.,15549
• Citation: 342 F.2d 132
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Maceo THOMAS, Defendant-Appellant. UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Gus SAUNDERS and Eloise Saunders, Defendants-Appellants.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit

342 F.2d 132 (1965)

UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v.Maceo THOMAS, Defendant-Appellant.

UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v.Gus SAUNDERS and Eloise Saunders, Defendants-Appellants.

Nos. 15549, 15550.

United States Court of Appeals Sixth Circuit.

February 12, 1965.

Earl E. Strayhorn, Chicago, Ill. (R. Eugene Pincham, Chicago, Ill., Milton R. Henry, Pontiac, Mich., on the brief; Rogers, Strayhorn & Harth, Pincham, Evins, Fowlkes & Tucker, Chicago, Ill., of counsel), for appellants.

Milton J. Trumbauer, Jr., Asst. U. S. Atty., Detroit, Mich. (Lawrence Gubow, U. S. Atty., Detroit, Mich., on the brief), for appellee.

Before CECIL, O'SULLIVAN and EDWARDS, Circuit Judges.

EDWARDS, Circuit Judge.

The three defendants in these appeals were convicted by a Federal jury of conspiracy to violate the narcotic laws of the United States.The indictment charged, and the prosecution's proofs tended to show, that defendants Gus and Eloise Saunders, during the years 1960 and 1961, together with others, participated in a narcotic peddling operation in Detroit while procuring their supply of narcotics from defendantMaceo Thomas in Chicago.

Proof of the basic conspiracy is clear and convincing, provided the testimony of a co-conspirator, one Ferguson, is accepted as credible.Ferguson's testimony is summarized as follows in appellants' brief:

"John Theodore Ferguson, a resident of the City of Detroit met one of the defendant-appellants, Gus Saunders, about the middle of May 1960 in Detroit.They became associated in the business of selling narcotic drugs and in October 1960 the witness had a conversation with Gus Saunders about making a better deal for the purchase of their narcotic supply.The witness stated that Gus said they could get a better deal in Chicago and that he(Ferguson) should save his money that they were going to Chicago together.

"On October 23, 1963, SIC, 1960 Ferguson and Gus Saunders flew from Detroit to Chicago where they registered under assumed names in the Evans Hotel.Before leaving Gus told the witness that Eloise knew someone in Chicago named Maceo Thomas.Gus and Ferguson after checking into the Hotel Evans about 10 or 11:00 o\'clock p. m. went to the Impala Lounge where they met Maceo Thomas.Gus told Maceo Thomas that he had $1,500.00 to spend and he wanted to talk business about some dope.They went over to the side in a booth and began to talk.The witness saw Gus give Maceo an envelope like the one in which he had seen the $1,500.00 before leaving the hotel.The witness did not hear the conversation in the booth.

"The witness further testified that the next morning he and Gus Saunders went over to Maceo Thomas\' home and that while there the door-bell rang and Maceo Thomas answered it and came back with a brown paper bag.He stated that he, Gus and Maceo took the bag into the bath room and opened it and that there was 8 or 9 celluloid bags in it, that one of the bags was opened and tested and found to contain heroin.That they subsequently returned to the Hotel Evans where he and Gus brought a box and some string and put the brown paper bag in the box with a coat and addressed it to a Delores Davis in Detroit and airexpressed the box back.He states that Gus told him that Eloise would pick the box up in Detroit.

"The two men then returned to Detroit and the witness was driven home by Gus and that about two hours later Gus picked him up and the two of them drove over to 210 Chandler Street where the witness saw the box which he had shipped to Detroit from Chicago.The narcotics were removed from the box and he and Gus packaged the stuff after cutting it."

In arguing that the proofs do not establish defendants' guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, appellants rely strongly upon the criminal record and bad character of Ferguson, who was doubtless the most damaging witness against them.

The meticulous care with which the prosecution buttressed Ferguson's testimony did nothing for his character, but did lend weight to his testimony in this case.Thus, when Ferguson testified that he and Gus Saunders went to Chicago and stayed overnight at the Evans Hotel under certain assumed names, the hotel register was produced with registrations for those names shown for that night.Where Ferguson testified that Saunders twice called Eloise Saunders in Detroit — once from Maceo Thomas' Impala Lounge and once from the Evans Hotel — records from the telephone company were introduced to show long distance calls corresponding exactly to this testimony.One of these records also served to confirm use of one of the assumed names in the hotel register.And where Ferguson testified that he and Saunders shipped the narcotics by air to Eloise Saunders in Detroit, before they themselves got a plane to come back, an airplane shipping ticket was produced which corresponded exactly to the transaction described.

In addition, Ferguson testified that after returning to Detroit, Gus Saunders told him that he was sending money to Maceo Thomas by money order, and the prosecution produced three cashier's checks for $1,250, $1,500 and $1,000 purchased in Detroit by Eloise Saunders and cashed in Chicago by Maceo Thomas in November and December of 1960.

Other proofs of overt acts in 1960 and 1961(including testimony of another co-conspirator pertaining to a large purchase in the fall of 1961) served to establish the continuing nature of the conspiracy as to all three of these defendants.

We have no doubt that the trial judge was right in denying defendants' motion for a directed verdict of acquittal and that there was proof from which the jury could have determined defendants' guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

Nor do we find reversible error in relation to any disputed admission of evidence during the trial.

Although the issue of the legality or illegality of the search of premises at 5132 Burns was not determined at trial, the District Judge ruled that certain money orders were admissible as to defendants.A careful search of this record shows that none of these defendants either owned, possessed, or lived at the searched premises or were present at the search.

In addition the search at 5132 Burns was plainly not directed against any of the present defendants, nor did any of them show any possessory interest as to any object seized therein.Cf.Jones v. United States, 362 U.S. 257, 261, 80 S.Ct. 725, 4 L.Ed.2d 697(1960).

The District Judge rightly held on these facts that defendants had "no standing to raise a question as to the constitutionality of the search."United States v. Haley, 321 F.2d 956, 959(C.A. 6, 1963);Goldstein v. United States, 316 U.S. 114, 121, 62 S.Ct. 1000, 86 L.Ed. 1312(1942).See alsoWong Sun v. United States, 371 U.S. 471, 492, 83 S.Ct. 407, 9 L.Ed.2d 441(1963).

This is the second prosecution of Gus Saunders and Eloise Saunders on narcotics charges.The facts of the first prosecution for possessing and selling heroin are reported in this court's opinion in United States v. Saunders, 325 F.2d 840(C.A. 6, 1964), wherein this court affirmed the conviction of Gus Saunders and reversed that of Eloise Saunders.In that case each of the Saunders was found guilty of selling narcotics in two separate incidents — on November 9, 1960 and November 15, 1960 — to one Therland Crater, one of the co-conspirators named in this case.Crater had been involved in peddling narcotics himself, had been arrested by an undercover government agent who bought heroin from him, and had agreed to cooperate with the government himself and had done so in relation to the November 9, 1960 and November 15, 1960, contacts with Eloise and Gus Saunders.¹

Testimony from government agents who witnessed the Crater-Eloise...