United States v. Vaughn
| Decision Date | 03 July 2013 |
| Docket Number | 12–1947.,Nos. 12–1835,s. 12–1835 |
| Citation | 722 F.3d 918 |
| Parties | UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff–Appellee, v. Maurice D. VAUGHN and Maurice C. Lockhart, Defendants–Appellants. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Robert A. Anderson (argued), Attorney, Office of the United states Attorney, Madison, WI, for Plaintiff–Appellee 12–1835.
Timothy M. Grace, Attorney, Edith Kathleen Dibbin Holland (argued), Attorney, Gottreich & Grace, Chicago, IL, for Defendant–Appellant 12–1835.
Robert A. Anderson, Attorney, Office of the United States Attorney, Madison, WI, for Plaintiff–Appellee 12–1947.
Mark P. Maciolek, Attorney, MNM Law Office, Madison, WI, for Defendant–Appellant 12–1947.
Before BAUER, POSNER, and FLAUM, Circuit Judges.
In August 2010, Maurice Vaughn and Maurice Lockhart were indicted for conspiring to distribute more than 100 grams of heroin in violation of 21 U.S.C. §§ 841(a) and 846. Lockhart worked for Vaughn as one of Vaughn's two heroin distributors in Beloit, Wisconsin and sold small bags of heroin to buyers who arranged purchases through Vaughn. Before trial, Lockhart moved to dismiss the indictment and requested a bill of particulars. The district court denied his motions. Maintaining their innocence, the defendants proceeded to trial on January 23, 2012, and a jury convicted them of the crimes charged, largely on the basis of circumstantial evidence. The district court then sentenced Vaughn to 240 months in prison and sentenced Lockhart to 72 months in prison. Both defendants appeal. Lockhart contends that the district court erred in denying his motion to dismiss the indictment and his motion for a bill of particulars. Separately, Vaughn argues that there was insufficient evidence presented at trial to support the jury's verdict and that the district court erred in imposing his 240–month sentence. For the reasons set forth below, we affirm.
I. Background
For three months during the summer of 2010, Vaughn served as the leader of a heroin distribution conspiracy in Beloit, Wisconsin. Several tips from heroin users led police to one of Vaughn's distributors who, after being arrested with seventy small bags of heroin on his person, signed a plea agreement and agreed to testify against Vaughn and Lockhart.
Beloit police began investigating Vaughn for drug trafficking in 2007. In June of that year, when Vaughn was on federal supervised release for a cocaine distribution conviction, a confidential informant attempted to purchase two grams of heroin from Vaughn as part of a controlled buy. The informant wore a wire, got into Vaughn's car, and handed over $250 for the arranged purchase. Before exchanging the drugs, however, Vaughn checked the informant for a wire. When he located the recording device on the informant's body, Vaughn ripped it off, kicked the informant out of the car, and tossed the money out of his car window as he drove away.
During the same period of time in 2007, Vaughn was also distributing heroin to Jesse Green. Green told investigators that from the beginning of 2007 to September 2007, he bought between three and five grams of heroin from Vaughn each day for his own use and for sale.
In late 2007 or early 2008, Patrick Riley began using heroin he obtained from Vaughn, whom Riley had met when the two worked together for the same employer. Riley estimated that from 2008 through mid–2010, he received gram quantities of uncut heroin from Vaughn. Generally, Riley would purchase the heroin from Vaughn directly, but once Vaughn began using Carlos Ford as a distributor in 2010, Ford would make deliveries to Riley only after Riley had first contacted Vaughn to arrange a purchase.
Ford worked as a distributor for Vaughn from December 2009 through March 2010. Each day, Vaughn would supply Ford with heroin to sell in exchange for personal-use quantities or cash. For a short time in the spring of 2010, Ford and Vaughn had a falling out in response to customer complaints about the purity of the product, but after their dispute, they quickly resumed their supplier/distributor relationship. At that point, however, Vaughn assumed more control over Ford's heroin sales. Rather than going directly to Ford, as they had in the past, the customers were required to contact Vaughn first and Vaughn would direct them on where and when to meet Ford. Following a customer request, Vaughn would contact Ford by cell phone and tell him where to meet the buyer.
Ford testified that each morning during the summer of 2010, he picked up approximately fifty to seventy small bags containing pre-weighed heroin (also referred to as bindles or “dime bags”) from Vaughn along with the cell phone that enabled Vaughn to contact Ford and give him directions after a call from a customer. Upon the completion of his daily shift, Vaughn instructed Ford to drop off money from the day's sales and any remaining heroin to Vaughn or to Lockhart. During that summer, Lockhart served in the same role as Ford and distributed heroin in front of his house in Beloit.
Vaughn's customers knew that he ran a two-shift arrangement. If they wanted heroin during the day, Vaughn directed them to meet with Ford for delivery. If customers ordered heroin in the afternoon or evening, Vaughn would instruct them to meet with Lockhart. Prior to his dealings with Vaughn, Ford did not know Lockhart. And although Ford had been obtaining heroin from Vaughn and selling it as early as December 2009, Lockhart did not become involved until the spring of 2010, the point at which Vaughn began exercising more direct control over the distribution.
On August 11, 2010, an officer conducted a traffic stop after observing Ford driving erratically in Beloit. During the course of that stop, officers searched Ford's person and located a key chain containing two bags of heroin. Immediately following his arrest, officers observed Ford moving around in the back seat of the squad car as if he were attempting to conceal an item behind him. Shortly thereafter, a strip search at the jail revealed seventy bindles containing a total of 11.621 grams of heroin between Ford's buttocks. Ford later testified that the seventy bags of heroin in his possession at the time of his arrest was the daily supply he had just picked up from Vaughn. After weighing the contents of the bags, Detective Andre Sayles estimated that each package contained 0.13 gram of heroin.
Six days after Ford's arrest, a grand jury in the Western District of Wisconsin returned a one-count indictment against Vaughn and Lockhart for conspiring with each other, Ford, and others to distribute 100 grams or more of heroin from May 2010 to August 10, 2010 in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1) and 21 U.S.C. § 846. Officers arrested Lockhart on August 29, 2011 and Vaughn on October 10, 2011 without recovering any physical evidence. Both defendants pleaded not guilty to the charged offense.
Before trial, Lockhart moved to dismiss the indictment as impermissibly vague, urging the district court to adopt civil pleading standards in ruling on his motion. Lockhart also requested a bill of particulars. The district court denied both motions and the case proceeded to trial.
During the trial, several witnesses testified to their interactions with and knowledge of Vaughn and Lockhart, corroborating Ford's description of the heroin distribution arrangement. The defendants' customers also testified to the amount of heroin they obtained from Lockhart and Ford.
Casie Kast, Ford's girlfriend, testified that during the summer of 2010, she would drive Ford to a house in Beloit where Ford would pick up the day's supply of heroin from Vaughn. Kast saw the daily supply of heroin and, as a heroin user herself, had used some of the heroin each day. Kast also confirmed that Ford would receive cell phone calls from Vaughn, instructing Ford on when and where to meet customers that had arranged a purchase. At the end of Ford's shift on approximately fifteen to twenty occasions, Kast explained that she drove Ford to Lockhart's house on Dewey Street so that he could drop off the money from the heroin sales and pass the cell phone along to either Vaughn or Lockhart.
Ashley Titus and Darrell Jackson also testified at trial. Both admitted to using heroin in the summer of 2010 and explained that they would contact an intermediary, Andre Simms, for the purchase of heroin. In their presence, Simms would make a phone call, and Titus and Jackson would then drive Simms to either of two typical locations where the person on the phone had directed him. Titus and Jackson would watch as Simms met with one of two distributors, who Titus and Jackson identified as Ford and Lockhart.
Simms confirmed Titus's and Jackson's testimony about the heroin deals he middled involving purchases from Ford and Lockhart. Simms also corroborated Ford's account of the manner in which heroin purchases from Ford changed during the summer of 2010, requiring Simms to call Vaughn to set up a purchase. When Simms called Vaughn, he would tell Vaughn that he wanted to purchase heroin, and Vaughn would then instruct Simms to meet with either Ford or Lockhart at a specified location.
Like Simms, Lawrence McShan served as an intermediary for heroin users in order to support his own heroin habit. McShan testified that in the summer of 2010, he would pick up heroin from Ford or Lockhart after calling a designated number to arrange a purchase. The person McShan called would direct him to meet with Ford during the morning hours and to meet with Lockhart during the evening hours. On one occasion when McShan met with Ford, McShan did not have enough money to cover his purchase. McShan recalled that Ford told him, ...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
United States v. Christensen
...Court will leave that decision to the Supreme Court. See Agostini v. Felton, 521 U.S. 203, 238 (1997); see also United States v. Vaughn, 722 F.3d 918, 926 (7th Cir. 2013) (following Agostini's command to leave to the Supreme Court "the prerogative of overruling its own decisions"). Second, ......
-
United States v. Arms
...initial pleading in a criminal matter - the indictment - is sufficient is governed by Fed. R. Crim. P. 7(c). See United States v. Vaughn, 722 F.3d 918, 926 (7th Cir. 2013) (declining to extend the Twombly / Iqbal civil pleading standards to criminal actions). As set forth above, "[a]n indic......
-
United States v. Hutchins
...suffice if it contains enough facts to provide the defendant with an understanding of the conduct at issue. United States v. Vaughn , 722 F.3d 918, 925 (7th Cir. 2013). "[T]he presence or absence of any particular fact is not dispositive." Id. (quoting White , 610 F.3d at 958–59 ). "A motio......
-
United States v. Vorley
...sufficiency of an indictment's allegations should be measured by the pleading standards applicable in civil cases. United States v. Vaughn , 722 F.3d 918, 926 (7th Cir. 2013) (declining "to adopt the civil pleading standards articulated by the Supreme Court in Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly......
-
Sentencing
...672, 698-99 (6th Cir. 2009) (prior sentence properly considered when within 10 years of commencement of instant offense); U.S. v. Vaughn, 722 F.3d 918, 935 (7th Cir. 2013) (prior sentence properly considered when imposed within 10 years of drug-dealing activity relevant to instant offense);......