USA v. Wilson
| Citation | 624 F.3d 640 |
| Decision Date | 11 August 2010 |
| Docket Number | 09-4573.,No. 06-4180,06-4180 |
| Parties | UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Lorenzo Anthony WILSON, a/k/a Baby Ann, Defendant-Appellant. United States of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Lorenzo Anthony WILSON, a/k/a Baby Ann, Defendant-Appellant. |
| Court | United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (4th Circuit) |
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ARGUED: Robert Kelsey Kry, Mololamken, LLP, Washington, D.C., for Appellant. Sandra Wilkinson, Office of the United States Attorney, Greenbelt, Maryland, for Appellee. ON BRIEF: Mary Elizabeth Davis, Davis & Davis, Washington, D.C.; Paul F. Enzinna, Baker Botts LLP, Washington, D.C., for Appellant. Rod J. Rosenstein, United States Attorney, Baltimore, Maryland, Deborah Johnston, Assistant United States Attorney, Office of the United States Attorney, Greenbelt, Maryland, for Appellee.
Before MOTZ and AGEE, Circuit Judges, and HAMILTON, Senior Circuit Judge.
Affirmed by published opinion. Judge AGEE wrote the opinion, in which Judge MOTZ and Senior Judge HAMILTON joined.
Lorenzo A. Wilson appeals from his conviction for conspiracy to kidnap, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1201(c) and § 2, his sentence of life imprisonment for that offense, and the district court's order denying his post-sentencing motions for a new trial. For the reasons set forth below, we affirm.
Wilson, Kenneth Jamal Lighty, and James Everett Flood, III, were charged in a five-count bill of indictment with kidnapping resulting in the death of Eric Hayes, and aiding and abetting the same, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1201(a) and § 2 (“Count I”), conspiracy to kidnap, and aiding and abetting the same, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1201(c) and § 2 (“Count II”), and three counts of using a firearm in furtherance of a crime of violence, and aiding and abetting the same, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) and § 2 (“Counts III, IV, and V,” respectively).
Wilson's case was severed from the joint trial of Lighty and Flood because of statements Wilson made implicating them. Following a jury trial, Wilson was convicted of Count II, conspiracy to kidnap, but acquitted of the other charges. Wilson was sentenced to life imprisonment. In their separate trial, Lighty and Flood were found guilty on all counts. Flood was sentenced to life imprisonment on the kidnapping conviction and a sixty-five year consecutive sentence on the remaining counts, while Lighty received the death penalty for the kidnapping conviction and a consecutive fifty-five year sentence on the remaining counts. 1 The parties noted separate, timely appeals, which were subsequently placed in abeyance pending the district court's resolution of motions by Wilson and Lighty for a new trial. After a joint evidentiary hearing, the district court denied those motions, and both Wilson and Lighty noted timely appeals from those orders as well. 2 Because the cases of Wilson, Lighty, and Flood overlap in significant respects, not only in the underlying facts and evidence presented at the respective trials, but also in two of the legal issues raised, this opinion refers to or quotes without citation from our decision in Lighty and Flood's appeal, United States v. Lighty, 616 F.3d 321 (4th Cir.2010). A more detailed factual summary is contained in Lighty. Briefly, though, the evidence adduced at Wilson's trial showed the following.
On the evening of January 3, 2002, Eric Hayes (also known as “Eazy” 3 ) and his friend, Antoine Forrest, were on Eighth Street, S.E., Washington D.C., when two men in a dark Lincoln Continental exited the vehicle and asked if they could purchase drugs. Hayes walked with the men toward an alley in order to complete the transaction. After several minutes, Forrest approached the alley and observed that one of the men from the Lincoln was holding Hayes at gunpoint over the front hood of the vehicle. The second man from the vehicle approached Forrest, brandishing a firearm. Forrest fled the scene, and when he returned a short time later, Hayes, the other two men, and the Lincoln were gone.
At approximately 8:30 p.m. the same evening, Michael Davis and Robert Smith, Jr., who both lived in the 12800 block of Hillcrest Parkway in Temple Hills, Maryland, observed a dark Lincoln Continental parked at the end of that street adjacent to vacant land. Davis saw the front passenger and rear passenger exit the vehicle and forcibly pull a man, later identified as Hayes, out of the back passenger area of the vehicle. Hayes was protesting “no” or “don't” while on his knees, and then fell over after Davis heard what sounded like two gunshots. Davis testified that after the shots were fired, the passengers of the vehicle reentered the vehicle on the passenger side and the vehicle departed. Smith also testified that he saw Hayes being shot that evening. Smith was located further away from the vehicle than Davis' location. Smith saw two individuals exit from the passenger side of the vehicle, and heard gunshots, after which one person reentered the vehicle on the passenger side. Smith and Davis separately approached the area where Hayes' body lay, and placed 911 calls to report the incident. Telephone records introduced into evidence showed a 911 call placed at 8:50 p.m. reporting Hayes' body. Police subsequently retrieved two .380 caliber shell casings from the scene.
Between 8:43 p.m. and 9:03 p.m., Wilson-who did not own a cell phone-used Flood's cell phone at least seven times to communicate with his girlfriend, Krystal Phauls. Wilson instructed Phauls to meet him on Iverson Street in Hillcrest Heights, a location less than two miles from where Hayes was shot. Phauls and her friend Melissa Coles drove to Iverson Street in Phauls' vehicle, and picked up Wilson, Lighty, and Flood 4 as the final telephone call between Flood and Phauls' cell phones ended (approximately 9:03 p.m.).
The three men sat in the back seat of Phauls' vehicle. Lighty, seated in the middle, held a pair of Nike shoes and had blood on his T-shirt. The men talked about having “done something bad or killed someone.” At their direction, Phauls drove to the 2500 block of Keating Street. There, the men got out of the vehicle, looked at the ground, and one of them said “something about blood.” Phauls then dropped Lighty off at an apartment complex in Hillcrest Heights and returned to her home. 5 Coles departed, and Phauls and Wilson went to dinner.
On returning to Phauls' home after dinner, Wilson told Phauls that he had driven Flood's vehicle when he, Lighty, and Flood “grabbed” “the boy” “Eazy” on 8th Street. Wilson assured Phauls he had not killed “the boy,” and said Lighty had shot him. As Phauls and Wilson spoke, a two-way black pager went off. Wilson looked at it, said, “the guy wasn't lying, his name is Eazy,” and Phauls saw that the screen said “Eazy” on it. 6 (J.A. 189-96.)
The next day Wilson telephoned Phauls and told her to turn on the television. She did so, and the news was reporting Hayes' murder. Phauls asked Wilson if he had done it, and Wilson again told her he had only driven the vehicle, and that Lighty had shot Hayes.
Wilson also told his friend CW 7 that he had participated in the Hayes kidnapping. CW testified Wilson said he “was riding with [Lighty] and [Flood] and someone else [and that the men] road up 8th Street and [Lighty] got out [of] the car, [and] asked a guy for some drugs or something.” “When the guy went and got the drugs or whatever, when he was coming back towards [Lighty], [Lighty] snatched him, pulled out his gun, made the dude get in the car, and they pulled off....” (J.A. 415-20.)
On January 30, 2002, less than one month after the Hayes kidnapping and murder, Lighty and Wilson were involved in a drive-by shooting on Afton Street in Temple Hills, Maryland (“the Afton Street Shooting”), which resulted in the death of Antoine Newbill. Over Wilson's objection, the Government introduced evidence of the Afton Street shooting, including Wilson's confession to CW to having participated in the event, eyewitness testimony regarding the shooting, and ballistics evidence regarding the firearms used in the shooting. That evidence is described in greater detail below and in the Lighty opinion.
Lighty was arrested on the evening of January 31, 2002. At the time of his arrest, he was carrying a .380 caliber handgun. Phauls testified that Wilson told her of Lighty's arrest and that he said Lighty had been arrested with “the gun that he used to kill the two boys with.” (J.A. 198.) CW also testified that after Lighty was arrested, Wilson told him the handgun Lighty had been arrested with had “a body or two on it” from “Afton [Street]” and “Eighth Street.” (J.A. 415-16.)
Brett Mills, an FBI firearms examiner, analyzed the two .380 caliber shell casings recovered from the Hayes murder scene, a .380 caliber shell casing recovered from the Afton Street Shooting scene, and the handgun seized from Lighty at the time of his arrest. Based on his analysis, Mills was able to conclude that the shell casing recovered from the Afton Street Shooting was fired by Lighty's .380 caliber handgun (to the exclusion of all other firearms). Mills also concluded that the two .380 caliber shell casings recovered from the Hayes murder scene shared numerous rifling characteristics in common with shell casings from Lighty's .380 caliber handgun. However, he could not conclude to the exclusion of all other firearms that Lighty's handgun had fired the shell casings recovered from the Hayes murder scene. Similarly, while bullets retrieved from Hayes' body were consistent with and possessed similar rifling characteristics to bullets fired from Lighty's gun, Mills could not make a definitive conclusion that Lighty's handgun had fired those bullets. 8
Dr. Laron Locke, a medical...
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