United States v. Williams

974 F.3d 320

UNITED STATES of America

v.Jabree WILLIAMS, a/k/a "Minute", Rolando Cruz, Jr., Marc Hernandez, a/k/a Marky D.,

Roscoe Villega,

Eugene Rice, also known as "B Mor",

Douglas Kelly,

Angel Schueg, a/k/a "Pocko",

Maurice Atkinson,

Anthony Sistrunk a/k/a "Kanye",

Tyree Eatmon, a/k/a Ree.

Nos. 17-2111

17-3191

17-3373

17-3586

17-3711

17-3777

18-1012

18-1324

18-2468

19-1037

United States Court of Appeals, Third Circuit.

Argued December 10, 2019

Filed: September 10, 2020

OPINION OF THE COURT

FISHER, Circuit Judge.

In mid-September 2014, a federal grand jury in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania returned an indictment of twenty-one men from the South Side neighborhood of York, Pennsylvania. All twenty-one were charged on counts of racketeering conspiracy, drug-trafficking conspiracy, and drug trafficking. Four were also variously charged with federal firearms offenses related to the alleged trafficking. Although so called because of its geographic location in the city, South Side, the indictment alleged, had constituted since 2002 the identity of a criminal enterprise associated through its upper echelons with the Bloods, a national street gang. At the heart of the enterprise, it was said, lay an extensive drug-trafficking operation, conducted across a defined territory and nurtured in part through sporadic episodes of occasionally deadly violence involving rival gangs, gang affiliates, and, collaterally, members of the general public.

Over the course of the ensuing year, several of the defendants pleaded guilty. Twelve, however, proceeded to a joint trial, held over eight weeks from September to November 2015. The jury heard from well over one hundred witnesses, including some of the original twenty-one who chose to cooperate with the Government in the hope of a reduced sentence. The picture that emerged was of lives characterized by cycles of crime and incarceration, stretching across more than a decade and punctuated by moments of significant and sometimes reckless violence. The witnesses depicted widespread drug dealing in crack cocaine and heroin. They told of territorial rivalries, market competition, and personal feuds. They recounted episodes of threat and retaliation, attack and retribution. But they also described friendship, loyalty, and loss; pride and fear; ambition, and great ability left unrealized. In the end, all twelve defendants were convicted on one or more of the charges against them, and in the years thereafter were sentenced to, among other things, terms of imprisonment ranging from sixty months to life.

Ten of the twelve (the Defendants) now appeal their convictions and sentences on a variety of grounds, advanced both severally and collectively. These issues, which span more or less all the relevant phases of a criminal prosecution, can be divided into five categories. First, most of the Defendants contend that because the District Court's closure of the courtroom to the public during jury selection violated their Sixth Amendment right to a public trial, their convictions should be reversed and a new trial ordered under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 52(b). Second, two Defendants claim that the District Court's in camera disposition of a challenge under Batson v. Kentucky , 476 U.S. 79, 106 S.Ct. 1712, 90 L.Ed.2d 69 (1986), both violated their constitutional right to personal presence at all critical phases of their criminal trial and was sufficiently prejudicial to warrant reversal of their convictions. Third, several Defendants bring evidentiary challenges. Two appeal the District Court's denial of their motions to suppress evidence collected from their residences pursuant to search warrants. Still more Defendants assert various errors regarding the admission and use of evidence at trial. Fourth, nearly all the Defendants contend that the evidence was insufficient to support one or more of the verdicts against them. These challenges ask us to clarify, among other things, the effect of our recent decision in United States v. Rowe , 919 F.3d 752 (3d Cir. 2019) —and thereby of the Supreme Court's decision in Alleyne v. United States , 570 U.S. 99, 133 S.Ct. 2151, 186 L.Ed.2d 314 (2013) —upon our case law regarding the elements of a drug-trafficking conspiracy under 21 U.S.C. § 846. Finally, all the Defendants appeal their sentences, principally alleging procedural defects in the District Court's judgments.

For the reasons that follow, we will affirm the Defendants’ judgments of conviction. We will also affirm the judgments of sentence of Jabree Williams and Eugene Rice. But we will vacate either in whole or in part the other Defendants’ judgments of sentence, and remand the cases of Marc Hernandez and Angel Schueg for resentencing proceedings consistent with this opinion.

I. BACKGROUND

A. Investigation and Indictment

These cases began with an act of cooperative federalism.¹ At the initiation of, and together with, local law enforcement, the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) conducted a multiyear investigation into drug trafficking and violence in the city of York, Pennsylvania. The investigation centered on what the Government called "the Southside Gang," after the neighborhood in which it was said to operate. Over the first decade of the current century, York law enforcement officials perceived in the city a pattern of escalating violence that they attributed primarily to a rivalry between the South Side and Parkway, another supposed gang, named for a public housing project in the northern part of York. The Government associated this violence, which also occasionally involved other neighborhood groups, with the widespread drug trafficking throughout the South Side. It was believed that the principal sources of these drugs—and concomitantly of the increased violence—were individuals affiliated with the Bloods, who had developed the South Side's existing drug trafficking into a more organized operation.

Legal proceedings began in mid-March 2014, when a grand jury in the Middle District of Pennsylvania returned an indictment of three men, Hernandez, Roscoe Villega, and Douglas Kelly, charging them on counts of drug-trafficking conspiracy and drug trafficking. Shortly thereafter, government officials obtained and executed search warrants for several locations across York, seizing (among other things) drugs, drug paraphernalia, cellphones, and money. Some of this evidence, as well as some seized later, became the subject of an ongoing contest between the parties. Hernandez, Villega, and Kelly all pleaded not guilty, but before they could proceed to trial, a superseding indictment added Rolando Cruz, Jr. to the list of defendants and supplemented the drug counts with two federal firearms charges. Cruz also pleaded not guilty, but yet again, before a trial could occur, matters developed further.

In September, the grand jury returned a second superseding indictment that vastly expanded the scope and ambition of the prosecution. The indictment now listed twenty-one defendants, including the original four. It charged all twenty-one on three counts: (I) conspiracy to violate 18 U.S.C. § 1962(c) of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), 18 U.S.C. § 1962(d) ; (II) conspiracy to distribute a controlled substance, 21 U.S.C. § 846 ; and (III) distribution of a controlled substance, 21 U.S.C. § 841(a). Counts II and III specified drug quantities of 5 kilograms or more of powder cocaine, and 280 grams or more of crack cocaine.² Distribution at these quantities carries increased penalties. See 21 U.S.C. § 841(b)(1)(A). The indictment also included vestiges of its earlier iterations: three additional firearms charges against Cruz, Hernandez, Villega, and Kelly. Counts IV and V variously charged Hernandez and Cruz with the use of a firearm in relation to or in furtherance of a drug-trafficking crime, 18 U.S.C. § 924(c).³ And Count VI charged Cruz, Hernandez, Villega, and Kelly⁴ under 18 U.S.C. § 924(o) —conspiracy to violate § 924(c).

B. Jury Selection

One year later, in September 2015, twelve of the twenty-one defendants proceeded to a consolidated trial before the Honorable Yvette Kane. On Friday, September 18, with jury selection set to begin the following Monday, the District Court issued a series of orders related to the upcoming voir dire . See D. Ct. Dkt. Nos. 733-40. One such order stated:

AND NOW, on this 18th day of September, 2015, IT IS HEREBY ORDERED THAT due to courtroom capacity limitations, only (1) court personnel, (2) defendants, (3) trial counsel and support staff, and (4) prospective jurors shall be allowed in the courtroom during jury selection. No other individuals will be present except by express authorization of the Court.

App. 10.⁵ Other than the concern with "courtroom capacity limitations," there is no further indication in the record of the District Court's rationale for conditionally barring the public from the jury-selection proceedings. There is also no evidence of an objection to the order by either the prosecution or the defense, nor is there any evidence of a news organization or other member of the public either seeking the District Court's "express authorization" or being turned away by court officials after attempting to attend the proceedings.

Jury selection lasted for two days, concluding on Tuesday, September 22. During the process, Cruz's trial counsel, Michael Wiseman, brought a Batson challenge to the Government's first peremptory strike of a prospective juror. The District Court heard the objection in chambers rather than in the courtroom itself, announcing its decision to do so in open court. The District Court ultimately ruled that the Government's strike was not motivated by purposeful discrimination. After the hearing, several defense counsel, led by John Yaninek, counsel for Maurice Atkinson, objected to the District Court's decision to hear the challenge out of open court. The District...