United States v. Harold Griffin , 582 F. App'x 119 ( 2014 )

NOT PRECEDENTIAL
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT
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No. 12-3022
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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
v.
HAROLD GRIFFIN,
Appellant
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On Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania
(No. 2-07-cr-00028-001)
District Judge: Hon. Paul S. Diamond
Submitted Pursuant to Third Circuit LAR 34.1(a)
September 27, 2013
Before: CHAGARES, VANASKIE, and SHWARTZ, Circuit Judges.
(Filed: July 29, 2014)
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OPINION
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CHAGARES, Circuit Judge.
Harold Griffin appeals his conviction by a jury of possession of a firearm and
ammunition by a convicted felon. He also appeals the sentence imposed by the United
States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. For the following reasons,
we will affirm.
I.
We write solely for the parties’ benefit and thus recite only the facts essential to
our disposition. Sergeant Walt Medycki responded to a radio call, early in the morning
of May 20, 2006, which reported that shots had been fired at Old York Road and Godfrey
Avenue in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Medycki observed Harold Griffin at the nearby
intersection of Old York Road and Stenton Avenue and believed Griffin was carrying a
gun. He approached Griffin and, Medycki testified at trial, Griffin pointed the barrel of
the rifle he was holding at Medycki’s chest. Griffin offered a justification defense, which
he articulates before this Court as well, that he obtained the gun after struggling with an
assailant who attempted to rob him. Griffin claims that his left ankle was grazed by a
shot fired during the struggle, that he told Sergeant Medycki about the wound, but that
Sergeant Medycki “wouldn’t listen and ordered [him] to get against the cruiser.” Griffin
Br. 13.
During the voir dire process, a prospective juror remarked before the jury pool that
his “brother’s only daughter was viciously murdered by a handgun that — that — that
person had no business having.” Supplemental Appendix (“S.A.”) 73. The District
Court denied Griffin’s request to dismiss the jury panel, and instead issued a detailed
curative instruction. The jury found Griffin guilty of possession of a firearm and
ammunition as a convicted felon, pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1). The District Court
denied Griffin’s motion, brought pursuant to Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 33(a),
to vacate the jury verdict and grant a new trial.
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The District Court held the final sentencing hearing on July 12, 2012, where it
adopted the recommendations contained in the Presentence Investigation Report (“PSR”).
S.A. 552. The PSR calculated that, although Griffin’s base offense level was twenty-
four, Griffin’s three prior convictions meant that his final offense level was thirty-three,
pursuant to the “armed career criminal” provision of the advisory United States
Sentencing Guidelines (“U.S.S.G.”). See U.S.S.G. § 4B1.4(b)(3)(B); see also 18 U.S.C.
§ 924(e). Griffin filed a motion to reduce his sentence pursuant to U.S.S.G. § 5K2.11,
which permits the sentencing court to reduce a sentence when it finds that the defendant
“commit[ted] a crime in order to avoid a perceived greater harm.” The District Court
denied the motion. Although Griffin attempted to cooperate with the Government, the
Government did not file a motion for downward departure pursuant to U.S.S.G. § 5K1.1,
and the District Court denied Griffin’s request for an evidentiary hearing on the
Government’s decision not to file a § 5K1.1 motion.
The District Court sentenced Griffin to 262 months of imprisonment. Griffin now
appeals the District Court’s decision not to strike the jury panel, the denial of Griffin’s
motion for a new trial, the designation of Griffin as a career offender pursuant to 18
U.S.C. § 924(e), the District Court’s denial of Griffin’s motion pursuant to U.S.S.G.
§ 5K2.11, the denial of Griffin’s motion to compel the Government to file a § 5K1.1
motion, and, finally, the sentence imposed by the District Court, which Griffin argues
was substantively unreasonable.
II.
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The District Court had jurisdiction over this matter pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 3231,
and we have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291. However, we lack jurisdiction over
Griffin’s claims that “attack[] the district court’s exercise of discretion in refusing to
reduce the sentences below the sentencing guidelines.” United States v. Denardi, 892
F.2d 269, 272 (3d Cir. 1989).
We review a district court’s denial of a motion to dismiss the jury panel for abuse
of discretion. United States v. Jones, 566 F.3d 353, 359 (3d Cir. 2009). Likewise, we
review the District Court’s denial of a Rule 33(a) motion for abuse of discretion. United
States v. Saada, 212 F.3d 210, 215 (3d Cir. 2000). As for the District Court’s designation
of a defendant as an armed career offender, “[w]e exercise plenary review over legal
questions about the meaning of the sentencing guidelines, but apply the deferential
clearly erroneous standard to factual determinations underlying their application.”
United States v. Inigo, 925 F.2d 641, 658 (3d Cir. 1991). Furthermore, “[w]e review a
district court’s decisions concerning departures from the Sentencing Guidelines for abuse
of discretion.” United States v. Abuhouran, 161 F.3d 206, 209 (3d Cir. 1998).
We review the substantive reasonableness of a district court’s sentence for abuse
of discretion. Gall v. United States, 552 U.S. 38, 51 (2007). This requires that we
consider “whether the final sentence, wherever it may lie within the permissible statutory
range, was premised upon appropriate and judicious consideration of the relevant
factors.” United States v. Doe, 617 F.3d 766, 770 (3d Cir. 2010). We apply a deferential
standard, affirming “unless no reasonable sentencing court would have imposed the same
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sentence on that particular defendant for the reasons the district court provided.” United
States v. Tomko, 562 F.3d 558, 568 (3d Cir. 2009).
III.
Griffin argues that the District Court abused its discretion in failing to dismiss the
entire jury panel when, during the voir dire process, a prospective juror declared that his
“brother’s only daughter was viciously murdered by a handgun that — that — that person
had no business having.” S.A. 73. We disagree. The District Court recognized the
potentially prejudicial nature of the prospective juror’s remarks, and properly addressed it
with a curative instruction that stressed that the prospective juror’s comment “was not an
appropriate thing to say,” that “[n]either Mr. Griffin nor any of the rest of us is complicit
in the crime” the prospective juror recounted, and that “the very terrible events that
according to [the prospective juror’s] statement befell [his] niece” have “nothing to do,
nothing to do with” Griffin’s case. S.A. 75. The court also reiterated that Griffin “sits
here presumed innocent of th[e] crime” for which he was on trial, and that the
Government would need to prove Griffin’s guilt “by the very, very heavy burden of
proof” required in criminal cases. Id. The District Court then asked the jurors whether
they had difficulties with the “constraints that are essential” to “due process both to the
government and Mr. Griffin” — namely, whether the jurors had difficulty
“avoid[ing] any kind of taint of transference of blame from one situation to another.”
S.A. 76-77. We hold that the District Court did not abuse its discretion in denying the
request to dismiss the jury panel after delivering this detailed instruction.
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We likewise hold that the District Court did not abuse its discretion in denying
Griffin’s motion for a new trial pursuant to Rule 33. Griffin presented a justification
defense at trial, and he argues before this Court that “fair consideration of the evidence
presented” at trial demonstrates that Griffin’s possession of the rifle was justified, and
that “the jury’s verdict of guilty [was] an egregious miscarriage of justice.” Griffin Br.
20. To establish a justification defense, the defendant must show the following:
(1) he was under unlawful and present threat of death or serious bodily
injury; (2) he did not recklessly place himself in a situation where he would
be forced to engage in criminal conduct; (3) he had no reasonable legal
alternative (to both the criminal act and the avoidance of the threatened
harm); and (4) there is a direct causal relationship between the criminal
action and the avoidance of the threatened harm.
United States v. Alston, 526 F.3d 91, 95 (3d Cir. 2008) (footnote omitted). Although
Griffin testified as to these elements of his defense at trial, and the District Court properly
instructed the jury as to the four elements, S.A. 399, the jury found Griffin guilty. As the
District Court explained, even though “Defendant’s testimony was not outlandish, nor
was the officers’ testimony so ironclad that it could not but be believed,” “jurors could
have, reasonably, chosen not to credit defendant’s testimony.” Attachments to Griffin’s
Br. 5. We agree, and hold that the District Court correctly denied Griffin’s motion for a
new trial on the grounds that the jury should have accepted his defense.
We further hold that the District Court did not err in classifying Griffin as a career
offender under the Armed Career Criminal Act (“ACCA”), 18 U.S.C. § 924(e)(1). That
subsection requires a sentence of a minimum of fifteen years of imprisonment for
individuals found to have violated 18 U.S.C. § 922(g) who have “three previous
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convictions . . . for a violent felony or a serious drug offense, or both.” Griffin argues
that his robbery convictions pursuant to arrests on June 20, 1989 and July 12, 1989
should be counted as a single conviction for the purposes of § 924(e)(1), since a single
sentence of imprisonment — representing the conduct charged on both arrests — was
imposed on September 27, 1990. However, pursuant to the June 20, 1989 arrest, Griffin
was charged with committing four robberies. In United States v. Schoolcraft, we adopted
the “separate episode test” to determine whether the ACCA’s sentence-enhancing
provision applies to “cases where the defendant received multiple convictions in a single
judicial proceeding.” 879 F.2d 64, 73 (3d Cir. 1989). We held that the separate episode
test requires “simply . . . that the criminal episodes be distinct in time”; “separate” does
not require that convictions be entered at different proceedings. Id. We therefore hold
that Griffin had the requisite number of convictions for proper application of § 924(e)(1).
Griffin’s additional argument, that the robbery convictions are “constitutionally
defective and, thereby, outside of 924(e),” Griffin Br. 27, because counsel who
represented him for the robbery convictions was ineffective, is also unavailing given that
the Supreme Court has held that “a defendant in a federal sentencing proceeding . . . has
no . . . right . . . to collaterally attack prior convictions.” Custis v. United States, 511 U.S.
485, 487 (1994). Finally, because this Court has held that, notwithstanding the Supreme
Court’s ruling in Apprendi v. New Jersey, 530 U.S. 466 (2000), the holding of
Almendarez-Torres v. United States, 523 U.S. 224 (1998), remains good law, “prior
convictions that increase the statutory maximum for an offense are not elements of the
offense and thus may be determined by the District Court by a preponderance of the
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evidence.” United States v. Coleman, 451 F.3d 154, 159 (3d Cir. 2006). Therefore, we
hold that the District Court properly applied § 924(e)(1) to Griffin’s case.
We do not consider Griffin’s argument that the District Court erred in rejecting his
request for a sentence reduction pursuant to U.S.S.G. § 5K2.11. In the instant case, the
District Court did hear Griffin’s request for a reduction under the lesser-harms provision,
and declined to reduce Griffin’s sentence. S.A. 509-11. We lack jurisdiction to consider
claims that “attack[] the district court’s exercise of discretion in refusing to reduce the
sentences below the sentencing guidelines.” Denardi, 892 F.2d at 272. Because the
District Court properly exercised its discretion when it declined to grant Griffin’s
requested reduction, we do not have jurisdiction to review it.
Griffin further argues that the District Court erred in denying his motion to compel
the Government to file a § 5K1.1 motion in light of Griffin’s efforts to cooperate with the
Government. Citing the Supreme Court’s holding in Wade v. United States, 504 U.S.
181 (1992), this Court has explained that a “prosecutor’s discretion to file [a § 5K1.1]
motion [is] almost unfettered: the government’s refusal [can] only be challenged if it was
based on an unconstitutional motive, like race or religion.” United States v. Isaac, 141
F.3d 477, 481 (3d Cir. 1998) (quotation marks omitted). Thus “[i]t follows that a claim
that a defendant merely provided substantial assistance will not entitle a defendant to a
remedy or even to discovery or an evidentiary hearing.” Id. Griffin has made no
showing that the Government’s refusal to make a § 5K1.1 motion stemmed from an
unconstitutional motive. Accordingly, we hold that the District Court did not err in
refusing to compel the Government to file such a motion.
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Griffin argues, finally, that his sentence is substantively unreasonable. He
contends that because the conduct underlying the instant conviction “was a victimless
non-violent offense,” since Griffin “surrendered and cooperated with authorities, . . . had
not committed a violent offense since 1989,” and had cooperated with the Government
for several years, a sentence of 262 months of imprisonment was greater than necessary
to achieve the relevant factors under 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a). Griffin Br. 45. Because we do
not believe that “no reasonable sentencing court would have imposed the same sentence
on that particular defendant for the reasons the district court provided,” we hold that
Griffin’s sentence was not substantively unreasonable. Tomko, 562 F.3d at 568.
IV.
For the foregoing reasons, we will affirm the District Court’s orders and the
judgments of conviction and sentence.
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