United States v. Santiago , 344 F. App'x 847 ( 2009 )

UNPUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 07-5094
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff - Appellee,
v.
LANNIKKO SANTIAGO,
Defendant - Appellant.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of
Maryland, at Baltimore. William D. Quarles, Jr., District
Judge. (1:06-cr-00570-WDQ-1)
Submitted: August 21, 2009 Decided: September 18, 2009
Before MOTZ, KING, and DUNCAN, Circuit Judges.
Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.
James Wyda, Federal Public Defender, Martin G. Bahl, Staff
Attorney, Baltimore, Maryland, for Appellant. Rod J.
Rosenstein, United States Attorney, Michael C. Hanlon, Assistant
United States Attorney, Baltimore, Maryland, for Appellee.
Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
PER CURIAM:
Lannikko Santiago appeals his jury conviction and
sentence on charges of possession of a firearm and ammunition by
a convicted felon, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1) (2006)
(Count One), and possession of a firearm with an obliterated
serial number, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(k) (2006) (Count
Two). The district court sentenced Santiago to 120 months’
imprisonment on Count One and 60 months’ imprisonment on Count
Two, to run concurrent with Count One, for a total term of 120
months, and imposed a three-year term of supervised release as
to Counts One and Two, to run concurrently with each other.
Santiago claims three errors on appeal. First, he challenges
the district court’s denial of his pre-trial motion to suppress
the firearm on the ground that the traffic stop was invalid.
Second, he claims error by the district court in allowing the
admission at trial of evidence of his gang membership. Finally,
Santiago challenges the sufficiency of the evidence supporting
his conviction on Count Two. For the reasons that follow, we
affirm.
The basis for Santiago’s Fourth Amendment challenge to
the district court’s denial of his motion to suppress the
firearm found in plain view in the backseat of the vehicle in
which Santiago was a passenger is his assertion that police
officers did not have probable cause to stop the vehicle. This
2
court reviews legal conclusions underlying the denial of a
motion to suppress de novo, and factual findings for clear
error. United States v. Moreland, 437 F.3d 424, 429 (4th Cir.
2006).
In his statement of probable cause, one of the three
arresting police officers, Detective Dennis Workley, stated that
the three officers observed the Crown Victoria “drive through
Montford and Preston Streets at a slow rate of speed.” He
further stated, “The vehicle then traveled eastbound and rolled
through the stop sign at Preston and Port Street. The vehicle
then made a right hand turn into the 1200 block of N. Milton
Ave., traveling southbound.” The police subsequently conducted
a traffic stop of the vehicle, based on the stop sign violation,
which stop and search resulted in the discovery of the firearm
at issue.
At the suppression hearing, Detective Workley
testified that he and officers Louis Holley and Lamont Davis
noticed a Crown Victoria driving at an unusually slow rate of
speed north on Montford Street. The officers followed the car
and witnessed it make a number of turns around the neighborhood.
After detailing the route taken by the Crown Victoria, Detective
Workley testified that he saw the car make a “rolling stop”
through the stop sign at the Port Street/Preston Street
intersection before continuing on to Milton.
3
Santiago claimed that the statement of probable cause
was inconsistent with Detective Workley’s hearing testimony,
alleging that the report implied a right hand turn directly from
Montford to Preston, rather than the intervening drive down
Hoffman and Port Streets described during the testimony. During
the hearing on the motion to suppress, Detective Workley agreed
the report would have been more accurate if it had provided a
complete description of the car’s activities, including its
turns on Hoffman. In addition, both Detectives Workley and
Holley testified at the motions hearing that the Crown Victoria
was traveling southbound on Port Street when it committed the
stop sign violation, in some contrast to Detective Workley’s
probable cause statement that it “traveled eastbound and rolled
through the stop sign at Preston and Port Street.” 1
At the conclusion of the hearing, the district court
found no literal inaccuracy in the probable cause statement,
that is, that the Crown Victoria had traveled through the
Montford/Preston intersection, had turned right, and had run a
stop sign at Preston and Port, which was consistent with the
testimony of both detectives. The district court ruled that the
1
While acknowledging that the report provided an incomplete
description of the various routes and turns taken by the car, in
that it omitted the reference to Hoffman and Port, the
Government alleged that the probable cause statement was written
as a summary.
4
traffic stop was not unconstitutional, that the police had
properly stopped the car in which Santiago was a passenger,
after determining that the car had run a stop sign, and then
denied Santiago’s motion to suppress the firearm.
We find no “definite and firm conviction that a
mistake has been committed,” 2 and therefore find no clear error
by the district court in its construction of the Detective
Workley’s statements in his probable cause statement. There is
no ambiguity or disagreement between Detective Workley’s and
Holley’s statements at the hearing and the statement supporting
probable cause that the car in which Santiago was a passenger
travelled “through Montford and Preston Streets” then “traveled
eastbound” and failed to make a complete stop at the Port Street
stop sign. Moreover, the district court was in the best
position to make the determination of whether the report was
consistent with the testimony of the police officers. See
United States v. Stevenson, 396 F.3d 538, 543 (4th Cir. 2005).
That the report could have been more clear and perhaps more
detailed is of no moment. The fact remains that it is
consistent in the material fact—that is that the vehicle ran a
stop sign and that that violation gave rise to probable cause to
2
See United States v. United States Gypsum Co., 333 U.S.
364, 395 (1948); United States v. Singh, 363 F.3d 347, 354 (4th
Cir. 2004)
5
stop the vehicle and to subsequently search the vehicle, which
led to the discovery of the firearm that was in plain view. The
district court’s denial of Santiago’s motion to suppress was not
clearly erroneous.
Santiago next claims error by the district court in
allowing the admission at trial of evidence of his gang
membership. Specifically, following the reading of his Miranda 3
rights, Santiago told Detective Workley that he was a member of
a street gang called the “MOB Pirus,” a set of the Bloods, a Los
Angeles-based street gang. He admitted that he was a member of
a particular subgroup, the “bounty hunters,” who were employed
by the Bloods to take violent action against rival groups,
including other Bloods sets if so instructed by the gang. He
stated that his set was engaged in a conflict with an eastern
Baltimore gang called the “L Gang,” and that the Bloods had
placed an “EOS” on the L Gang. 4 Santiago’s admissions relative
to his gang membership and photographs of tattoos depicting his
3
See Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 (1966).
4
Detective Workley was qualified by the district court as
an expert in gang operations and jargon, and testified at trial
that “EOS” stood for “eat on sight,” which meant that the Bloods
had issued an order calling for its members to carry out
violence against any members of the L Gang. Detective Workley
also testified that the neighborhood in which Santiago was
arrested was the territory of the L Gang.
6
membership in the Bloods organization were disclosed to the jury
at trial.
Fed. R. Evid. 403 is a rule of inclusion, "generally
favor[ing] admissibility . . . ." United States v. Wells, 163
F.3d 889, 896 (4th Cir. 1998). District judges enjoy wide
discretion to determine what evidence is admissible under the
Rule. See United States v. Love, 134 F.3d 595, 603 (4th Cir.
1998). We "review a district court’s admission of evidence over
a Rule 403 objection under a broadly deferential standard." Id.(internal quotations omitted). Indeed, "[a] district court’s
decision to admit evidence over a Rule 403 objection will not be
overturned except under the most extraordinary of circumstances,
where that discretion has been plainly abused." United States
v. Williams, 445 F.3d 724, 732 (4th Cir. 2006) (internal
quotations omitted). In reviewing the admission of evidence, we
construe the evidence in the “light most favorable to its
proponent, maximizing its probative value and minimizing its
prejudicial effect.” United States v. Simpson, 910 F.2d 154,
157 (4th Cir. 1990).
Here, we find that Santiago’s membership in the
Bloods, his admission of being a bounty hunter, and his presence
in rival gang territory explain the reason he was carrying a
firearm—to facilitate his gang activities. The gang evidence
was, therefore, intrinsic to the firearm possession as it
7
provided the reason for the gun possession, 5 and provided the
jury with background information as to the possession of the
firearm. 6 Nor do we find that, in this case, the probative value
of the evidence was “substantially outweighed by the danger of
unfair prejudice, confusion of the issues, or misleading the
jury, or by considerations of undue delay, waste of time, or
needless presentation of cumulative evidence.” Fed. R. Crim. P.
403. See United States v. Basham, 561 F.3d 302, 329 (4th Cir.
2009) (citing United States v. Grimmond, 137 F.3d 823, 832 (4th
Cir. 1998)). We cannot say that the district court’s admission
of the evidence of Santiago’s gang membership was an abuse of
discretion.
Santiago’s final challenge on appeal is to the
sufficiency of the evidence on the charge of knowing possession
of a firearm with an obliterated serial number. We are obliged
to sustain a guilty verdict if, viewing the evidence in the
light most favorable to the prosecution, the verdict is
supported by substantial evidence. United States v. Burgos, 94
F.3d 849, 862 (4th Cir. 1996) (en banc) (citing Glasser v.
United States, 315 U.S. 60, 80 (1942)). We have defined
5
See United States v. Chin, 83 F.3d 83, 88 (4th Cir. 1996).
6
See United States v. Kennedy, 32 F.3d 876, 885, 886 (4th
Cir. 1994).
8
“substantial evidence” as “evidence that a reasonable finder of
fact could accept as adequate and sufficient to support a
conclusion of a defendant’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.”
Burgos, 94 F.3d at 862. We “consider circumstantial as well as
direct evidence, and allow the government the benefit of all
reasonable inferences from the facts proven to those sought to
be established,” United States v. Tresvant, 677 F.2d 1018, 1021
(4th Cir. 1982), and we assume that the jury resolved all
contradictions in the testimony in favor of the Government.
United States v. Brooks, 524 F.3d 549, 563 (4th Cir.), cert.
denied, 129 S. Ct. 519 (2008). We “can reverse a conviction on
insufficiency grounds only when the prosecution’s failure is
clear.” United States v. Moye, 454 F.3d 390, 394 (4th Cir.
2006) (en banc) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted).
Pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 922(k), it is “unlawful for
any person knowingly to transport, ship, or receive, in
interstate or foreign commerce, any firearm which has had the
importer’s or manufacturer’s serial number removed, obliterated,
or altered and has, at any time, been shipped or transported in
interstate or foreign commerce.” To establish a violation of
§ 922(k), the Government must prove, beyond a reasonable doubt,
that Santiago: (1) knowingly possessed the firearm, and (2) had
knowledge that the serial number of the possessed firearm had
been removed, obliterated, or altered. See United States v.
9
Johnson, 381 F.3d 506, 508 (5th Cir. 2004); see also United
States v. Sullivan, 455 F.3d 248, 261 (4th Cir. 2006) (“The
defendant must know of the alteration.”).
Santiago asserts on appeal that there was no evidence
to suggest that he regularly carried the firearm in question, or
that he was aware that the firearm in question had an
obliterated serial number. However, while simply carrying a
firearm is insufficient to establish a violation of § 922(k),
the evidence here was that Santiago possessed the firearm as a
gang member, in rival gang territory, and at a time when he was
expected to perform his duty as a “bounty hunter” to “eat on
sight” members of the enemy gang. It was, therefore, reasonable
for the jury to find that Santiago would have possessed a
firearm with an obliterated serial number, rather than one that
could have been more easily traced or identifiable, and that
Santiago would have been familiar with the weapon he was
carrying in connection with that activity such that he would
know the firearm had an obliterated serial number. 7 Thus,
viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the
prosecution, we find that the jury’s verdict on Count Two is
supported by substantial evidence. See Burgos, 94 F.3d at 862.
7
In addition, the evidence revealed that the gun displayed
physical evidence of scratches and obliteration.
10
Accordingly, we affirm Santiago’s conviction and
sentence. We dispense with oral argument because the facts and
legal contentions are adequately presented in the materials
before the court and argument would not aid the decisional
process.
AFFIRMED
11