United States v. Louis Martin , 657 F. App'x 193 ( 2016 )

UNPUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 14-4779
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff - Appellee,
v.
LOUIS MARTIN,
Defendant - Appellant.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of
Maryland, at Greenbelt. Roger W. Titus, District Judge. (8:13-
cr-00273-RWT-1)
Argued: May 12, 2016 Decided: September 16, 2016
Before TRAXLER and WYNN, Circuit Judges, and Norman K. MOON,
Senior United States District Judge for the Western District of
Virginia, sitting by designation.
Vacated and remanded by unpublished per curiam opinion.
ARGUED: William A. Mitchell, Jr., BRENNAN MCKENNA MANZI SHAY
LEVAN CHARTERED, Greenbelt, Maryland, for Appellant. Leah
Bressack, OFFICE OF THE UNITED STATES ATTORNEY, Greenbelt,
Maryland, for Appellee. ON BRIEF: Rod J. Rosenstein, United
States Attorney, OFFICE OF THE UNITED STATES ATTORNEY,
Baltimore, Maryland, for Appellee.
Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
PER CURIAM:
Louis Martin was convicted by a jury of one count of
unlawful possession of a firearm by a felon, see 18 U.S.C. §
922(g)(1), and was sentenced to 210 months’ imprisonment.
Martin appeals, raising various challenges to his conviction and
sentence. We vacate his conviction and sentence and remand for
a new trial.
I.
In 2013, the FBI obtained an order authorizing the
interception of the telephone communications of Russell Battle.
Some of the monitored calls were between Battle and Martin, and
those calls ultimately led the FBI to obtain an order
authorizing the FBI to monitor Martin’s calls as well.
Based on the monitored conversations, the FBI believed that
Martin was planning a robbery of an armored car. The FBI also
heard Martin first seeking Battle’s help in obtaining a gun and
later telling Battle that he had “stumbled up on something” and
no longer needed Battle’s help. J.A. 383, 897. Based on the
information in the intercepted conversations, the FBI obtained a
search warrant for Martin’s home. Law enforcement officers
executed the warrant early in the morning of April 24, 2013.
During the execution of the search, Martin admitted to FBI
agents that he had been trying to buy a gun from Battle and
telling others that he was planning a robbery. While the search
2
was ongoing, the officers permitted Martin to get dressed and go
to his job. Sometime after Martin left, officers searching one
of the closets in the master bedroom found a .40 caliber pistol
tucked inside a stack of folded pants. The closet where the gun
was found contained only men’s clothes; the clothes belonging to
Martin’s wife were in a different closet.
Martin was subsequently arrested and charged with unlawful
possession of a firearm by a felon. At trial, the government
played recordings of many of the monitored telephone
conversations, including the conversation where Martin told
Battle that he had “stumbled up on something” and no longer
needed Battle’s help. Battle also testified for the government,
effectively serving as a translator of the frequently coded
conversations.
Martin’s defense was that the gun belonged to his wife and
that he had no knowledge of it until his wife called him while
the search was ongoing and told him that the officers had found
her gun. Martin’s wife testified that she bought the gun for
protection in 2011, when Martin was incarcerated, and that she
had not told Martin about the gun. She explained that she hid
the gun in Martin’s closet rather than hers because she slept on
the left side of the bed, and his closet was easier to reach
from that position. Mrs. Martin’s testimony about the gun was
supported by the testimony of a friend who was with her when she
3
first tried (unsuccessfully) to buy a gun and by the testimony
of another friend who was with Mrs. Martin when she later bought
the gun on the street from an acquaintance.
Martin also testified at trial, and he insisted that he did
not know about the gun before it was found in his closet.
Martin acknowledged asking Battle to get a gun for him, but he
contended that the gun was for someone else. Martin explained
that he used the “stumbled up on something” phrasing when
talking to Battle because he never told Battle that the gun was
for someone else and he needed to maintain the fiction that he
had been seeking the gun for himself.
The government argued to the jury that the gun found in the
closet was in fact the gun bought by Mrs. Martin. The
government contended that Martin told Battle that he had
stumbled on something because Martin had found the gun and thus
taken knowing possession of it. See Rebuttal Closing Argument,
Trial Transcript pp. 1006-008.
The jury rejected Martin’s defense and found him guilty.
Martin thereafter filed a motion seeking a new trial. In the
motion, Martin re-argued evidentiary issues that had been raised
at trial and also alleged that a court employee exerted undue
influence over a juror during deliberations. After conducting a
hearing, the district court denied the motion in an oral ruling
4
from the bench. At a subsequent sentencing hearing, the
district court sentenced Martin to 210 months’ imprisonment.
II.
Over Martin’s objection, the district court permitted the
government to introduce in its case-in-chief evidence of three
prior convictions under Rule 404(b) of the Federal Rules of
Evidence. 1 Martin argues on appeal that the evidence of his
prior convictions was not admissible under Rule 404(b) because
it was not relevant or necessary to prove the charged offense.
Martin also argues that, in any event, the evidence should have
been excluded as unfairly prejudicial. See Fed. R. Evid. 403
(“The court may exclude relevant evidence if its probative value
is substantially outweighed by a danger of . . . unfair
prejudice, confusing the issues, misleading the jury, undue
delay, wasting time, or needlessly presenting cumulative
evidence.”); United States v. Byers, 649 F.3d 197, 206 (4th Cir.
2011) (“[T]he probative value of [Rule 404(b)] evidence must not
be substantially outweighed by its prejudicial effect, which
1
Two of the convictions were for armed bank robberies
occurring in 1997 and 1998. The third was a 2006 conviction for
unlawful possession of a firearm, a charge that arose after
Martin crashed his car into a light pole and was seen throwing a
gun into bushes while walking away from the scene.
5
involves a Rule 403 determination.” (internal quotation marks
omitted)). We find no reversible error.
“Rule 404 generally prohibits evidence of other crimes or
bad acts to prove the defendant’s character and conduct in
accordance with his character.” United States v. McLaurin, 764
F.3d 372, 380 (4th Cir. 2014), cert. denied, 135 S. Ct. 1842
(2015), and cert. denied sub nom. Lowery v. United States, 135
S. Ct. 1843 (2015). “Such evidence, however, may be admissible
‘for another purpose, such as proving motive, opportunity,
intent, preparation, plan, knowledge, identity, or absence of
mistake, or lack of accident.’” Id. (quoting Fed. R. Evid.
404(b)). To be admissible under Rule 404(b), the evidence of
prior bad acts “(i) must be relevant to an issue other than
character, such as identity or motive; (ii) must be necessary to
prove an element of the crime charged or to prove context; and
(iii) must be reliable.” Byers, 649 F.3d at 206 (citations,
internal quotation marks and alteration omitted).
The district court admitted the prior convictions as
evidence of Martin’s knowledge and intent to possess the gun.
After reviewing the record, we cannot say that the district
court’s decision was “arbitrary or irrational.” United States
v. Faulls, 821 F.3d 502, 508 (4th Cir. 2016) (“We review
evidentiary rulings for abuse of discretion, and will not
reverse a district court’s decision to admit prior acts evidence
6
unless it was arbitrary or irrational.” (citation and internal
quotation marks omitted)).
Martin’s not-guilty plea and the defense he presented at
trial put at issue his knowledge of the gun and intent to
possess it. See United States v. Sanchez, 118 F.3d 192, 196
(4th Cir. 1997) (“A not-guilty plea puts one’s intent at issue
and thereby makes relevant evidence of similar prior crimes when
that evidence proves criminal intent.”). The prior convictions
bear sufficient similarity to the present case to make evidence
of the prior convictions relevant to Martin’s knowledge and
intent. 2 See United States v. Queen, 132 F.3d 991, 996 (4th Cir.
1997) (“[I]n order for repeated actions to have probative value,
the earlier actions must be similar in nature to the charged
2 While the prior convictions are not recent, the
convictions nonetheless remain relevant since Martin was
incarcerated for much of the time between those convictions and
the events giving rise to this charge. See United States v.
Queen, 132 F.3d 991, 998 (4th Cir. 1997) (finding nine-year-old
bad-act evidence relevant despite lapse of time “particularly
when the defendant has spent many of those intervening nine
years in prison”); accord United States v. Williams, 796 F.3d
951, 960 (8th Cir. 2015) (“[B]ecause Williams was incarcerated
for such a significant amount of time—approximately 12 of the 18
years since his 1995 conviction—the total number of years
separating the prior offenses and the charged offense did not
significantly diminish the probativeness of the evidence.”
(internal quotation marks and alteration omitted)), cert.
denied, 136 S. Ct. 1450 (2016).
7
acts.”). 3 Given the dearth of other evidence showing Martin’s
state of mind, the evidence of the prior convictions was
likewise necessary. See id. at 998 (“Evidence is necessary
where, considered in the light of other evidence available to
the government, it is an essential part of the crimes on trial,
or where it furnishes part of the context of the crime.”
(citation and internal quotation marks omitted)). Finally, the
evidence was reliable, as it consisted of certified court
records and statements of fact agreed to by Martin at the time
of those convictions.
Accordingly, we see no error in the district court’s
decision to admit evidence of Martin’s prior convictions under
Rule 404(b). See United States v. Walker, 470 F.3d 1271, 1274
(8th Cir. 2006) (“Evidence that a defendant possessed a firearm
on a previous occasion is relevant to show knowledge and intent,
and Walker’s prior conviction for armed robbery addresses the
material issue of his knowledge of the presence of the firearm
3For purposes of Rule 404(b), the necessary “similarity may
be demonstrated through physical similarity of the acts or
through the defendant’s indulging himself in the same state of
mind in the perpetration of both the extrinsic offense and
charged offenses.” Queen, 132 F.3d at 996. Given the evidence
connecting Martin’s efforts to obtain a gun to his stated plans
to rob an armored truck, Martin’s prior armed bank robberies
bear factual similarities to this case. Moreover, all of the
prior convictions share state-of-mind similarities to the
present case, as all involve the knowing possession or use of a
firearm.
8
and his intent to possess it.”); accord United States v. Moran,
503 F.3d 1135, 1144 (10th Cir. 2007); United States v. Jernigan,
341 F.3d 1273, 1281 (11th Cir. 2003); United States v. Cassell,
292 F.3d 788, 794-95 (D.C. Cir. 2002).
We likewise reject Martin’s claim that the probative value
of the prior convictions was substantially outweighed by the
unfair prejudice of the details of the underlying crimes that
were read to the jury by the government.
The government’s pre-trial motion seeking admission of the
prior convictions did not address the manner in which the
government intended to prove the convictions, and Martin did not
object when the government read the facts of the crimes to the
jury. Accordingly, we review this claim for plain error only.
See United States v. Williams, 81 F.3d 1321, 1325 (4th Cir.
1996) (“[M]otions in limine may serve to preserve issues that
they raise without any need for renewed objections at trial,
just so long as the movant has clearly identified the ruling
sought and the trial court has ruled upon it.” (emphasis
added)); id. (reviewing for plain error where “motion in limine
was not based upon nor did it seek a ruling on the precise issue
[the defendant] now seeks to raise” (emphasis added)).
“To obtain relief under plain-error review, [the defendant]
must first establish that the district court erred, that the
error was plain, and that it affected his substantial rights.”
9
McLaurin, 764 F.3d at 388 (internal quotation marks omitted)).
“Even when this burden is met, we have discretion whether to
recognize the error, and should not do so unless the error
seriously affects the fairness, integrity or public reputation
of judicial proceedings.” Id. (internal quotation marks
omitted).
While Martin contends that the government gave the jury
“in-depth descriptions” of the underlying convictions, Brief of
Appellant at 23, the government’s presentation of each
conviction was brief, with concise descriptions of the facts
presented in neutral, non-inflammatory language. Moreover, the
facts of the underlying crimes were not significantly more
violent than the armored-car robbery the jury heard Martin plan.
Under these circumstances, Martin has failed to show plain error
in the government’s manner of proving the prior convictions.
See United States v. Van Metre, 150 F.3d 339, 349, 350-51 (4th
Cir. 1998) (in case where defendant was charged with kidnapping,
concluding that defendant’s prior convictions for kidnapping and
rape were admissible under Rule 404(b) and finding no Rule 403
error in proving the prior convictions through the testimony of
the victim “detailing her kidnapping and sexual assault”).
10
III.
We turn now to Martin’s challenge to the district court’s
exclusion of a telephone conversation between Martin and James
Laidler.
A.
The Martin-Battle “stumbled up on something” conversation
played for the jury by the government was a call-waiting call
that interrupted a conversation between Martin and Laidler;
Martin put Laidler on hold, talked to Battle, and then returned
to his conversation with Laidler. In the first part of the
Martin-Laidler conversation, Laidler told Martin that he had
“straightened out” an unidentified situation. J.A. 923. Martin
then switched over to Battle’s incoming call and told Battle he
had “stumbled up on something,” J.A. 923, which Battle
understood to mean Martin no longer needed a gun. When Martin
returned to his conversation with Laidler, he explained that the
other call was from the “dude right there,” the “dude that was
doing a favor for me.” J.A. 924. After Martin told Laidler
that he told the “dude” (i.e., Battle) that Martin was “all
right,” Laidler responded, “Yeah, that’s right cause I don’t
need it now. . . .” J.A. 924.
At trial, Martin repeatedly sought to introduce the Martin-
Laidler conversations that bracketed his “stumbled up on
something” conversation with Battle. Martin argued that the
11
Laidler conversations were necessary to put the Battle
conversation used by the government in context and to support
his claim that he was never looking for a gun for himself. The
district court excluded the before-and-after conversations with
Laidler as hearsay.
B.
On appeal, Martin contends the district court erred by
excluding evidence of the Laidler conversations. According to
Martin, the statements made in the Laidler conversations are not
hearsay because they were not offered for the truth of the
matters asserted in the conversation. See Fed. R. Evid.
801(c)(2) (2012). 4 Martin contends the improper exclusion of the
evidence requires a new trial because the Laidler conversations
undercut the central premise of the government’s case -- that
Martin told Battle he had stumbled on something because Martin
found his wife’s gun hidden in the closet. We agree.
Hearsay is defined as an out-of-court statement that is
offered “to prove the truth of the matter asserted in the
statement.” Id. Statements that are offered to prove the
effect of the statement on the listener are not offered for
4 Rule 801 was amended effective December 1, 2014. Because
Martin’s trial took place before the effective date of the
amendments, we apply the version of the rule in effect at the
time of trial.
12
their truth and therefore do not fall within the definition of
hearsay. See United States v. Jenkins, 579 F.2d 840, 842 (4th
Cir. 1978). In this case, the Laidler conversations were not
being offered for the truth of the matter asserted in the
conversation -- in essence, that Laidler no longer needed the
gun that Martin was asking Battle to obtain. 5 Instead, the
conversations were offered to show the effect of Laidler’s
statements on Martin: Immediately upon learning that Laidler no
longer needed a gun, Martin told Battle that he no longer needed
a gun -- that he had “stumbled up on something.” Whether or not
Laidler actually needed a gun is irrelevant; after the
conversations with Laidler, Martin believed that Laidler no
longer needed a gun, which explains why Martin told Battle that
5 Counsel for Martin made oral proffers of the substance of
the Laidler conversations at trial, and submitted a transcript
of the conversation as an exhibit in connection with his motion
for a new trial. See J.A. 923-24.
Like the conversations between Martin and Battle, the
conversations between Laidler and Martin use guarded, cryptic
language, and the word “gun” never appears. Nonetheless, when
Laidler said, “that’s right cause I don’t need it now,” J.A.
924, it was in response to Martin’s explicit reference to the
“stumbled up on something” conversation he had just had with
Battle. Thus, when the Laidler conversations are considered
together with the Battle conversation, the Laidler conversations
can reasonably be understood as establishing that Laidler had
previously asked Martin to get a gun for him, that Martin turned
to Battle to get the gun for Laidler, and that Martin told
Battle he no longer needed a gun as soon as Martin learned that
Laidler no longer needed a gun.
13
he no longer needed a gun. The Laidler conversations were
therefore being offered to prove their effect on Martin -- to
explain his motive in setting Battle on, and later calling him
off of, the gun quest. See United States v. Leake, 642 F.2d
715, 720 (4th Cir. 1981) (statement to defendant about use of
returned funds was not hearsay because it was not offered to
prove that the money was, in fact, used as described to
defendant; its purpose was to show that the defendant believed
that the funds were being used legitimately); Jenkins, 579 F.2d
at 842 (“Insofar as elements of the taped conversations not
directly expressing Johnson’s intent were offered to prove that
intent, they were not hearsay, for the import of them was their
effect on her and not their truth.” (emphasis omitted)); see
also United States v. Leonard-Allen, 739 F.3d 948, 954 (7th Cir.
2013) (“A witness’s statement is not hearsay if the witness is
reporting what he heard someone else tell him for the purpose of
explaining what the witness was thinking at the time or what
motivated him to do something. In those circumstances, the out-
of-court statement is not being offered as evidence that its
contents are true.”).
14
Because the Laidler conversations were not offered for the
truth of the matters asserted in the conversations, 6 we agree
with Martin that the district court erred by excluding evidence
of the conversations as hearsay.
C.
Having concluded that the district court erred by excluding
evidence of the Laidler conversations, we must determine whether
this error requires reversal.
Preliminarily, we reject the government’s claim that Martin
failed to preserve the not-hearsay issue he raises on appeal.
Counsel for Martin premised his arguments for admission of the
Laidler conversations on many grounds; while his focus may have
been elsewhere, counsel nonetheless sufficiently raised at trial
the not-hearsay argument now raised on appeal. See J.A. 752
(“Your Honor, it explains why it is that Mr. Martin made the
6 This analysis applies to both sides of the Laidler
conversations -- the statements made by Martin were offered not
for their truth, but to show their effect on Laidler, just as
the statements made by Laidler were offered to show their effect
on Martin. In any event, as Laidler’s statements in the
conversations are clearly admissible, Martin’s side of the
conversations would nonetheless be admissible to provide the
context for Laidler’s statements to Martin and Martin’s
statements to Battle. See United States v. Leake, 642 F.2d 715,
720 n.6 (4th Cir. 1981) (“Leake’s [admissible, non-hearsay]
testimony regarding his conversation with Graham would be
meaningless unless both sides of the conversation were recounted
to the jury. Graham’s statements to Leake were admissible,
therefore, as necessary to explain the context in which Leake
made the statements revealing his state of mind.”).
15
request of Mr. Battle which is what we have been talking about
this entire time. . . .”). Because the issue was raised below,
it is preserved for appeal and subject to harmless-error, not
plain-error, review. See United States v. Ellyson, 326 F.3d
522, 530–31 (4th Cir. 2003) (issues preserved below are reviewed
for harmless error on appeal); United States v. Lowe, 65 F.3d
1137, 1144 (4th Cir. 1995) (applying plain-error review to
argument asserting basis for admission that was not argued to
district court). And under harmless-error review, we believe
that reversal is required.
To prove that the improper exclusion of the Laidler
conversations was harmless, “the Government must demonstrate
that the error did not have a substantial and injurious effect
or influence in determining the jury’s verdict.” United States
v. Ibisevic, 675 F.3d 342, 349 (4th Cir. 2012) (internal
quotation marks omitted).
An appellate court does not inquire into whether
absent the error sufficient evidence existed to
convict, but rather whether we believe it highly
probable that the error did not affect the judgment.
Thus, [to find an error harmless,] we must be able to
say, with fair assurance, after pondering all that
happened without stripping the erroneous action from
the whole, that the judgment was not substantially
swayed by the error.
Id. at 350 (citation and internal quotation marks omitted).
When undertaking the harmlessness calculus, we consider “(1) the
centrality of the issue affected by the error; (2) the steps
16
taken to mitigate the effects of the error; and (3) the
closeness of the case.” Id. (internal quotation marks omitted).
Here, the error went to the central issue in the case. As
noted above, the government argued to the jury that Martin found
the gun that Martin’s wife had hidden in the closet, which is
why Martin told Battle that he had “stumbled up on something”
and no longer needed a gun. The evidence excluded by the
district court went directly to this issue, by providing an
alternate explanation for Martin’s seeking a gun from Battle --
he wanted it for Laidler, not himself -- and an alternate
interpretation of the “stumbled up on something” comment --
Laidler no longer needed the gun, and Martin needed to maintain
the fiction that he had been seeking the gun for himself. The
exclusion of the Laidler conversations thus deprived Martin of
the only evidence that could corroborate his testimony about why
he initially sought a gun from Battle and why he stopped looking
for one. See id. at 351 (centrality-of-issue factor weighed
against finding improper exclusion of evidence harmless because
“the excluded testimony was the only evidence that would have
corroborated the defendant’s own testimony of assertedly
innocent conduct”).
As to the steps taken to mitigate the effects of its
evidentiary ruling, the district court did give Martin some
leeway to inform the jury of the existence of the Laidler
17
conversations. For example, Martin testified that the gun he
was seeking from Battle was not for him, see J.A. 758, and the
district court permitted Martin to testify that he asked Battle
for a gun “[a]s a result of [a] conversation I had with Mr.
Laidler.” J.A. 755. The district court also permitted Martin
to explain to the jury that he was talking to Laidler
immediately before the “stumbled up on something” conversation
with Battle, and that “[a]s a result of the conversation that I
was having, I told [Battle] that I didn’t need it, that I
stumbled up on something.” J.A. 761. We disagree with the
government, however, that this limited discussion of Martin’s
conversations with Laidler suffices to render the improper
exclusion of the evidence harmless.
Evidence of the Laidler conversations would have
corroborated Martin’s claim that the gun he sought from Battle
was not for him, and it would have explained to the jury why
Martin would have told Battle he “stumbled up on something” if
he had not found his wife’s gun. The bare-bones information
that Martin was able to present simply did not convey this
critical information to the jury. The evidence heard by the
jury thus was not an adequate substitute for the evidence that
would have been heard by the jury had the Laidler conversations
not been improperly excluded. Cf. United States v. Kohan, 806
F.2d 18, 22 (2d Cir. 1986) (remanding for new trial when
18
improperly excluded testimony “would have corroborated
[defendant’s] statements to law enforcement officials, thereby
helping to diminish the effect of their self-serving nature”).
The final factor relevant to our harmlessness inquiry is
the closeness of the case. See Ibisevic, 675 F.3d at 350. We
recognize that the government’s evidence was relatively strong.
The evidence included testimony about Martin apparently planning
to rob an armored car, and Battle’s testimony that Martin asked
Battle to procure a gun for him but later told Battle that he
did not need the gun. Moreover, the gun was found hidden in a
stack of men’s pants in Martin’s closet, and the FBI agents
involved in the search testified that Martin told them “that he
knew that the gun was in his bedroom closet when the F.B.I.
searched his house.” J.A. 218; see also J.A. 458.
Martin, however, reasonably contested the government’s
evidence on the most important points. Martin and his wife
testified that he had no knowledge of the gun until she called
him during the search and told him that the gun had been found.
Martin testified that he owed money to Battle and that he only
talked about possible robberies in order to convince Battle that
Martin would eventually be able to pay the debt. Martin also
testified that the gun he sought from Battle was actually for
someone else and that he used the “stumbled up on something”
phrasing when telling Battle he no longer needed the gun because
19
Battle did not know that the gun was for someone else and Martin
needed to maintain the fiction that he had been seeking the gun
for himself.
Thus, even without the corroborating evidence of the
Laidler conversations, the case was not one-sided. The
government’s evidence may have been sufficient to support
Martin’s convictions, but the question before us is “whether
[the government’s evidence] is sufficiently powerful in relation
to the excluded testimony to ensure the error did not affect the
outcome.” Ibisevic, 675 F.3d at 354 (internal quotation marks
omitted). As noted, the excluded evidence directly challenged
the government’s interpretation of the evidence central to its
case -- Martin’s statement to Battle that he had “stumbled up on
something” and no longer needed a gun. The excluded testimony,
therefore, had it been heard and credited by the jury, would
have substantially weakened the government’s case while
simultaneously strengthening Martin’s defense.
In sum, the excluded evidence went to the central issue in
the case; the truncated evidence that Martin was permitted to
introduce did not convey the same information that would have
been conveyed by the excluded evidence; and the government’s
evidence of Martin’s guilt was far from overwhelming. Under
these circumstances, we cannot say with any degree of certainty
that the district court’s error in excluding evidence of the
20
Laidler conversations did not affect the judgment. Because the
exclusion of the evidence was not harmless, we must therefore
vacate Martin’s conviction and remand for a new trial. 7
IV.
Martin also challenges his 210-month sentence. Although
the statutory maximum sentence for a § 922(g) conviction is
generally ten years, see 18 U.S.C. § 924(a)(2), the district
court concluded that Martin qualified as an armed career
criminal, which subjected Martin to a mandatory minimum sentence
of at least fifteen years, see 18 U.S.C. § 924(e)(1).
As part of its conclusion that Martin qualified for
sentencing under § 924(e), the district court held that a
Maryland robbery conviction was a predicate conviction under the
“residual clause” of § 924(e)(2)(B)(ii). The parties agree
that, in light of the Supreme Court’s invalidation of the
residual clause in Johnson v. United States, 135 S. Ct. 2551,
2563 (2015), Martin no longer qualifies as an armed career
7
In light of our conclusions that the Laidler conversations
should have been admitted and that a new trial is required, we
decline to consider Martin’s argument that the district court
should have permitted him to cross-examine one of the FBI agents
about the Laidler conversations. Should the issue arise again
in the new trial, the parties may address the issue anew and the
district court is free to consider the issue de novo. Our
conclusion that a new trial is required also makes it
unnecessary to address Martin’s claim that a court employee
exerted undue influence over a juror.
21
criminal. Should Martin be convicted again on remand, the
district court must sentence Martin within the ten-year
statutory range established by § 924(a)(2).
V.
Accordingly, for the foregoing reasons, we hereby vacate
Martin’s conviction and sentence and remand for a new trial
consistent with this opinion.
VACATED AND REMANDED
22