United States v. Saunders

F I L E D
United States Court of Appeals
Tenth Circuit
UNITED STATES CO URT O F APPEALS
December 19, 2006
TENTH CIRCUIT Elisabeth A. Shumaker
Clerk of Court
U N ITED STA TES O F A M ER ICA,
Plaintiff-Appellee,
No. 06-2012
v. (D.C. No. CR -04-2147 JP)
(D . N.M .)
JOHN E. SAUNDERS,
Defendant-Appellant.
OR D ER AND JUDGM ENT *
Before BR ISC OE, M cCO NNELL, and GORSUCH, Circuit Judges.
John Saunders and Jeremy Burnett planned to secure the good life the old-
fashioned way: steal it. W hen their heist plot went aw ry, M r. Burnett cut his
losses, pled guilty to various charges, and then testified against his one-time
confederate John Saunders. At trial, M r. Saunders attempted to prevent M r.
Burnett’s adverse testimony. He also objected to testimony regarding the pre-
robbery surveillance of his activities by federal agents. The district court ruled
*
This order and judgment is not binding precedent except under the
doctrines of law of the case, res judicata and collateral estoppel. It may be cited,
however, for its persuasive value consistent with Fed. R. App. P. 32.1 (eff. Dec.
1, 2006) and 10th Cir. R. 32.1 (eff. Jan. 1, 2007).
against him on both counts, and the jury convicted. M r. Saunders now asks us to
declare the district court’s evidentiary rulings in error, to find that the district
court improperly instructed the jury, and to hold that the evidence the prosecution
presented was insufficient to support his conviction. W e decline these requests
and A FFIRM .
I. Background
Dolores Knight, Division President of the W estern Commerce Bank of
Albuquerque, New M exico, was in the lobby of her branch bank the morning of
October 1, 2004. Through the lobby windows she spied a red, racing-style
motorcycle drive up and park at the front entrance to the bank at approximately
10:45 a.m. The rider wore blue jeans, white shoes, a long-sleeved shirt, and a
helmet covering his face. In his right hand, he carried a gun. As the gunman
pushed through the twin sets of doors opening into the lobby, M s. Knight
maneuvered her way toward a desk with a silent alarm; and when she saw the
gunman enter the bank and make immediately for the tellers’ desks, she activated
it.
The perpetrator emptied each of the three tellers’ drawers in turn, carefully
avoiding the dye packs interspersed among the cash bundles, though he could not
help but acquire some sixty marked bills. He left as he had entered, through the
front door, still w earing his helmet w ith the visor pulled down over his face.
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Some moments later— at roughly 10:47 a.m.— a pole camera installed by
the Federal Bureau of Investigation captured a red, racing-style motorcycle
arriving at a storage unit at the W yoming M all Self Storage, located roughly one
quarter-mile from the W estern Commerce Bank. The vehicle was driven by a
man wearing clothes strikingly like those sported by the bank robber. The storage
unit belonged to John Saunders. After parking the bike, the rider disappeared
inside the unit and emerged shortly thereafter wearing a light-colored, short-
sleeved shirt, dark slacks, and dark shoes. He moved the motorcycle inside, then
climbed into a white minivan waiting nearby and drove away. FBI agents who
obtained a search warrant for the unit later discovered there a red, racing-style
motorcycle, a black motorcycle helmet equipped with a full face shield, a long-
sleeved pullover shirt, blue jeans, white tennis shoes, and a black semi-automatic
Glock .40 caliber handgun, all items matching those carried or worn by the
perpetrator, as visible in the bank’s security video.
On the strength of this evidence, acquired within hours of the robbery,
federal agents secured an arrest warrant for John Saunders. M r. Saunders was
taken into custody around lunchtime on October 1, 2004, at his place of work— a
used-car dealership, the uniform for which consisted of dark slacks, dark shoes,
and a light yellow, short-sleeved shirt, precisely the ensemble worn by the man
who exited the storage unit just before 11:00 a.m. the day of the robbery. Agents
discovered a white minivan, like the one in the pole camera surveillance tape,
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parked in the dealership lot. Inside the van, officers found a cache of bills
amounting to almost half the amount stolen from the W estern Commerce Bank,
including fifty-nine of the sixty marked bills.
The van belonged to one Jeremy Burnett, another employee at the car
dealership. Federal agents detained M r. Burnett, who eventually told agents he
and M r. Saunders had conspired to rob a bank. According to M r. Burnett, the
idea originated with M r. Saunders, but M r. Burnett went along despite his initial
skepticism because he needed the money to support his drug habit and meet his
mounting financial obligations. M r. Burnett supplied the weapons and the
clothes; M r. Saunders contributed the know-how and the manpow er. On June 2,
2005, M r. Burnett concluded a plea agreement with the United States, admitting
to bank robbery, aiding and abetting, and use of a firearm in relation to the crime,
in exchange for his testimony against M r. Saunders.
A grand jury returned a two-count superceding indictment against M r.
Saunders on M arch 9, 2005, accusing him of armed bank robbery, 18 U.S.C. §§
2113(a) & (d), aiding and abetting, 18 U.S.C. § 2, and use of a firearm during the
crime, 18 U.S.C. § 924(c)(1)(A)(ii). On M ay 27, 2005, M r. Saunders filed a
motion in limine seeking to prohibit the government from introducing testimony
regarding the anonymous tip that led federal agents first to launch their
surveillance and affix a hidden camera to a light pole outside his storage unit. A t
trial, M r. Saunders sought to prevent the introduction of M r. Burnett’s testimony,
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including M r. Burnett’s reports of conversations between the two men, arguing
that the testimony was inadmissible hearsay. He also asked the district court to
issue jury instructions identifying M r. Burnett as a drug abuser. The district court
denied all motions and the jury convicted on both counts. M r. Saunders now
appeals from his conviction, contending that the district court’s evidentiary and
jury-instruction rulings constituted reversible error; he also maintains that the
evidence at trial was insufficient to support his conviction.
II. Surveillance Evidence
M r. Saunders argues that the evidence of FBI surveillance, which began
months prior to the October robbery, is both irrelevant and highly prejudicial. W e
review a district court’s decision to admit evidence at trial for abuse of discretion.
United States v. Scarborough, 128 F.3d 1373, 1378 (10th Cir. 1997).
Rule 401 of the Federal Rules of Evidence defines as relevant “evidence
having any tendency to make the existence of any fact that is of consequence to
the determination of the action more probable or less probable.” Evidence
satisfying this standard is admissible unless “its probative value is substantially
outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice, confusion of the issues, or
misleading the jury.” Fed. R. Evid. 403.
Agents’ testimony regarding the tip that prompted their surveillance and the
details of that surveillance itself were highly relevant. The surveillance evidence
demonstrated M r. Saunders’s access to a storage locker close by the bank, in
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which he parked a motorcycle akin, if not identical, to the one used in the
robbery. Surveillance video from outside M r. Saunders’s storage unit showed a
man of about M r. Saunders’s height and size wearing clothing similar to that
worn by the crime’s perpetrator, and within minutes of the robbery. An agent
who followed M r. Saunders in the days leading up to the crime observed him
purchase black gloves, the same pair later recovered from his locker in amongst
the other clothing worn during the hold-up. All of this evidence tended to
connect M r. Saunders to the bank theft, and none of it, importantly, was of the
sort likely to provoke an “emotional response” from the jury or otherwise affect
jurors’ view of M r. Saunders apart from their judgment of his guilt or innocence.
United States v. Tan, 254 F.3d 1204, 1211-12 (10th Cir. 2001).
As for the testimony regarding the anonymous tip that sparked the FBI’s
interest in M r. Saunders, it was neither hearsay nor prejudicial. The government
did not disclose the contents of the tip or mention that the caller had singled out
M r. Saunders by name. Instead, the government appears to have elicited
testimony about the call merely for narrative integrity, to help the jury understand
why the FBI began its surveillance regimen. Therefore, we cannot say that this or
any other surveillance evidence introduced was either irrelevant or highly
prejudicial. Accordingly, we conclude that the district court did not abuse its
discretion by admitting the evidence at trial.
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III. Testimony of Jeremy Burnett
M r. Saunders next argues that the district court erred by permitting M r.
Burnett to testify about his conversations with the defendant. M r. Burnett’s
testimony, the defendant contends, is inadmissible hearsay. W e disagree.
M r. Burnett testified regarding both his ow n out-of-court statements to M r.
Saunders and M r. Saunders’s out-of-court statements to him. These statements
pose two distinct hearsay issues. See Fed. R. Evid. Rules 801(d)(2)(E),
801(d)(2)(A).
The district court admitted M r. Burnett’s report of his ow n out-of-court
statements under Rule 801(d)(2)(E), which reads, “A statement is not hearsay
if— [t]he statement is offered against a party and is a statement by a coconspirator
of a party during the course and in furtherance of the conspiracy.” W e have held
that a district court may admit as non-hearsay a co-conspirator’s out-of-court
statements when it finds by a preponderance of the evidence that a conspiracy
existed, that both the declarant and the defendant were members of the
conspiracy, and that the statements were made in the course and in furtherance of
the conspiracy. United States v. Caro, 965 F.2d 1548, 1557 (10th Cir. 1992).
W hile the district judge may consider the hearsay statement itself to determine
whether a conspiracy existed, Bourjaily v. United States, 483 U.S. 171, 181
(1987), we have required district courts to rely on some additional, reliable
corroborating evidence to establish the existence of a conspiracy and link the
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defendant to it. United States v. Rascon, 8 F.3d 1537, 1540-41 (10th Cir. 1993).
W e review the district court’s findings of fact regarding the existence of a
conspiracy for clear error, United States v. Lopez-Gutierrez, 83 F.3d 1235, 1242
(10th Cir. 1996), and its ultimate evidentiary decision for abuse of discretion,
United States v. Parra, 2 F.3d 1058, 1068 (10th Cir. 1993).
Here, the record contains a wealth of evidence establishing the existence of
a conspiracy between M r. Saunders and M r. Burnett. To review a few of the
more telling pieces of corroborating evidence: a search of M r. Saunders’s locker
turned up clothing loaned to the defendant by M r. Burnett, highly similar to that
worn by the perpetrator of the crime; agents also discovered M r. Burnett’s
handgun in the defendant’s locker, a weapon that matched the description of the
gun used in the robbery; the government presented evidence of the two men’s
friendship stretching over a period of years; and it introduced multiple pieces of
evidence establishing M r. Saunders’s poor financial health before the robbery,
pointing to a motivation for the crime. In addition, M r. Burnett’s ow n in-court
testimony, which was subject to cross-examination, tended to corroborate the
existence of the conspiracy.
The defendant argues that M r. Burnett never truly believed that M r.
Saunders intended to rob a bank and consequently, no conspiracy existed. Indeed,
he says M r. Burnett thought he w as joking right up to the point when he gave M r.
Burnett his share of the loot. Neither M r. Burnett’s testimony nor his actions,
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however, bear out this theory. W hile M r. Burnett claimed to have been initially
skeptical about M r. Saunders’s scheme, by his own admission he decided to
participate in the plan as his financial w oes mounted. And his actions certainly
indicate he viewed the heist plot as real enough: he helped M r. Saunders case
multiple banks, he contributed the clothing Saunders wore during the hold-up, and
he provided the w eapon as w ell. From this information and M r. Burnett’s own
statements, the district court could conclude that a conspiracy existed, that
Burnett and Saunders were its principals, and that their conversations about
robbing banks were made in furtherance of their plan. See Caro, 965 F.2d at
1557.
The 801(d)(2)(E) exception for co-conspirators does not apply, however, to
M r. Saunders’s out-of-court statements, for the simple reason that M r. Saunders is
not a “coconspirator of a party,” he is the party. Fed. R. Evid. 801(d)(2)(E). But
M r. Saunders’s conversations w ith M r. Burnett do qualify as Rule 801(d)(2)(A )
statements by a party. Rule 801(d)(2)(A) provides that a statement is not hearsay
if it “is offered against a party and is the party’s own statement.” The
government did not explicitly argue for this exception below , but the district court
noted when admitting the testimony encompassing M r. Saunders’s statements that
“[p]resumably, [Saunders’s statements] also fit[] under 801(d)(2) as an admission
against personal interest.” Appellees’ A pp. 379. The district court is correct.
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W e hold the court did not abuse its discretion by admitting the testimony of
Jeremy Burnett.
IV. Jury Instructions
M r. Saunders requested that the district court issue Tenth Circuit Pattern
Jury Instruction 1.13 with specific reference to Jeremy Burnett. This instruction
would have directed the jury to consider especially the trial testimony concerning
M r. Burnett’s “character for truth-telling” and “reputation for truthfulness” in his
community. Tenth Circuit Criminal Pattern Jury Instruction 1.13 (2005 ed.).
There was no such testimony, however. M r. Burnett’s brother testified that
Jeremy lied to him on several occasions, but he offered no opinion as to Jeremy’s
character for truth-telling or reputation in the community. Given this, the district
court rightly opted to issue a more general impeachment instruction, directing the
jury to w eigh the credibility of all witnesses in light of the evidence. Appellants’
App. 67.
M r. Saunders also contends that the district court should have identified
M r. Burnett by name in its instruction regarding w itnesses who are drug abusers.
See Tenth Circuit Pattern Jury Instruction 1.16. In effect, he objects to the
wording of the instruction. District courts, however, wield “substantial discretion
in fashioning jury instructions,”United States v. Schuler, 458 F.3d 1148, 1156
(10th Cir. 2006), including especially their wording, United States v. Wolny, 133
F.3d 758, 765 (10th Cir. 1998). W e review the court’s instructions only to ensure
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that they “cover[ed] the issues presented by the evidence and constitute[d] correct
statements of the law.” United States v. Davis, 953 F.2d 1482, 1492 (10th Cir.
1992). W e are satisfied the instruction here did both. The court was under no
obligation to list particular witnesses who met the definition of “drug abuser.”
And in fact, there was good reason not to do so. The record contained evidence
that in addition to M r. Burnett, M r. Saunders and at least one other witness also
abused drugs. Had the district court named M r. Burnett as a drug abuser, it would
have been obligated to name these witnesses as well. Tellingly, the defendant
objected to the mention of any witness other than M r. Burnett. Given this
scenario, we conclude the district court did not abuse its discretion by issuing the
generic model instruction.
Both instructions 1.13 and 1.16 covered the issues presented by the
evidence and accurately stated the controlling law. W e find no error.
V. Sufficiency of the Evidence
Evidence is sufficient to support a conviction if, viewed in the light most
favorable to the government, the direct and circumstantial evidence and all
reasonable inferences drawn therefrom would allow a reasonable jury to find the
defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. United States v. Wilson, 107 F.3d
774, 778 (10th Cir. 1997). Substantial direct and circumstantial evidence in this
case— from the bank and storage unit surveillance tapes, to the bank employees’
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testimony, to the items recovered from both M r. Saunders’s storage unit and the
white minivan, to the testimony of Jeremy Burnett— connected M r. Saunders to
the crime. Viewed in the light most favorable to the prosecution, we are
confident that a reasonable jury could conclude beyond a reasonable doubt that
M r. Saunders was guilty.
VI. Conclusion
W e AFFIRM the district court’s decision to admit evidence of the FBI’s
surveillance of M r. Saunders. W e AFFIRM the district court’s admittance of
Jeremy Burnett’s testimony. W e AFFIRM the district court’s jury instructions,
and we AFFIRM M r. Saunders’s conviction.
Entered for the Court,
M ichael W . M cConnell
Circuit Judge
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