United States v. Cooper

UNPUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 07-4732
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff - Appellee,
v.
LANIER COOPER,
Defendant - Appellant.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern
District of Virginia, at Alexandria. Leonie M. Brinkema, District
Judge. (1:07-cr-00161-LMB)
Submitted: February 14, 2008 Decided: March 10, 2008
Before MOTZ and GREGORY, Circuit Judges, and WILKINS, Senior
Circuit Judge.
Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.
Michael S. Nachmanoff, Federal Public Defender, Todd M. Richman,
Assistant Federal Public Defender, Alexandria, Virginia, for
Appellant. Chuck Rosenberg, United States Attorney, David Aaron,
Special Assistant United States Attorney, Alexandria, Virginia, for
Appellee.
Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
PER CURIAM:
Lanier Cooper was convicted by a magistrate judge of two
counts of desertion of the mail, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1700(2000). He was sentenced to probation of twelve months and fined.
Cooper appealed to the district court pursuant to Fed. R. Crim. P.
58(g)(2), and the district court affirmed. He now appeals to this
court, contending that there was insufficient evidence to support
his convictions and that certain statements were admitted into
evidence in violation of Garrity v. New Jersey, 385 U.S. 493(1967). We affirm.
The evidence was sufficient to convict Cooper on both
counts. See Glasser v. United States, 315 U.S. 60, 80 (1942);
United States v. Bursey, 416 F.3d 301, 305-06 (4th Cir. 2005).
Viewed in the light most favorable to the Government, the evidence
established that on August 29, 2005, Cooper abandoned a tub of
undelivered mail on the stoop of a building in Alexandria,
Virginia, that was located on his postal route. Further, on August
30, 2005, Cooper was discovered to have in his locker at the postal
facility a quantity of undelivered mail from August 26, 2005. That
mail was from another route for which Cooper was responsible.
Cooper admitted that he placed the mail in his locker because he
did not want management to find out that he had curtailed the
delivery of mail. It is reasonable to infer that his fear that
management would learn of his substandard job performance was also
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Cooper’s motivation for deserting the mail on August 29. We reject
Cooper’s argument that his act of placing mail in his locker for
several days constituted delivery of mail “into the post office at
the termination of [his] route.” See 18 U.S.C. § 1700. This
argument is at odds with the statute’s apparent purpose of ensuring
reliable and prompt mail delivery.
Cooper also contends that the magistrate judge
erroneously permitted admission of his statements to a postal
inspector. We agree with the district court that there was no
Fifth Amendment violation under Garrity, which prohibits the use in
a subsequent prosecution of statements obtained under threat of
removal from a job. 385 U.S. at 500. In contrast to the situation
in Garrity, there was no evidence that Cooper was told that if he
did not cooperate by answering the questions of postal inspectors,
he would be fired.
We therefore affirm. 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
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