UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Frederick L. JEFFERSON, Defendant-Appellant.
No. 96-5644.
United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit.
Argued July 31, 1997. Decided July 8, 1998.
149 F.3d 444
Richard Leigh Grinalds, Asst. U.S. Attorney (argued and briefed), Office of the U.S. Attorney, Jackson, Tennessee, Victor L. Ivy, Hardee, Martin & Jaynes, Jackson, Tennessee, for Plaintiff-Appellee.
Before: NORRIS, BATCHELDER, and DAUGHTREY, Circuit Judges.
ALAN E. NORRIS, J., delivered the opinion of the court, in which BATCHELDER, J., joined. DAUGHTREY, J. (pp. 446-49), delivered a separate opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part.
OPINION
ALAN E. NORRIS, Circuit Judge.
This appeal concerns convictions arising from a robbery and murder in Milan, Tennessee, on July 30, 1992. Defendant Frederick L. Jefferson appeals from convictions for conspiring to unlawfully interfere with interstate cоmmerce by force in violation of
I.
This case arises from a robbery that resulted in the murder of Elmus Simms in
Evidence at trial established that the trio entered their car and followed Simms’ vehicle. At some point during the chase, defendant displayed his previously concealed handgun to Marshall and Williams. As the cars entered Milan, Tennessee, the trio pulled their car next to Simms’ automobile and defendant brandished his gun at Simms, who accelerated quickly, lost control of his car, and drove it into a ditch. Defendant left his vehicle and ran towards Simms’ car. Although defendant acknowledges that as he approached Simms he recognized that Simms was severely injured and unconscious, he nevertheless shot him at least three times. Evidence at trial indicated that defendant‘s third shot hit Simms in the back while Simms was slumped over on his side with his head in the passenger side of the vehicle. Defendant then took the car keys and retrieved the jewelry samples from the trunk. The samples were worth over $75,000.
After defendant‘s acquittal on murder charges in state court, he was indicted in federal court for: (1) conspiring to interfere with interstate commerce by robbery in violation of the Hobbs Act,
After a three-day trial, a jury convicted defendant on all five counts, and the district court sentenced him to life plus sixty months’ imprisonment. On appeal, defendant contests his convictions on the first four counts.
II.
Defendant challenges his conviction for witness tampering on the ground of insufficient evidence. Specifically, defendant asks us to reverse this conviction because (1) the evidence was insufficient to prove that he possessed the requisite intent and (2) his conduct does not fit within the statutory language of this offense. A defendant raising such a challenge bears a heavy burden, as we view the evidence in the light most favorable to the prosecution. United States v. Martin, 897 F.2d 1368, 1373 (6th Cir. 1990) (citing Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 319, 99 S.Ct. 2781, 61 L.Ed.2d 560 (1979)). We defer to the jury‘s resolution of witness credibility and, where there is conflicting testimony, to its selection between competing inferences. United States v. Gibson, 675 F.2d 825, 829 (6th Cir. 1982). The evidence need not be inconsistent with every conclusion save that of guilt, so long as it establishes a case from which a jury could find the defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Martin, 897 F.2d at 1373.
Defendant was convicted of violating
Defendant contends that the evidence supports an inference that he shot Simms to prevent his interfering with defendant‘s scheme to seize the car keys in order that he might remove the samples from the automobile‘s trunk, and that this inference is at least equal in strength to any inference that he was motivated to shoot Simms in order that he might not implicate defendant in the commission of a crime. Defendant maintains that the witness tampering statute is a specific intent crime, and, as such, requires the government to prove that he killed Simms with the intent to prevent Simms from disclosing his identity to law enforcement. Although we agree with defendant‘s characterization of the government‘s burden of proof, it appears to us that, when the evidence is considered in the light most favorable to the prosecution, it more persuasively supports the government‘s theory of guilt than it supports defendant‘s theory of innocence.2 Accordingly, the evidence was sufficient to support a reasonable jury in concluding that defendant was guilty of this charge.
The government adduced substantial evidence that defendant murdered Simms in violation of the statute. As defendant concedes, Simms was badly injured, indeed unconscious, when he approached Simms’ vehicle. Defendant, nevertheless, shot his victim numerous times in the back with his .44 caliber pistol. A reasonable fact-finder could have rejected defendant‘s сontention that he killed his victim in order to ease the burden of his planned robbery in light of his acknowledgment that he knew that Simms was unconscious prior to shooting him. Additionally, contrary to the dissent‘s assumption, the jury need not find that defendant‘s sole motivation in killing Simms was to prevent him from communicating to law enforcement authorities. The dissent‘s and defendant‘s contention that these two motivations—killing Simms in violation of
Defendant also suggests that the witness tampering conviction should be reversed because the federal crime which Simms would have communicated to federal law enforcement authorities, robbery, had not been committed prior to Simms’ murder. The argument is meritless since the statute‘s use of the words “commission or possible commission” clearly precludes the temporal restriction urged by defendant. Nothing in the statute requires that “possible commission” be read to mean “a crime that already may have been committed,” as opposed to “a crime that may be about to be committed.”
III.
For the reasons stated herein and in the unpublished appendix to this opinion, we affirm defendant‘s convictions.
DAUGHTREY, Circuit Judge, concurring in part and dissenting in part.
The jury, the representational embodiment of society-at-large, lies at the very foundation of our American jurisprudential system. To a panel of our fellow citizens we daily entrust matters of life and death, imprisonment, fame, and fortune. We have accorded such deference to the determinations of juries that we all can readily recall post-trial motions or clemency petitions being denied merely through invocation of the mantra, “The jury has spoken.” Yet, interestingly, when the
I.
After being acquitted in Tennessee state court of the murder of Elmus Gerald Simms, Jefferson was nevertheless indicted by a federal grand jury for killing Simms “with the intent to prevent the communication by Elmus Gerald Simms to a law enforcement officer [of] the fact that Elmus Gerald Simms could identify [the defendant] as the individual who had robbed Elmus Gerald Simms in violation of Title 18, United Statеs Code, Section 1512(a)(1)(C) and (2).” A conviction under
Based upon the evidence adduced at trial, I do not believe, even under the deferential standard of review we apply in sufficiency of evidence challenges, that a reasonable jury could determine beyond a reasonable doubt that Jefferson killed Simms to prevent him from communicating with the authorities.
Instead, the evidence, viewed in its entirety, establishes that Jefferson‘s interactions with Simms were directed not towards efforts at concealing his identity, but only towards the robbery of jewelry samples. After shooting Simms numerous times, the defendant grabbed the car keys from the ignition and proceeded to the back of Simms‘s car. He then heard a commotion, however, and squatted down to fire another shot toward the victim before grabbing the sample case containing the jewelry and fleeing. Had Jefferson‘s intent been to silence an eyewitness, greater care would have been taken at that point to ensure that Simms was no longer alive and able to report the crime to authorities. Moreover, the gunshots fired by the defendant were not aimed at Simms‘s head, neck, or chest, but rather were consistent with shots aimed at an individual to disable him to allow for completion of a robbery. In faсt, a forensic pathologist testified that the paths of the bullets through the victim‘s body indicated that Simms was shot either once or twice in the left buttock as he was slumped down on the front seat of his car. An additional bullet track showed that the victim was shot another time in his lower body, but that the bullet happened to travel upward until it damaged Simms‘s lung and caused his death. Cоntrary to the conclusion drawn by the majority, under the facts of this case, I find nothing indicative of a specific intent to silence a witness merely from the firing of shots at the victim, especially given the normally non-fatal entry wounds of the bullets.
Second, Jefferson‘s reactions to other eyewitnesses indicates his lack of interest in preventing identification or reporting of the crime. For example, Barbara Pitts and Richard Stout testified that they viewed the entire occurrence from a vantage point approximately 70 yards from the crime scene. Furthermore, while at the trunk of the car retrieving the sample case, Jefferson looked
Even more telling, Charles Taylor testified that, upon seeing Simms‘s vehicle crash down the embankment into the soybean field, he stopped his car only one-and-one-half car lengths behind the defendant‘s vehicle on the roadway and watched the robbery unfold from a distance of 25-30 yards. Taylor left the scene аs Jefferson climbed back up to his car, but the defendant‘s Chrysler soon passed Taylor in his vehicle on the road. In doing so, however, Jefferson did nothing to threaten, harm, or intimidate the eyewitness.
Kurt Moore, then a student at the local high school, also observed Simms‘s car crash into the field. Moore exited his own vehicle and walked down the embankment to within 30 yаrds of the scene of the robbery and shooting. Again, Jefferson took no action to prevent the vulnerable witness from reporting his observations to the police. If Jefferson‘s specific intent in shooting Simms were to ensure that no witnesses would be able to report his illegal actions to federal officials, it is inconceivable that he would ignore thе four eyewitnesses who were able to observe his actions from close range. I believe, therefore, that under any interpretation of the evidence before the jury, the defense has established reasonable doubt that the motive for the shooting of Simms was interference with a witness to a federal crime and not merely facilitation of a robbery.
II.
Additionally, the government in its brief and the majority in its opinion cannot cite to a single reported court decision applying the provisions of
The majority correctly holds, however, that the reach of the statute may not be restricted temporally only to such situations. Thе clear language of
Without question, the killing of a crime victim prevents that individual from communicating with federal authorities about the commission or possible commission of a federal offense. It is not simply recognition of that axiomatic principle that is incorporated into the proscriptions of
Given my belief that insufficient evidence was adduced to support a conviction for the crime charged in count 4 of the indictment, I would also hold that Jefferson‘s challenge to the legal sufficiency of that count of the charging documеnt is now moot. In all other respects, I concur in the majority‘s analysis of the issues presented on appeal.