UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Kevin James COLLINS, Defendant-Appellant

90 F.3d 1420, 96 Daily Journal DAR 8821, 96 Cal. Daily Op. Serv. 5419, 1996 U.S. App. LEXIS 18147, 1996 WL 409169
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
DecidedJuly 23, 1996
Docket95-10304
StatusPublished
Cited by94 cases

This text of 90 F.3d 1420 (UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Kevin James COLLINS, Defendant-Appellant) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Kevin James COLLINS, Defendant-Appellant, 90 F.3d 1420, 96 Daily Journal DAR 8821, 96 Cal. Daily Op. Serv. 5419, 1996 U.S. App. LEXIS 18147, 1996 WL 409169 (9th Cir. 1996).

Opinion

TROTT, Circuit Judge:

Kevin James Collins was convicted by jury of being a felon in possession of a firearm, 18 U.S.C, § 922(g)(1), and sentenced to prison. He raises six issues on appeal: (1) his indictment should have been dismissed because he was not brought to trial within the 180-day time limit of the Interstate Agreement on Detainers Act (IADA), 18 U.S.C. App. II; (2) the district court abused its discretion by admitting evidence that Collins burglarized a business shortly before his arrest, and that after his arrest he persuaded others to create a cover-up story about the gun; (3) his Sixth Amendment confrontation rights were violated because the district court limited the scope of his cross-examination of a government witness; (4) the district court erred by adding .two points to his offense level for obstruction of justice; (5) the district court erred by adding four points to his offense level for possession of a firearm in connection with another felony offense; and (6) the prosecutor violated Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79, 106 S.Ct. 1712, 90 L.Ed.2d 69 (1986), by striking two Hispanic potential jurors.

We affirm.

BACKGROUND

The government’s sole charge against Collins was that he possessed a pistol on February 12, 1994, thereby violating 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1) (felon in possession of a firearm). The only disputed element of the offense was whether Collins possessed the pistol.

The Government’s Case in Chief

At approximately 11 p.m. on February 12, 1994, Concord Police dispatched Officer Michael Tumelson to the California Check Cashing building. When he arrived at the scene, Tumelson saw Collins and John Winn walking away from the rear of California Check Cashing. Winn stopped and stood in a brick enclosure while Collins walked down a sidewalk with his hands in his jacket pockets.

When Collins came to a bush near the sidewalk, he pulled his hands out of his jacket pockets, reached into the bush with both arms, then took his arms out of the bush and put his hands back into his jacket pockets. Tumelson did not see anything in Collins’ hands, but believed that Collins was trying to hide something in the bush.

At this point, Winn came out from behind the wall and walked down the sidewalk toward Collins. When Winn walked by the bush, he slowed down a little bit but never stopped. Winn was wearing a black pullover sweatshirt with a hood, black pants, and black gloves.

Suspecting that Collins and Winn might be involved in criminal activity, Tumelson identified himself as an officer and ordered them to stop. A footchase followed and ended with the capture of Collins and Winn. Tumel-son then returned to the bush and found the pistol, which was clean and free of debris. Tumelson picked up the gun with his hands and unloaded it.

The police lab later analyzed the gun for fingerprints but found none. However, a fingerprint specialist testified at trial that it is not unusual to find no fingerprints on a gun.

The pistol’s ownership was traced to Benito Calisterio, an acquaintance of Collins. At trial, Calisterio testified that he had loaned the gun to Collins. Calisterio also testified that Collins called him from jail two days after his arrest and told him to tell the police that the gun had been taken from Calisterio’s house without his knowledge ‘ by Latasha Hubbard, the cousin of Collins’ girlfriend, Erika Hubbard. Collins told Calisterio that he had talked to Winn and that Winn had agreed to “take the rap” for the gun.

Between, April and November 1994, Collins telephoned Calisterio collect from jail on numerous occasions wanting to know if Calis-terio was sticking to the cover-up story. Calisterio’s receipt of the calls was corrobo *1424 rated by Calisterio’s telephone records and the testimony of several record custodians from state prisons and jails who testified that Collins was at their respective facilities and had access to the phones on the dates of the calls.

The government also called Latasha Hubbard to the stand. She testified that the day after Collins’ arrest, Erika Hubbard telephoned her and asked her to tell the police that she had taken the gun from Calisterio’s house and then had given the gun to Winn. Latasha later met Erika and Calisterio at Calisterio’s house and discussed the cover-up story. Erika told Calisterio that she had discussed the story with Collins. After their meeting, Erika and Latasha met with Collins at the jail.

Pursuant to their plan, Calisterio and Latasha told the cover-up story to the Concord police and the ATF. However, Latasha had trouble telling her part of the story because she could neither describe Winn nor the pistol. Shortly before the original trial date of November 16, 1994, Calisterio and Latasha recanted their stories and told ATF that the cover-up story was a lie.

The Defense’s Case

Collins first called John Winn,, who asserted his Fifth Amendment privilege in the presence of the jury. The district court determined that Winn’s assertion of the privilege was valid, and on that basis, ■ excused him.

Finding Winn “unavailable,” the district court, over the government’s objection, granted Collins’ request to call other witnesses to testify to statements Winn allegedly made to them admitting that he had the gun in Concord.

Brandy Woods was one of these witnesses. She testified that on the evening of February 12, 1994, she drove Collins to the Concord shopping center, arriving somewhere between 10:50 and 11:00 p.m. Woods said that they went to Concord to celebrate Collins’ admission to college, that Collins was wearing tight pants, and that if he had a gun, she would have seen it. When they found that the club they had intended to patronize had changed its format, they drove around the shopping center looking for a payphone to call another club.

Woods testified that she and Collins got out of the car at a payphone near California Check Cashing. Collins walked near the check cashing building and met John Winn. Collins and Winn then ran to the rear, of the building'. Woods got back into her car and waited three to eight minutes before she saw them running toward the front, chased by police. Woods drove off without Collins. Woods also testified that she saw Winn near her house after Collins’ arrest and asked him why he was “letting Kevin take his gun case when he knows Kevin didn’t have the gun.” Winn told her the gun was his.

The defense introduced into evidence the gloves and nylon stocking recovered from Winn during arrest.

The Government’s Rebuttal Case

The government asked the court to allow it to show that Collins was at the California Check Cashing building to be a lookout for a burglary, not to go dancing. The court agreed, saying:

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90 F.3d 1420, 96 Daily Journal DAR 8821, 96 Cal. Daily Op. Serv. 5419, 1996 U.S. App. LEXIS 18147, 1996 WL 409169, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-of-america-plaintiff-appellee-v-kevin-james-collins-ca9-1996.