United States v. Bobby Gene Hayes, and Joseph Ward

676 F.2d 1359, 1982 U.S. App. LEXIS 19032
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit
DecidedMay 24, 1982
Docket81-7316
StatusPublished
Cited by50 cases

This text of 676 F.2d 1359 (United States v. Bobby Gene Hayes, and Joseph Ward) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
United States v. Bobby Gene Hayes, and Joseph Ward, 676 F.2d 1359, 1982 U.S. App. LEXIS 19032 (11th Cir. 1982).

Opinion

FAY, Circuit Judge:

The appellants, Bobby Gene Hayes and Joseph Ward, challenge their convictions of conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute marijuana, 21 U.S.C. § 846, and of conspiracy to import marijuana, 21 U.S.C. § 963, on the grounds that the multiple jury procedure followed by the district court denied each a fair trial and due process of law. Joseph Ward additionally attacks his conviction as violative of the fifth amendment guarantee against double jeopardy. Our scrutiny of the record and evaluation of counsel’s arguments reveal no such errors of constitutional dimension. We therefore reject the appellants’ objections and affirm the conviction of each.

I. Procedure: Minding Their Pleas and Clues

On November 21, 1978, the appellants were jointly indicted with Thomas Meacham, Ed William Gilroy and Donald L. Metsger on three counts of drug-related charges: attempt to possess with intent to *1361 distribute marijuana, in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 846; conspiracy to attempt to distribute and to possess with intent to distribute marijuana, in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 846; and conspiracy to attempt to import marijuana, in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 963. Following Meacham’s plea of guilty to count three, all other charges against him were dropped. At the close of the government’s case against the four remaining defendants, the court dismissed count one in light of the prosecution’s failure to establish proper venue. The jury found co-defendants Ward, Gilroy and Hayes guilty of the remaining counts; Metsger was convicted on count three and acquitted on count two. Ward and Hayes were sentenced to consecutive prison terms of three and one-half years on each of the two counts.

On appeal, Meacham’s guilty plea was vacated and his conviction consequently overturned. The Fifth Circuit reversed, as well, the convictions of his co-defendants, on the grounds that the indictment failed to state an offense. The court additionally found that Ward should have been granted a severance. United States v. Meacham, 626 F.2d 503 (5th Cir. 1980).

All five defendants were subsequently reindicted on charges stemming from the same transaction upon which the former indictment had been based. Prior to trial, the court granted the government’s motion to impanel two juries — one to try Ward, the other to try his co-indictees. Five days after the government’s motion was granted, three guilty pleas were entered, leaving Hayes and Ward as the sole defendants. Following their simultaneous trials and convictions by two separate juries, Hayes’s previous sentence of two consecutive three and one-half year prison terms was reimposed; Ward’s sentence was increased to two consecutive terms of five years each.

II. Facts : The Plane Truth

From 1970 to 1978, Joseph Ward served as a police officer with the Fort Lauderdale Police Department. Prior to that time, Ward had worked as a commercial pilot in New Jersey. In March, 1978, Ward was approached by Thomas Meacham, an acquaintance from New Jersey, who asked if Ward would be interested in flying an airplane “down south” on behalf of certain individuals in Connecticut for the purpose of importing marijuana. R. Vol. V at 259.-43, 263. Ward informed the Drug Enforcement Administration [DEA] of this proposition and, at a meeting taped by the DEA, accepted it. Ward then contacted Donald Metsger, a lifelong friend who, together with his son, Grant, operated an airport in Ocean Springs, Mississippi. Donald agreed to procure for Ward a DC-3 airplane and pilot able to fly to Colombia. The money for the purchase of the plane was supplied to Metsger by Ward, Gilroy and Meacham. Around Labor Day of 1978, Donald asked Travis Paul, a commercial pilot from Alabama, if Paul were interested in “making a large sum of money flying an airplane to go down south.” R. Vol. II at 62. Travis replied that he might be, requested some time to think about the offer and asked Metsger to call him back. Metsger agreed. Travis immediately contacted the DEA office and offered to operate as an undercover informant. Paul then phoned Metsger at the airport in Ocean Springs and accepted the proposal.

Through Metsger, Paul was contacted by an individual calling himself “Trucker,” who offered Paul $50,000 to pilot the plane and $20,000.00 to any co-pilot Paul could enlist. One week later, Trucker asked Paul to travel to Atlanta for a meeting with him and several other people. On September 17, Trucker — whom Paul later ascertained was none other than the appellant, Joseph Ward — met Paul at the Atlanta airport. Approximately twenty minutes later, they were joined by two other individuals, subsequently identified as Hayes and Meacham. Entering a van driven by Hayes, the parties traveled to a dirt strip airport in Newnan, Georgia, to determine if it were adequate to accommodate the plane they intended to use to import marijuana. The parties then drove back to Atlanta and proceeded to the Fulton County Airport. After Ward left the group, Meacham paid for a small plane which Paul piloted back to the Newnan airstrip to test landing conditions; the appellant, Hayes, was a passenger in the *1362 plane. After returning to the Fulton County Airport, Paul flew back to Alabama.

On September 20, Paul, Meacham and Gilroy attended a second meeting in Miami, at which they planned four trips by Paul to Barranquilla, Colombia to import, in all, 120,000 pounds of marijuana. In preparation for the flight, Paul traveled to Barranquilla on the airlines via a ticket supplied by Meacham. He was taken to the Colombian airstrip where he was to pick up the load, and later flew back to Alabama. After Paul returned from Colombia, Ward called to ask how the trip had gone. By this time, Ward, who had remained active in the conspiracy despite having been taken off the case by the Fort Lauderdale Police Department, was himself under surveillance by the DEA as a suspect.

On October 8, Paul and his co-pilot, also an undercover agent, began the flight to Barranquilla. The plane developed fuel problems and crash landed in the ocean just north of the Colombia coast. A passing ship rescued both men. Meanwhile that same evening, an individual named Wade-man, who had been brought to the Newnan Airport by Gilroy and Meacham, was acting as a lookout. On hearing a loud noise which Wademan thought was a plane engine, he saw a car drive up, heard someone call him and entered the auto. The car sped away with its driver, Hayes, trying to elude a vehicle following them. Several minutes later, they were overtaken by the vehicle, driven by DEA Agent Taylor, and were promptly arrested. The remaining conspirators, Ward, Gilroy, Meacham and Metsger, were apprehended in the days that followed.

III. The Law

A. Double Trouble?

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
676 F.2d 1359, 1982 U.S. App. LEXIS 19032, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-bobby-gene-hayes-and-joseph-ward-ca11-1982.