United States v. Bruno Mancari

914 F.2d 1014, 1990 U.S. App. LEXIS 17592, 1990 WL 143856
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit
DecidedOctober 4, 1990
Docket89-2640
StatusPublished
Cited by29 cases

This text of 914 F.2d 1014 (United States v. Bruno Mancari) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Seventh 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. Bruno Mancari, 914 F.2d 1014, 1990 U.S. App. LEXIS 17592, 1990 WL 143856 (7th Cir. 1990).

Opinion

COFFEY, Circuit Judge.

A grand jury indicted Bruno J. Mancari on one count of conspiracy to distribute cocaine in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 846 and three counts of distribution of cocaine in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1). Following a jury trial, Mancari was convicted on all counts, and was sentenced to four years' imprisonment on the conspiracy count and terms of five years’ probation on each of the three distribution counts ordered to run consecutively to the prison term on the conspiracy count and concurrently with one another. In United States v. Mancari, 875 F.2d 103 (7th Cir.1989), we reversed Mancari’s conviction on the conspiracy count, with directions to acquit and affirmed the conviction for delivery, but remanded “with directions to resentence.” 875 F.2d at 107. Subsequent thereto Man-cari was resentenced, and he now appeals the prison time given upon resentencing. We affirm.

I.

FACTS

Victoria Godomski, a Cook County, Illinois, Sheriff’s Department officer, while assigned to work as an undercover drug enforcement agent for the Northeast Metropolitan Enforcement Group, a drug enforcement task force composed of state, county, and local police departments in the *1015 suburbs of Chicago, Illinois, purchased cocaine from the defendant Bruno Mancari. 1 Mancari was convicted on three counts of distribution of cocaine involving sales to Godomski on May 20, June 6 and June 28, 1985, and of conspiracy to distribute cocaine as a result of his drug activity “from in or about May 1985 through July 1985.”

A. The Original Sentencing

At the original sentencing hearing on June 16, 1988, the court ordered Mancari to serve a period of confinement of four years on the conspiracy count. At this time the trial judge suspended sentence on Man-cari’s three distribution counts and imposed five years of probation on each count to run concurrently with each other and that the probation terms be served consecutively to the prison sentence on the conspiracy count. Prior to imposing this sentence, Judge Leinenweber explained his intentions in imposing sentence, as follows:

“A jury of your peers heard the case and found that you were guilty. The problem I have is that the evidence showed that you were guilty of multiple sales.... [A]ll of the evidence indicated to me that you were a very, very willing and eager participant and you did so in order to make money for yourself.
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I am glad to see, particularly, that you haven’t reverted to narcotics....
... The statute gives me the power to sentence you up to sixty years in the penitentiary and fine you $500,000. You are not in any position to pay a fine. So, I am not going to impose a fine but I am going to impose, as I should, a prison sentence.... I must consider not only punishing you, your chances of rehabilitation, but to deter. You were the next level, presumably, to the user, which is a very important cog in the distribution system. If there weren’t the Bruno Mancari’s the price of narcotics probably wouldn’t be as high as it is because it would be much more difficult to distribute it.” 2

B. Mancari’s Successful Appeal of His Conspiracy Conviction

On the appeal of his conspiracy conviction, Mancari argued that, because of the acquittal of a co-conspirator on the conspiracy count, the same evidence presented against him must have been insufficient for a reasonable factfinder to find that he (Mancari) was guilty of conspiracy to distribute cocaine. In his successful appeal of the conspiracy count, Mancari also contended that the government introduced evidence of the April 23 and May 2, 1985, cocaine transactions as evidence of other criminal acts under Section 404(b) of the Federal Rules of Evidence only for the limited purpose of demonstrating “ ‘the larger picture of the transactions which form the indictment.’ ” Mancan, 875 F.2d at 105. He reasoned that the jury could not properly rely upon this evidence in convicting him for conspiracy, and thus there was insufficient evidence to convict him of conspiracy. The court ruled in Mancari’s favor, concluding that the “government’s improvident concessions regarding the ‘rule of consistency’ [involving the relationship between Mancari’s conviction and his co-conspirator’s acquittal] and the temporal scope of the conspiracy have assured that the evidence of Mancari’s participation in a conspiracy would be insufficient.” Mancan, 875 F.2d at 107. In the opinion addressing Mancari’s contention regarding the “rule of consistency,” the court noted that the government had failed to cite or rely upon the Supreme Court decision in United States v. Powell, 469 U.S. 57, 105 *1016 S.Ct. 471, 83 L.Ed.2d 461 (1984), a case rejecting an attack on allegedly inconsistent verdicts involving a single defendant. See Mancari, 875 F.2d at 104-05. The court explained why the government had unwisely conceded this point:

“The government agrees that for purposes of this appeal the acquittal of Del-Percio on the conspiracy count prevents us from upholding Mancari’s conviction of conspiracy on the basis of evidence that he conspired with DelPercio, since on that basis the jury, to be consistent, would have had to convict DelPercio too. The government’s concession is consistent with the many cases affirming the ‘rule of consistency,’ see, e.g., United States v. Sachs, 801 F.2d 839, 845 (6th Cir.1986), but is unwarranted. In United States v. Powell, 469 U.S. 57, 105 S.Ct. 471, 83 L.Ed.2d 461 (1984), the Supreme Court, reaffirming Dunn v. United States, 284 U.S. 390, 52 S.Ct. 189, 76 L.Ed. 356 (1932), held that the acquittal of a defendant on one count does not invalidate his conviction on the other count(s), even if the acquittal and conviction are inconsistent. Powell was acquitted of conspiracy to possess and possession of cocaine but convicted of using the telephone to facilitate these offenses. In upholding his conviction the Court emphasized that the acquittal was as likely to have been error as the conviction, and that a defendant is in any case protected from being erroneously convicted by his right to challenge the sufficiency of the evidence on appeal — whereas the government has no protection against an erroneous acquittal since with immaterial exceptions it cannot appeal an acquittal.

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Bluebook (online)
914 F.2d 1014, 1990 U.S. App. LEXIS 17592, 1990 WL 143856, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-bruno-mancari-ca7-1990.