United States v. Davis

194 F.R.D. 688, 2000 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 6432, 2000 WL 554170
CourtDistrict Court, D. Kansas
DecidedApril 21, 2000
DocketNo. 99-40091-01-DES
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 194 F.R.D. 688 (United States v. Davis) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, D. Kansas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
United States v. Davis, 194 F.R.D. 688, 2000 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 6432, 2000 WL 554170 (D. Kan. 2000).

Opinion

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER

SAFFELS, District Judge.

This matter is before the court on defendant’s Motion for Discovery Regarding Selective Prosecution (Doc. 23). The defendant has sought a large amount of information from the Department of Justice, the FBI, and HUD in order to assist in the preparation of a motion to dismiss the indictment based upon selective prosecution based on race. The government has opposed this motion. The court held a hearing on this motion on March 20, 2000. Following the hearing, the court took this matter under advisement and allowed the parties to file supplemental briefs on the matter. The court has reviewed the supplemental briefs and is now ready to rule.

I. STANDARD FOR GRANTING A MOTION FOR DISCOVERY REGARDING SELECTIVE PROSECUTION

The Supreme Court has held that discovery on this type of motion should not be granted unless the defendant can make “a credible showing of different treatment of similarly situated persons.” United States v. Armstrong, 517 U.S. 456, 470, 116 S.Ct. 1480, 134 L.Ed.2d 687 (1996). The Supreme Court has recognized that allowing discovery on selective prosecution claims should be allowed only after a sufficient showing of evidence. “If discovery is ordered, the Government must assemble from its own files documents which might corroborate or refute the defendant’s claim. Discovery thus imposes many of the costs present when the Government must respond to a prima facie case of selective prosecution. It will divert prosecutors’ resources and may disclose the Government’s prosecutorial strategy.” Id. at 468, 116 S.Ct. 1480.

II. ANALYSIS

As stated above, the defendant must make a credible showing that similarly situated persons are being treated differently. The defendant essentially makes two challenges to the government’s prosecution of the defendant. First, the defendant claims that the government investigators aggressively solicit crack cocaine distribution targeting African-American offenders. Second, the defendant claims that government improperly decides to indict African-American offenders in federal court, rather than state court, based on then* race. The government claims that the race of the defendant had no influence either in the investigation phase or prosecution phase of this case.

A. Challenge Regarding the Investigation Phase

The defendant makes two points concerning the investigation of this case which he claims shows the investigating officers focus their attention and resources on African-American offenders. First, the defendant claims that the government spends considerably more time and resources investigating crack cocaine offenses, which primarily result in the arrests of African-Americans, than it does investigating methamphetamine offenses, which primarily result in the arrests of Caucasians. Second, the defendant argues that the investigators are targeting Afiican-American defendants in their crack cocaine investigations and not Caucasians.

As an initial matter, the court questions whether individuals who are involved in crack cocaine offenses and individuals who are involved in methamphetamine offenses are “similarly situated” as is required under Armstrong. Although it is true that both crimes are prosecuted under the same federal statute, the crimes are not the same. This is made obvious by the fact that the sentences for each of these crimes can vary greatly depending for the same amount of drug involved. The argument that all defendants charged under 21 U.S.C § 841 are similarly situated for purposes of prosecution stretches the concept of “similarly situated” to its breaking point, if not beyond. However, the court will assume that defendants [690]*690charged with methamphetamine offenses and crack cocaine offenses are “similarly situated” for the purposes of this motion. Even with this assumption, the court finds that this argument lacks merit. The defendant claims “The federal methamphetamine cases in Exhibit 410 are not the result of such aggressive solicitation of crimes as employed in Washburn1 when African-American’s were targeted. Instead, the methamphetamine cases arise from traffic stops, search warrants or other brief and relatively uncomplicated law enforcement investigations.” As pointed out by the government, they are aggressively targeting methamphetamine offenders in Kansas. The United States Attorneys office in Topeka, Kansas, currently has a Special Assistant United States Attorney whose sole job duty is to prosecute methamphetamine cases. In addition, the government has just completed a lengthy investigation of methamphetamine offenders in Kansas and five surrounding states which produced approximately thirty arrests, all of which involved Caucasians. This latest investigation involved a much higher degree of law enforcement investigation than claimed by the defendant in his motion.

The defendant bases his argument on the fact that the government had never used the type of sting operation which ensnared the defendant. In this investigation, the investigators rented a house and had it wired for both sound and video. The informant at that point called numerous individuals and set up drug transactions to take place at the house. Although the court acknowledges that this type of sting operation has apparently never been used to target methamphetamine offenders in Topeka, the court would also note that this type of sting operation has apparently never been used to target any type of drug offenders in Topeka before this case. The fact that the investigators used this technology for the first time in this investigation does not mean that they are treating any group differently than any other.

The second argument the defendant raises concerning the investigative stage of this ease is that investigators are targeting African-American crack cocaine offenders and not Caucasian crack cocaine offenders. The defendant claims that crack cocaine offenses are committed by both Caucasians and African-Americans and that the government is apparently targeting the crimes committed by African-Americans. In support of this claim, the defendant has relied upon statistics showing that the vast majority of crack cocaine defendants are African-American and testimony by a drug counselor stating that the amount of Caucasians and African-Americans who voluntarily commit themselves for drug treatment relating to crack cocaine addiction is nearly equal. In essence, the defendant’s argument is that nearly all crack cocaine defendants are African-American, even though Caucasians and African-American’s use crack cocaine equally-

The court finds that the defendant has not met his burden in connection with this argument. As an initial note, the testimony of the witness appeared to be in the form of an educated guess as to the racial breakdown of those individuals seeking treatment. The testimony was not supported by any reports or documentation which could have verified the witnesses testimony. Also, the defendant relied solely on the testimony of one drug counselor, concerning the patients in one drug program, to establish the statistical breakdown of the entire city of Topeka. It is difficult for the court to base a finding that similarly situated individuals are being treated differently based upon such a small sampling of the population.

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Related

United States v. James
257 F.3d 1173 (Tenth Circuit, 2001)
United States v. Green
108 F. Supp. 2d 1169 (D. Kansas, 2000)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
194 F.R.D. 688, 2000 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 6432, 2000 WL 554170, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-davis-ksd-2000.