United States v. Fanfan

468 F.3d 7, 71 Fed. R. Serv. 928, 2006 U.S. App. LEXIS 27563, 2006 WL 3217712
CourtCourt of Appeals for the First Circuit
DecidedNovember 8, 2006
Docket05-1826
StatusPublished
Cited by38 cases

This text of 468 F.3d 7 (United States v. Fanfan) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the First 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. Fanfan, 468 F.3d 7, 71 Fed. R. Serv. 928, 2006 U.S. App. LEXIS 27563, 2006 WL 3217712 (1st Cir. 2006).

Opinion

BOUDIN, Chief Judge.

The complicated journey of this criminal case began with the indictment of Ducan Fanfan in 2003 on one count of conspiring to distribute and to possess with intent to distribute 500 grams or more of cocaine in violation of 21 U.S.C. §§ 841(a)(1), (b)(1)(B), 846 (2000). In a two-day trial conducted in October 2003, a jury convicted Fanfan, who was thereafter sentenced by the trial judge in June 2004 to 78 months in prison.

The sentence was well under the guideline level for the amount of drugs attributed to Fanfan because the district judge, acting in the period before United States v. Booker, 543 U.S. 220, 125 S.Ct. 738, 160 L.Ed.2d 621 (2005), deemed himself limited by Blakely v. Washington, 542 U.S. 296, 124 S.Ct. 2531, 159 L.Ed.2d 403 (2004), to the 500 gram figure contained in the indictment and the jury’s verdict. On the government’s appeal, the Supreme Court reviewed the district court decision, and in concert with its Booker decision, the Court then remanded Fanfan’s case for resentencing. Booker, 543 U.S. at 267, 125 S.Ct. 738.

The district judge resentenced Fanfan in May 2005 to 210 months in prison, treating the guidelines as advisory but ultimately sentencing Fanfan within the guideline range that the court found applicable. Fanfan now appeals, arguing that both his conviction and the resentencing were flawed. We begin with challenges to the conviction, then move to the sentence.

Fanfan’s principal claim of error addressed to his conviction is that certain evidence should not have been admitted. The contested evidence includes both out-of-court statements of co-defendants and actions of Fanfan occurring after the main co-conspirators (but not Fanfan himself) had been arrested. To understand the evidence and its role requires considerable background.

The indictment against Fanfan charged him with conspiring from September 2002 to April 2003. The co-conspirators included Vaughan Smith, Joe Ash, and Donovan Thomas, all of whom testified for the government as part of plea agreements. With corroborating detail, Thomas testified that starting in the summer of 2002 he regularly purchased cocaine from Fanfan, who was based in Massachusetts, and supplied it to Ash. Ash testified that he supplied it to Smith, who was based in Maine. Ash also testified that his sister and girlfriend sometimes made pick-ups from Thomas.

*11 Both Smith and Ash described their own roles and actions in terms consistent with Thomas’ testimony, but neither of them dealt directly with Fanfan or could testify to his role. The closest connection Ash had to Fanfan was when Thomas told Ash that “his man” had a car to sell. Ash gave Thomas $10,000 cash for the vehicle. Fan-fan accompanied Thomas when Thomas delivered the Lexus to Ash, and Ash identified Fanfan at the trial as the man from whom he purchased the car.

In late March 2008, agents arrested Smith, finding money and drugs in his home, and on April 2, Smith arranged a controlled purchase from Ash, who was in turn arrested the next day with drugs. Thomas was arrested later that same day when he traveled to Maine to collect payment from Ash. At trial the government was prepared to treat Thomas’ arrest as terminating the conspiracy. This is not necessarily so but, given the concession, we follow the district court in treating what happened after Thomas’ arrest as post-conspiracy events.

Under arrest, Thomas made statements to the police identifying Fanfan and admitting that he had been distributing drugs for Fanfan since the summer of 2002. Thomas then paged Fanfan, with the government recording the call, and ordered a kilogram of cocaine and four and a half ounces of crack cocaine. Thereafter, Thomas met Fanfan by prearrangement; Fanfan was arrested, and police seized from his car 1.247 kilograms of cocaine and 281.6 grams of cocaine base.

At trial, Thomas testified to the events just described and tapes were played of the post-arrest conversations between Thomas and Fanfan recording the ordering of the drugs and the rendezvous arrangements between the two of them. The government also offered the seized drugs in evidence. The district court admitted all of the evidence but with a limiting instruction as to out-of-court statements made by Thomas after his arrest.

In substance, the district court told the jury that anything said by Thomas, out of court and after his arrest, could not be considered for its truth but only to provide context for the jury’s understanding of Fanfan’s statements and actions; Fanfan’s own statements, of course, were party admissions not subject to a hearsay objection, but the communications between Thomas and Fanfan were cryptic, as is commonly the case in drug dealing. The district court also told the jury not to consider the evidence of events occurring post-conspiracy as evidence of any other crime, but only as evidence to prove the charged conspiracy.

Fanfan first argues that the evidence of a major drug transaction after the charged conspiracy had ended was “bad act” evidence of conduct not itself part of the charged crime. Such evidence is not admissible to show criminal propensity and must have some other legitimate purpose (such as showing identity or plan), Fed. R.Evid. 404(b); and, in addition, the evidence must be excluded if unfair prejudice substantially outweighs the probative value of the evidence. Fed.R.Evid. 403.

We will assume that these objections were properly preserved, as it does not affect the outcome. The evidence of this final transaction was undoubtedly potent: although Thomas’ own in-court testimony of his pre-arrest drug dealing with Fanfan amply supported Fanfan’s conviction, Thomas was the only one who could squarely identify Fanfan as the man who supplied the rest of the chain. And since Thomas had a plea deal with the government and a prior record, his in-court testimony was subject to impeachment. The final, post-conspiracy transaction, in which *12 Fanfan was seized with drugs corresponding to Thomas’ order, not only bore out Thomas’ earlier testimony but provided vivid evidence of Fanfan’s criminal endeav- or.

However, this final transaction was not just some random drug crime by Fanfan from which could be inferred a propensity on his part to commit drug crimes and from which, in turn, a jury could infer that he engaged in the earlier conspiracy charged in this case. Here, the post-conspiracy crime was close in time to the conspiracy as described by Thomas; the procedure used to contact Fanfan and order the drugs corresponded to Thomas’ description of the conspiracy; and Fan-fan’s appearance at the rendezvous with the drugs order completed the equation.

Thus, even if not part of the conspiracy because (unknown to Fanfan) the conspiracy had ended, the final transaction evidenced the modus operandi

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468 F.3d 7, 71 Fed. R. Serv. 928, 2006 U.S. App. LEXIS 27563, 2006 WL 3217712, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-fanfan-ca1-2006.