United States v. Grooms

194 F. App'x 355
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit
DecidedSeptember 8, 2006
Docket05-1763
StatusUnpublished
Cited by10 cases

This text of 194 F. App'x 355 (United States v. Grooms) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Sixth 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. Grooms, 194 F. App'x 355 (6th Cir. 2006).

Opinion

COOK, Circuit Judge.

A jury convicted Defendant-Appellant Dennis Grooms of conspiracy with intent to distribute heroin and attempted possession with intent to distribute heroin, and, because he had two prior felony drug convictions, the district court sentenced him to a term of life imprisonment. On appeal, Grooms challenges the admission of certain tape-recorded conversations and other statements. He also raises numerous trial- and sentencing-related arguments. For the reasons that follow, we affirm Grooms’s conviction and sentence.

I. Background

During preliminary checks of airline passengers arriving at Miami from Colombia, a customs inspector discovered that a teenager’s suitcase contained approximately four kilograms of heroin and arrested her. After determining that the girl was traveling to Detroit with Rafaela Davila, another officer arrested Davila who then agreed to cooperate -with federal agents.

The next day, Davila flew with the agents to Detroit to attempt a controlled delivery of the heroin. Occupying hotel rooms, the agents had Davila call her Colombian contacts to arrange for the pick up of the drugs from her. In one call, she referred to the individual answering the call as “Gustavo.” When she asked the Colombian caller when she would be able to leave Detroit, he told her she would be picked up later, but no one picked her up that day.

In the meantime, Dennis Grooms, Davila’s coconspirator, was arranging her pickup. That evening Grooms called Carlos Clark and asked him if he was interested in picking someone up at the airport the next day. Clark recognized Grooms’s voice, had known Grooms for fifteen years, and had dealt with him and a Colombian named “Gustobo.” Grooms had told Clark that there was money to be made in heroin, and, therefore, Clark expected to be paid after the pickup.

The following morning, Clark followed up on the earlier conversation by calling Grooms to ask whether he still needed an airport pickup. Grooms called back, directing Clark to go to a particular road near the airport, and then instructed him to drive to a hotel to pick up a woman.

Also that morning, cell phone records showed Davila again called the Colombian number. Hours later, Davila finally received a call in her room from a man who explained that “we couldn’t do it yesterday.” The caller told her that a man (who turned out to be Clark) would come for her shortly. The caller twice told Davila that the man would “take the girls out dancing” and would “check the size of the girl’s pants,” typical phrases relating to checking the heroin shipment.

Around noon, Clark arrived at Davila’s hotel room; she asked if he had her plane ticket and money. Clark responded that *358 Grooms would give them to her. When Clark then attempted to pick up the suitcase containing the heroin from the bed, agents entered the room and arrested him.

While Clark was in the hotel room with the agents, his cell phone rang numerous times. He told the agents that the calls (placed from two different numbers) were from Grooms. After the arrest, the agents had Clark return Grooms’s calls from Clark’s cell phone. In that call, Grooms demanded to know where Clark was and told him to go back home. About an hour later, Clark called Grooms, and Grooms again demanded to know Clark’s location, repeating the direction to return home. Grooms later called Clark’s house to see if he was there. When the agents took Clark home, they had his wife, Rhonda, leave in preparation for the expected meeting between Clark and Grooms.

Hours later, after the agents and Clark left the house, Rhonda returned home and called Grooms who did not respond to her questioning about what was going on; he hung up. Days later, Rhonda talked to Grooms; in that conversation, he told her to not mention his name, asked her to keep Clark’s business going, and assured her that he would take care of her and her son. He followed up by arranging to meet Rhonda on a street corner where he gave her a brown paper bag containing $8,000 cash for Clark’s attorney fees.

Agents later arrested Grooms at his hve-in-girlfriend’s house. After his arrest, his girlfriend told government agents that she paid for the couple’s monthly expenses, that Grooms was unemployed, and that he used two cell phones. At trial, she denied making these statements, and during its closing argument, the government commented on this financial arrangement.

The jury found Grooms guilty of conspiracy with intent to distribute heroin and attempted possession with intent to distribute heroin, and the court sentenced him to a term of life imprisonment. Grooms now appeals his conviction and sentence.

II. Discussion

A. Davila’s Statements

First, Grooms challenges the government agents’ testimony about Davila’s post-arrest statements. Grooms, citing Crawford v. Washington, 541 U.S. 86, 124 S.Ct. 1354, 158 L.Ed.2d 177 (2004), argues that Davila’s alleged testimonial statements violated his Sixth Amendment right to confront the witnesses against him. Grooms contends that the agents’ testimony describing Davila’s statements was inadmissible hearsay.

Grooms also challenges the admission of Davila’s recorded conversations because, as with the agents’ testimony about Davila’s statements to law enforcement, Grooms had no opportunity to cross-examine her. Moreover, Grooms argues that the statements are not coconspirator statements because at the time Davila had these phone conversations, government agents had already arrested Davila and she was cooperating with the government. The government responds that Davila’s statements were properly admitted as background evidence that merely described why law enforcement acted.

Because Grooms objected at trial to the introduction of this evidence, we review the district court’s conclusions of law de novo and the factual determinations that underpin the legal conclusions for clear error. United States v. Payne, 437 F.3d 540, 544 (6th Cir.2006) (quotation omitted).

Testimony offered not for the truth of the matter asserted but rather for context about a later investigation is not hearsay. See United States v. Aguwa, 123 F.3d 418, 421-22 (6th Cir.1997) (finding that testimo *359 ny about events leading up to a chance encounter with the defendant was not hearsay). The Sixth Circuit has “specifically sanctioned the use of such out-of-court statements to the extent that they are ‘only offered to construct the sequence of events leading up to the drug transaction.’ ” Id. at 421 (citing United States v. Evans, 883 F.2d 496, 501 (6th Cir.1989)).

Here, the record shows that both Davila’s taped conversations and the government agents’ testimony regarding her statements served as background evidence detailing the events leading up to the drug transaction and explaining why government agents acted as they did.

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194 F. App'x 355, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-grooms-ca6-2006.