United States v. James Lee Evans

951 F.2d 729, 1991 U.S. App. LEXIS 29441, 1991 WL 263164
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit
DecidedDecember 17, 1991
Docket90-6589, 90-6590
StatusPublished
Cited by15 cases

This text of 951 F.2d 729 (United States v. James Lee Evans) 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. James Lee Evans, 951 F.2d 729, 1991 U.S. App. LEXIS 29441, 1991 WL 263164 (6th Cir. 1991).

Opinions

LIVELY, Senior Circuit Judge.

The defendant relies upon the Double Jeopardy Clause as a ground for reversing his conviction pursuant to a guilty plea for violating the continuing criminal enterprise (CCE) statute, 21 U.S.C. § 848, following an earlier conviction for conspiring to possess with intent to distribute, and distributing cocaine and marijuana, 21 U.S.C. § 846. The government concedes that some of the same evidence introduced in the conspiracy trial would have been relied upon to establish the alleged operation of a continuing criminal enterprise. Resolution of this issue requires us to reconcile the holdings and analyses in two recent Supreme Court decisions. See Garrett v. United States, 471 U.S. 773, 105 S.Ct. 2407, 85 L.Ed.2d 764 (1985), and Grady v. Corbin, 495 U.S. 508, 110 S.Ct. 2084, 109 L.Ed.2d 548 (1990).

The defendant makes two additional arguments for reversal that we find have no merit. He appeals from the district court’s denial of his motion to withdraw his guilty plea in the second prosecution, arguing that he had ineffective assistance of counsel and that the district court violated the provisions of Fed.R.Crim.P. 11(c) in accepting the guilty plea. Having carefully considered the record and arguments we find that the defendant was not denied effective assistance of counsel, and that any violation of Rule 11(c) resulted in harmless error. The district court did not abuse its discretion in denying the motion to withdraw the guilty plea. United States v. Goldberg, 862 F.2d 101 (6th Cir.1988); United States v. Spencer, 836 F.2d 236 (6th Cir.1987).

I.

A.

Both indictments upon which the double jeopardy clause argument is based were returned in the Western District of Kentucky. The defendant Evans was first prosecuted in 1986 in a case styled United States v. Pardomo. The Pardomo prosecution involved multiple defendants and multiple allegations concerning a drug conspiracy. Evans was charged with two counts of conspiracy and three substantive counts of possession with intent to distribute and distribution of marijuana and cocaine. Specifically, Evans was indicted for engaging in a “conspiracy to unlawfully possess with the intent to distribute and distribution of marijuana and cocaine in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 846 between January 1, 1978 through October 7, 1985.” The second conspiracy count against Evans charged him with conspiring to import marijuana into the United States from Jamaica and Belize during the same time period. A jury convicted Evans on both conspiracy counts and one of the possession charges.

[731]*731The conspiracy that the prosecution presented to the jury in the Pardomo trial was headed by Randall Garrett. Evans was involved in the Garrett conspiracy in a number of ways, but primarily as a financier. In 198B, Evans loaned Garrett $12,-000 to return to the United States when Garrett’s plane crashed in Jamaica. In 1984, Evans and Garrett made arrangements for Garrett to purchase an airplane, ostensibly to import marijuana from Central America. Evans also provided Garrett the funds needed to import a load of marijuana from Belize in 1984.

The government’s case in the Pardomo prosecution stemmed in large part from the testimony of Garrett himself. In describing his relationship with Evans, Garrett admitted he began his personal involvement in the drug trade by driving cars for Evans in the late 1970s. Later, however, Garrett started his own organization to buy and sell marijuana, though concededly Evans introduced Garrett to his initial drug sources. Additionally, Garrett testified that he repaid the debts he owed Evans by sending Evans a portion of the drug shipments. In fact, Garrett acknowledged he was still repaying the 1984 loan from Evans to buy the airplane at the time he was arrested. Garrett testified he would give a percentage of each shipment of drugs he imported to Evans, in order to reduce his indebtedness.

About a week before the Pardomo trial began, Evans was indicted for engaging in a continuing criminal enterprise as defined in 21 U.S.C. § 848. The CCE indictment charged that Evans promoted criminal activity from January 1,1979 to September 6, 1986. The locations involved in the indictment were the Kentucky counties of Jefferson, Spencer, Bullitt, and Shelby, the states of Kentucky, Texas, Florida, and Indiana, and the countries of Columbia, Mexico, Belize, and Jamaica.

Following his conviction in the Pardomo trial, Evans moved to dismiss the CCE indictment on the ground that the second prosecution constituted double jeopardy. This motion was denied by the district court and, in an interlocutory appeal, this court affirmed. Both courts found that there were two separate conspiracies; that Evans had been prosecuted in the Pardo-mo trial for his involvement in the Garrett conspiracy, but was being prosecuted in the CCE indictment for orchestrating his own conspiracy to import and distribute narcotics.

District Judge Simpson was not concerned that the time frames of the two conspiracies overlapped given the long duration of each. He also found “significant differences between the two in the area of sources of supply.” Additionally, the Evans conspiracy involved the importation of both marijuana and cocaine, while the Garrett organization imported only marijuana. Finally, Judge Simpson stressed that the Evans conspiracy encompassed a greater geographic area than did the Garrett conspiracy. The court accepted that the two conspiracies interacted at times, but found that they never merged into a single entity. Evans did loan money to the Garrett enterprise on several occasions, and Garrett did repay these debts in the form of marijuana at 100% interest. The DEA agent who testified before the district court acknowledged that up to twelve coconspirators worked within both the Garrett and the Evans organizations. Nevertheless, the district court found the government to have met its burden of proof on the question of whether one or two conspiracies existed, and this court affirmed, concluding that the district court’s finding that “the original conspiracy conviction and the acts underlying the current continuing criminal enterprise prosecution did not stem from a single agreement” not clearly erroneous.

B.

Following this court’s remand, the defendant made a motion before Judge Simpson to consolidate the CCE action with yet another criminal action against him then pending before Senior District Judge Allen. The motion was made for the specific purposes of entering a guilty plea and sentencing. Following transfer of the CCE case to Judge Allen, Evans appeared with retained counsel, withdrew his earlier not guilty plea, and tendered a guilty plea to the CCE [732]

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Bluebook (online)
951 F.2d 729, 1991 U.S. App. LEXIS 29441, 1991 WL 263164, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-james-lee-evans-ca6-1991.