United States v. Macardell Dobbins

482 F. App'x 35
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit
DecidedMay 14, 2012
Docket10-6262
StatusUnpublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 482 F. App'x 35 (United States v. Macardell Dobbins) 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. Macardell Dobbins, 482 F. App'x 35 (6th Cir. 2012).

Opinion

JULIA SMITH GIBBONS, Circuit Judge.

Macardell Dobbins was charged with possession of cocaine with intent to distribute in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1) and possession of a firearm by a felon in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 922(g)(1) after Nashville police executed a search warrant at his residence and discovered cocaine base and a pistol. A jury convicted Dobbins of the cocaine possession charge but did not reach a unanimous verdict as to the firearm charge. Dobbins now appeals the district court’s denial of his motion to quash and suppress the search warrant and his motion for a mistrial and argues that his conviction must also be reversed because of the district court’s allegedly erroneous response to a question from the jury. For the following reasons, we affirm Dobbins’s conviction.

I.

On October 3, 2008, Metropolitan Nashville Police Department (“MNPD”) officers went to 3007 Batavia Street, Apartment 2, to conduct a controlled buy of narcotics with the assistance of a confidential informant. Detective Dale BeCraft and other MNPD officers followed the confidential informant to the Batavia Street address and watched him enter Apartment 2, which was part of a triplex residential building. The officers saw the confidential informant emerge a few minutes later with a substance that later field-tested positive for cocaine base.

The next day, BeCraft obtained a search warrant for Apartment 2 based on the controlled buy. MNPD officers executed the warrant on October 6, 2008. After knocking on the door and announcing themselves as police officers, and having *37 received no response, the officers forced entry into the apartment. BeCraft proceeded to the bathroom where he saw Dobbins standing in front of the toilet. BeCraft testified that the toilet bowl was filling back up with water and several items were floating in the toilet, including a plastic bag containing a substance that later field-tested positive for cocaine base. Other officers encountered Kimwanis Muse in one of the apartment’s bedrooms, bedroom two. Dobbins and Muse were read their Miranda rights, and the officers then searched the apartment.

On a dresser in bedroom two, an MNPD officer found a small box that contained a silver pistol, a plastic bag of cocaine, and ammunition. In that bedroom, officers also found digital scales, another bag of cocaine, a knife, and a pair of jeans with a bag of cocaine in the pocket.

On January 21, 2009, a federal grand jury returned a two-count indictment charging Dobbins with being a felon in possession of a firearm in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 922(g)(1), and unlawfully possessing cocaine, in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1). Before trial, Dobbins moved to quash the search warrant and suppress evidence seized as a result of its execution, arguing, inter alia, that the search warrant did not particularly identify the place to be searched. The district court held a hearing on the motion and denied it, ruling that the search warrant identified the place to be searched with sufficient particularity.

After the district court denied Dobbins’s motion, Dobbins’s counsel orally requested that the court order the government to disclose the identity of the confidential informant. The court agreed and directed the government to reveal the confidential informant’s identity to Dobbins’s counsel. The next day, an attorney for the government emailed Dobbins’s attorney:

Here is the rest of the info on the Cl involved in this case. I spoke with the Detective and he informed me that he remembers the Cl telling him that he bought narcotics from “Cat Eyes” which is Dobbins [sic ] street name.

(R. 41-1.)

Dobbins’s trial began on June 8, 2010. The government called BeCraft as its first witness. When Dobbins’s counsel cross-examined BeCraft, he asked him if the confidential informant had told BeCraft that Dobbins was the individual who sold him narcotics at the Batavia Street address. BeCraft testified that the informant had not told him that Dobbins had sold him narcotics. Dobbins’s counsel then asked BeCraft if the informant had “give[n] [him] any information with regard to a description of any individual who was selling drugs out of 3007 Batavia[.]” (R. 64, at 140.) BeCraft responded in the affirmative and testified that the informant gave “[t]he description of a black male with lots of tattoos and distinctive-colored eyes. He gave a nickname of Cat Eyes.” (Id. at 141.) Dobbins’s counsel then attempted to impeach BeCraft by asking him why the informant’s description was not included in his police report. BeCraft testified that the description was not in the report but was in his notes and handed the file jacket on which his notes were taken to Dobbins’s counsel. BeCraft testified that the notes on the file jacket said that the informant identified the seller as “Cat Eye,” a black male with tattoos.

Dobbins’s counsel moved for a mistrial on the ground that the government had withheld the identification information and caused Dobbins’s counsel to embark on a prejudicial line of questioning. After hearing argument on the motion, the trial court denied it but indicated that it would instruct the jury not to consider any identification of Dobbins made by BeCraft. How *38 ever, after the government produced the email in which it had informed Dobbins’s counsel that the informant had told the detective he bought narcotics from “Cat Eyes,” the trial court determined that Dobbins was not entitled to a limiting instruction because his counsel had known about the identification of his client as the seller for at least a month before trial.

After closing argument, the trial court instructed the jury, in part, as follows:

The defendant has been charged with more than one crime. The number of charges is no evidence of guilt and this should not influence your decision in any way. It is your duty to separately consider the evidence that relates to each charge and to return a separate verdict for each one of them.
For each charge you must decide whether the government has presented proof beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant is guilty of that particular charge.
Your decision on one charge whether it is guilty or not guilty should not influence your decision on the other charge.

(R. 66, at 125.)

After two hours of deliberations on June 10, the trial court reassembled the jury in order to discharge it for the day and asked if the jurors had any questions. One juror asked the court, “What occurs if we don’t reach a 100 percent of us, all — ” to which the court responded, “I’ll give you an instruction about that. It results in a mistrial. It’s called a mistrial. And I’ll give you a further instruction in the morning after you have deliberated for a little while.” (Id.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
482 F. App'x 35, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-macardell-dobbins-ca6-2012.