United States v. Mark Brown

Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit·Decided June 15, 2018·No. 17-3468·Unpublished

Opinion

NOT RECOMMENDED FOR FULL-TEXT PUBLICATION File Name: 18a0303n.06

No. 17-3468

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT FILED Jun 15, 2018

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, ) DEBORAH S. HUNT, Clerk )

Plaintiff-Appellee, )

)

ON APPEAL FROM THE

v. )

UNITED STATES DISTRICT

)

COURT FOR THE

MARK ANTHONY BROWN, )

SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF

)

OHIO

Defendant-Appellant. )

)

)

Before: SILER and LARSEN, Circuit Judges; BLACK, District Judge.* LARSEN, Circuit Judge. A jury found Mark Brown guilty of possessing cocaine base, in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 844(a). He appeals his conviction, contending that the trial court allowed an impermissible amendment to the indictment, that the jury lacked sufficient evidence to convict, and that the trial court erroneously permitted expert testimony from a lay witness. Brown also appeals his eighteen-month sentence, arguing that he should not have received an enhancement for a prior drug offense because the government failed to comply with the procedural requirements of 21 U.S.C. § 851(a). We AFFIRM Brown’s conviction and his sentence.

* The Honorable Timothy S. Black, United States District Judge for the Southern District of Ohio, sitting by designation.

United States v. Brown I.

In 2015, Columbus police arrested Brown in his home after receiving a phone call about an altercation there. While sweeping the house for other occupants, officers noticed several items in plain view atop a coffee table, some ten feet from the front door: a digital scale, an open box of plastic sandwich bags, and approximately one gram of crack cocaine in a plastic sandwich bag. After obtaining a warrant to search the home for evidence of drug trafficking, police recovered opened mail addressed to Brown, also located on the living room coffee table, as well as weapons, ammunition, and drug paraphernalia found throughout the house.

Brown was charged with possessing cocaine base with intent to distribute, in violation of 21 U.S.C. §§ 841(a)(1), (b)(1)(C), and being a felon in possession of a firearm and ammunition, in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 922(g)(1), 924(a)(2). The indictment identified a prior Ohio conviction for drug trafficking as the predicate offense for the latter charges.

On the first day of trial, the court granted the government’s request to correct the offense date in the indictment, which mistakenly identified the day of Brown’s arrest as “on or about May 16, 2015,” rather than June 19, 2015. Brown argued that the correction would prejudice his constitutional rights, but the court disagreed, observing that the offense date proved by the evidence need be only “reasonably near” the date given in the indictment, as “on or about” preceded the date presented to the grand jury. The court accordingly instructed the jury that the government was obliged to prove that Brown committed the alleged crimes “on or about June 19,” and explained that “on or about” means “reasonably close to.”

Just before closing arguments, defense counsel asked the court to allow the jury to consider the lesser included offense of simple drug possession, 21 U.S.C. § 844(a), as an alternative to

United States v. Brown possession with intent to distribute. The judge agreed, and the jury found Brown guilty of simple possession alone.

A conviction for simple possession carries a maximum sentence of one year’s imprisonment, but a prior drug conviction can boost that to two years if the government seeks a recidivism enhancement. 21 U.S.C. § 844(a). In its post-trial sentencing memorandum, the government expressed its intent to pursue the enhancement, with Brown’s prior state drug conviction serving as the predicate offense. In his response memorandum, and again at the subsequent sentencing hearing, Brown argued that the government’s failure to file a pretrial information announcing its plans to seek the enhancement, as 21 U.S.C. § 851(a) requires, foreclosed the increased penalty. The district court rejected this argument, concluding that Brown had been given reasonable notice of the possible enhancement, as well as an opportunity to be heard on the subject. It sentenced him to eighteen months’ imprisonment.

II.

Brown first claims that the district court allowed an impermissible amendment to the indictment. We review that claim de novo. United States v. Manning, 142 F.3d 336, 339 (6th Cir. 1998). An amendment manifests “when the charging terms of the indictment are altered, either literally or in effect, by prosecutor or court after the grand jury has last passed upon them.” United States v. Ford, 872 F.2d 1231, 1235 (6th Cir. 1989) (citation omitted). If “the charging terms of an indictment are effectively altered, the accused is held answerable for a charge not levied through the protective device of a grand jury.” Id. This abrogates the Fifth Amendment’s guarantee of a grand jury’s indictment, as well as the two additional constitutional rights that this guarantee safeguards: fair notice of criminal charges, and security from double jeopardy. United States v. Combs, 369 F.3d 925, 935 (6th Cir. 2004).

United States v. Brown But not every change to an indictment implicates the Fifth Amendment. An alteration that “is merely a matter of form” and does not affect the document’s charging terms, does not violate the Constitution. Russell v. United States, 369 U.S. 749, 770 (1962) (noting that this is “the settled rule in the federal courts”). An adjustment to the indictment’s offense date is “merely a matter of form,” id., where the offense date is not “an important element of the charged offense,” the “evidence shows that the offense was the one charged,” and the evidence demonstrates that the defendant committed the charged offense “on a date before the indictment and within the statute of limitations,” United States v. Barnett, 89 F. App’x 906, 907 n.1 (6th Cir. 2003) (per curiam) (quoting United States v. Leichtnam, 948 F.2d 370, 376 (7th Cir. 1991)); see United States v. Rosenbaum, 628 F. App’x 923, 929 (6th Cir. 2015) (upholding the correction of an indictment’s offense date from April 2008 to August 2007 because the wrong date was “a clerical error” and the defendant had notice of the correct date).

Here, the district court adjusted the indictment’s offense date by thirty-five days, from “on or about May 16, 2015,” to “on or about June 19, 2015.” This is a mere change of form not affecting the indictment’s charging terms. The precise date on which the police arrested Brown and found the cocaine is not “an important element of the charged offense.” Barnett, 89 F. App’x at 907 n.1. The correct offense date preceded the indictment, and no statute-of-limitations issue is in play. See id. All the evidence presented at trial concerned the right date, June 19, including the testimony of each witness who described the events of that day. See id.

Brown received ample notice of the correct date through the testimony presented at a pretrial evidentiary hearing, as well as what his counsel described as “a significant amount of discovery identifying the June date.” Thus, the alteration of the offense date neither affected the

United States v. Brown indictment’s charging terms nor implicated Brown’s right to fair notice of the charges against him. See Combs, 369 F.3d at 935.

III.

At the close of the government’s proof, and again at the end of the trial, Brown moved for acquittal, arguing that the government had not established actual or constructive possession of the cocaine found in his house. On appeal, Brown persists that the jury had insufficient evidence to find him guilty of simple drug possession—a claim we review de novo. United States v. Tocco, 200 F.3d 401, 424 (6th Cir. 2000).

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