United States v. Marquis Antonio Tompkins

Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit·Decided January 19, 2023·No. 21-5872·Unpublished

Opinion

NOT RECOMMENDED FOR PUBLICATION File Name: 23a0037n.06

Case Nos. 21-5871/5872

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT FILED Jan 19, 2023

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

Plaintiff - Appellee, )

)

v. ON APPEAL FROM THE UNITED )

STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE )

MARQUIS ANTONIO TOMPKINS, EASTERN DISTRICT OF KENTUCKY )

Defendant - Appellant. )

OPINION

)

)

)

Before: CLAY, GIBBONS, and McKEAGUE, Circuit Judges.

JULIA SMITH GIBBONS, Circuit Judge. A jury found Marquis Tompkins guilty of one count of conspiracy to distribute heroin and fentanyl, five counts of distributing those substances, and one count of possessing a firearm as a prohibited person. Tompkins challenges his convictions on several grounds, arguing that the evidence was insufficient, the gun and drug charges should have been tried separately, and the district court gave incomplete or erroneous instructions both before and during jury deliberations. Tompkins also challenges his within-Guidelines sentence and the revocation of his supervised release. Because Tompkins shows no reversible error affecting either his conviction or his sentence, we affirm.

I.

On five occasions in early 2020, Tompkins sold heroin or fentanyl to Justin Sampley.

Tompkins was unaware that Sampley was working as a confidential informant for Kentucky law enforcement officers during this time, and that the five purchases were controlled buys. After the

last controlled buy, Sampley continued purchasing heroin from Tompkins “on [his] own” for both personal use and distribution to others. DE 119, Tr., Page ID 1033-34.

On August 23, 2020, Tompkins was among the victims wounded in an unrelated shooting at a mall. Because Tompkins was on federal supervised release at this time, law enforcement officers searched his car following the shooting. Officers found a loaded gun under the driver’s seat.

A grand jury indicted Tompkins on one count of conspiracy to distribute heroin and fentanyl, five counts of distributing those substances based on the controlled buys, a sixth drug distribution count based on a sale to another person, and one count of possessing a firearm as a convicted felon. The government’s evidence included the testimony of officers and Sampley as well as video and audio recordings of the controlled buys. At the close of the government’s case, Tompkins moved for a directed verdict. The district court denied the motion.

During its deliberations, the jury asked the district court, “would Mr. Sampley be considered a co-conspirator” within the date range in which he made the five controlled buys, and “if he is not, how would the jury be instructed to determine” the conspiracy count. DE 121, Tr., Page ID 1344-45. Tompkins argued to the district court that the jury instructions already adequately addressed the topic. The district court responded “no” to whether Sampley would be considered a co-conspirator for those buys, and otherwise encouraged the jury to determine the conspiracy count by carefully considering all the evidence in the case and the jury instructions. Id. at Page ID 1349.

The jury also asked to review the video footage of the controlled buys. In response, the district court stated that for reasons of clarity this would necessitate viewing all the video footage in the case again, which the district court estimated would take approximately 3.5 hours. The jury

then declined to view the video footage again. The jury found Tompkins guilty on the conspiracy count, the five drug distribution counts for the controlled buys involving Sampley, and the gun possession count, but acquitted Tompkins on the sixth distribution count.

Tompkins moved for a new trial. As relevant here, he argued that the jury’s verdict was against the manifest weight of the evidence and that the district court erred in its instructions to the jury during its deliberations. The district court denied Tompkins’s motion.

At the sentencing hearing, the district court determined that Tompkins is a career offender under United States Sentencing Guidelines § 4B1.1. The district court calculated a total offense level of 34, criminal history category of VI, and advisory Guidelines range of 262 to 327 months’ imprisonment. In doing so, the district court adopted the findings of the presentence investigation report prepared by the probation office, to which neither party objected. Tompkins requested a sentence within the Guidelines range. The district court sentenced Tompkins to (1) concurrent terms of 312 months’ imprisonment on the drug conspiracy count and on each of the drug distribution counts; (2) 120 months’ imprisonment on the gun count, to run concurrently with the concurrent 312-month sentences for the drug counts; (3) a supervised release violation sentence of 24 months, to run consecutively with the other sentences; and (4) six years of supervised release. Tompkins timely appealed, challenging the sufficiency of the evidence and alleging various trial and sentencing errors.

II.

We review the denial of a motion for judgment of acquittal under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 29 de novo. United States v. Osborne, 886 F.3d 604, 607-08 (6th Cir. 2018) (citing United States v. Graham, 622 F.3d 445, 448 (6th Cir. 2010)). We affirm if “any rational trier of

fact could have found the essential elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt.” Id. (emphasis in original).

We review the denial of a motion for a new trial under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 31 for abuse of discretion. United States v. Dupree, 323 F.3d 480, 484 (6th Cir. 2003) (citing United States v. Gaitan-Acevedo, 148 F.3d 577, 589 (6th Cir. 1998)). Plain error review applies to arguments that the defendant failed to make in the district court. See United States v. Williams, 998 F.3d 716, 733 (6th Cir. 2021) (citing United States v. Newsom, 452 F.3d 593, 605 (6th Cir. 2006)). A plain error is an “obvious or clear” error that “affected [the defendant’s] substantial rights” and also “seriously affected the fairness, integrity, or public reputation of the judicial proceedings.” Id. (citing United States v. Olano, 507 U.S. 725, 733-36 (1993)).

“In the context of challenges to jury instructions, plain error requires a finding that, taken as a whole, the jury instructions were so clearly erroneous as to likely produce a grave miscarriage of justice.” United States v. Stewart, 729 F.3d 517, 530 (6th Cir. 2013) (quoting United States v. Morrison, 594 F.3d 543, 546 (6th Cir. 2010)). While an “improper jury instruction” to which a defendant failed to object at trial “will rarely justify reversal of a criminal conviction,” “an omitted or incomplete instruction is even less likely to justify reversal, since such an instruction is not as prejudicial as a misstatement of the law.” Id. (quoting United States v. Rayborn, 491 F.3d 513, 521 (6th Cir. 2007)).

We review the substantive reasonableness of a defendant’s sentence for abuse of discretion.

United States v. Zabel, 35 F.4th 493, 504 (6th Cir. 2022). Our review is “highly deferential” because “weighing sentencing factors ‘is a matter of reasoned discretion, not math.’” Id. at 505 (quoting Rayyan, 885 F.3d at 442). It is particularly difficult for a defendant to prevail on a challenge to the substantive reasonableness of a sentence within the Sentencing Guidelines range

because we presume that such a sentence is reasonable. United States v. Gardner, 32 F.4th 504, 530 (6th Cir. 2022) (citing United States v. Williams, 436 F.3d 706, 708 (6th Cir. 2006), overruled on other grounds by Rita v. United States, 551 U.S. 338, 347 (2007)).

Finally, we review a district court’s revocation of supervised release for abuse of discretion.

United States v. Kirby, 418 F.3d 621, 625 (6th Cir. 2005) (citing United States v. Webb, 30 F.3d 687, 688 (6th Cir. 1994)).

III.

First, Tompkins challenges the sufficiency of evidence to support his drug convictions.

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