United States v. Munive

• Court: Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit
• Decided: January 3, 2000
• Docket: 99-20181
• Status: Unpublished

Opinion

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT _____________________

No. 99-20181 Summary Calendar _____________________

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Plaintiff-Appellee,

versus

PEDRO MUNIVE,

Defendant-Appellant. _________________________________________________________________

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas (H-94-CR-300-1) _________________________________________________________________ January 3, 2000

Before SMITH, BARKSDALE, and PARKER, Circuit Judges.

PER CURIAM:*

Pedro Munive appeals his conviction for conspiracy to possess

with the intent to distribute and aiding and abetting the

possession with the intent to distribute in excess of five

kilograms of cocaine. His sole contention on appeal is that the

district court erred by denying his challenges for cause to three

prospective jurors who testified during voir dire that they would

tend to believe the testimony of government agents, forcing him to

waste peremptory challenges on those jurors.

* Pursuant to 5TH CIR. R. 47.5, the Court has determined that this opinion should not be published and is not precedent except under the limited circumstances set forth in 5TH CIR. R. 47.5.4. To the extent that Munive contends that the denials of his

challenges for cause violated his Sixth Amendment right to an

impartial jury, the claim fails because he does not contend that

any of the jurors who actually served were not impartial. See Ross

v. Oklahoma, 487 U.S. 81, 88 (1988); United States v. Webster, 162

F.3d 308, 342 n.36 (5th Cir. 1998) (citation omitted), cert.

denied, ___ U.S. ___, 120 S. Ct. 83 (1999). Munive’s claim that he

was denied his statutory right to free exercise of his peremptory

challenges also fails because he has not demonstrated that the

district court abused its discretion in determining that the

challenged jurors were impartial. See United States v. Scott, 159

F.3d 916, 925 (5th Cir. 1998); United States v. Munoz, 15 F.3d 395,

397 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, 511 U.S. 1134 (1994).

AFFIRMED