United States v. Ricky Davis

449 F.3d 842, 70 Fed. R. Serv. 394, 2006 U.S. App. LEXIS 13934, 2006 WL 1540854
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit
DecidedJune 7, 2006
Docket05-3809
StatusPublished
Cited by30 cases

This text of 449 F.3d 842 (United States v. Ricky Davis) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Eighth 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. Ricky Davis, 449 F.3d 842, 70 Fed. R. Serv. 394, 2006 U.S. App. LEXIS 13934, 2006 WL 1540854 (8th Cir. 2006).

Opinions

MURPHY, Circuit Judge.

A jury convicted Ricky Davis of being a felon in possession of a firearm, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1), and he was sentenced to 63 months. Davis appeals, arguing that there was insufficient evidence to sustain his conviction and objecting to the admission of evidence related to a traffic stop and a search warrant. We affirm.

Officers of the Omaha Police Department learned from a confidential informant that Ricky Davis was selling marijuana at a residence located at 3921 North 45th Street. They applied for a search warrant, and while it was being processed they set up surveillance to monitor traffic to and from the residence. Surveillance officers saw a car stop at the house and watched a man get out and go up to the front door and return to the vehicle approximately ten minutes later. After he drove off, officers stopped the car and identified the man they had seen go up to the house as Burnell McCowin. They found a bag of marijuana in his jacket pocket.

Approximately forty five minutes after police stopped McCowin, officers executed the search warrant at the residence and found Davis in his underwear in the living room with his girlfriend. After securing the premises, officers searched the first floor and found a small amount of marijuana, a digital scale, a partially smoked blunt, and baggies. In the main floor bedroom they found a handgun hidden between the mattress and box spring of the bed, $2100 in Davis’ jeans which were lying on top of the dresser, a pile of men’s clothes, several pairs of men’s shoes, and a receipt from the county health department with Davis’ name on it. They also recovered photographs displayed and stored in the home which pictured Davis with his friends.

Prior to trial Davis raised several evi-dentiary objections. He argued that any hearsay regarding his alleged marijuana sales should be excluded and offered to admit that the officers had a valid search warrant. . The district court declined to rule on the objection at that time. Davis also filed a motion in limine to exclude evidence of McCowin’s traffic stop under Federal Rule of Evidence 403 because any probative value of the evidence would be substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice and confusion of the issues. The court prohibited the government from mentioning the traffic stop during its opening statement but left open the question of whether it could be offered during its case in chief.

During the direct examination of Officer Joseph Baudler at trial, Davis raised hearsay and relevancy objections to questions about the basis for the search. The court sustained the objections raised by Davis but permitted the prosecutor to introduce the first page of the warrant. The face sheet stated that based upon the affidavit of officers John Waller and Edith Andersen there was probable cause that Ricky Davis “resides or is in control” of the residence at 3921 North 45th Street, Omaha, Nebraska, and that marijuana and weapons would be found there. The court instructed the jury that the exhibit was [845]*845received “for the limited purpose of demonstrating the reason and lawfulness of the search in question and for no other reason”. The court also permitted testimony describing the traffic stop of McCowin and the bag of marijuana found on him, overruling objections made by Davis.

Other officers testified about what was found during the search. Sergeant David Bianchi testified that Davis had admitted that he owned the men’s shoes found in the residence, that Davis told officers he wanted to wear a specific pair of shoes when they took him in, and that he rejected the first three pairs taken to him as the wrong ones. Other witnesses testified that the bag containing marijuana found on McCowin was similar to the baggies found in the residence and that the pictures displayed and stored in the residence were of Davis and his friends.

Davis called his own witnesses. His sister Tommie testified that she was renting the residence and that she had taken the gun from her nephew and hid it under the mattress until she could dispose of it. She also said that she had given Davis a key that evening so that he could entertain his guest at her residence and that the men’s clothes and shoes in the bedroom were hers because she wore them for comfort around the house. Davis’ sister Sharon indicated that Ricky would visit the house to feed the three pit bull dogs he kept there. McCowin testified that the reason he stopped his car at the house was so that his passenger could obtain a car from Davis and that it was the passenger who had gone up to the door. McCowin admitted that he occasionally used marijuana with Davis but denied getting marijuana from him that evening. Davis also testified and admitted that he used marijuana and that all of the drugs in the residence belonged to him. He testified that he used his sister’s house to entertain his girlfriend but that he did not have his own key and that he never slept in the bedroom. He denied any knowledge of the firearm and testified that he had rejected the shoes selected by Officer Bianchi because they did not belong to him. Davis also presented evidence that only Tommie’s name was on the lease and that the bag found on McCowin was not any different from bags commonly used in kitchens.

Davis moved for a judgment of acquittal at the end of the government’s case in chief and at the conclusion of the evidence. The district court denied the motions, and the jury returned a guilty verdict. The court sentenced him to 63 months imprisonment, and Davis appeals. He argues that the evidence was insufficient to sustain his conviction, that introduction of the first page of the search warrant was improper, and that the court abused its discretion by permitting evidence of the traffic stop. The government counters that there was more than sufficient evidence to uphold Davis’ conviction, that the court did not abuse its discretion by permitting evidence of the stop because the presence of drugs on McCowin just after his visit to Davis made it more likely that Davis dealt drugs and possessed a firearm, and that evidence of the warrant was necessary to provide jurors “context” for the search. It also maintains that any error in the district court’s evidentiary rulings would be harmless given the overwhelming evidence of Davis’ guilt.

Davis argues that his conviction should be reversed because there was insufficient evidence for the jury to conclude that he possessed the firearm. In reviewing the sufficiency of the evidence, we view the evidence in the light most favorable to the jury verdict and will only reverse if no reasonable jury could have found the defendant guilty. United States v. Ramirez, 350 F.3d 780, 783 (8th Cir.2003). The [846]*846verdict will be upheld so long as the government produced sufficient evidence for a reasonable jury to find the elements of the offense beyond a reasonable doubt. United States v. Ruiz, 412 F.3d 871, 883 (2005).

To obtain a conviction under 18 U.S.C. § 922

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Bluebook (online)
449 F.3d 842, 70 Fed. R. Serv. 394, 2006 U.S. App. LEXIS 13934, 2006 WL 1540854, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-ricky-davis-ca8-2006.