United States v. Speed

272 F. App'x 88
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Second Circuit
DecidedApril 7, 2008
DocketNo. 06-2649-cr.
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 272 F. App'x 88 (United States v. Speed) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Second 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. Speed, 272 F. App'x 88 (2d Cir. 2008).

Opinion

SUMMARY ORDER

Robert Speed appeals from a judgment of conviction entered on May 22, 2006 in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York (Castel, J.). Speed was convicted, following a jury trial, of participating in a racketeering enterprise, 18 U.S.C. § 1962(c), conspiring to commit racketeering, 18 U.S.C. § 1962(d), using a firearm in furtherance of crimes of violence, 18 U.S.C. § 924(c)(l)(A)(ii), being a felon in possession of a firearm, 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1), conspiring to transport stolen goods in interstate commerce and to sell stolen goods, 18 U.S.C. § 371, transporting stolen property across state lines, 18 U.S.C. §§ 2314 and 2, and possessing and selling stolen property, 18 U.S.C. §§ 2315 and 2. The jury also found that seven racketeering acts had been proven, including six acts of robbery, and one act of transporting stolen property from New Jersey to New York and subsequently selling the stolen items in New York. Speed was sentenced principally to 420 months’ incarceration.

This appeal makes several arguments, discussed below, challenging Speed’s conviction and sentence. The parties’ familiarity with the underlying facts, the procedural history, and the issues presented for review is presumed.

A. Venue as to Firearm Offense. Speed attacks his conviction on the § 924(c)(1) firearm offense on the ground that venue was not proper in the Southern District of New York. Speed argues that the underlying crimes — a conspiracy to commit robbery, and the robbery, of a New Jersey residence — were committed solely in New Jersey and therefore the gun offense occurred solely in New Jersey. An offense must be prosecuted in the district where it was “committed,” U.S. Const, art. Ill, § 2, cl. 3, as “determined from the nature of the crime alleged and the location of the act or acts constituting it.” United States v. Cabrales, 524 U.S. 1, 5, 118 S.Ct. 1772, 141 L.Ed.2d 1 (1998) (internal quotation marks omitted). “In a conspiracy prosecution, ‘venue is proper in any district in which an overt act in furtherance of the conspiracy was committed by any of the coconspirators.’ ” United States v. Smith, 198 F.3d 377, 382 (2d Cir.1999) (quoting United States v. Naranjo, 14 F.3d 145, 147 (2d Cir.1994)). The evidence at trial established that Speed and his co-conspirators planned the New Jersey robbery in the Southern District of New York, in a meeting with their fence, a [91]*91jewelry dealer who provided them with the addresses of customers or other people he knew had jewelry and other items of value. Speed and Riley transported the firearm en route through the Southern District of New York to and from the targeted New Jersey address. The Southern District of New York was therefore a “site of the crime” and was a suitable venue for trying the case, especially in view of the New York locus of the other charged crimes. United States v. Saavedra, 223 F.3d 85, 93 (2d Cir.2000). “Where venue is appropriate for the underlying crime of violence, so too it is for the § 924(c)(1) offense.” United States v. Rodriguez-Moreno, 526 U.S. 275, 282, 119 S.Ct. 1239, 143 L.Ed.2d 388 (1999) (upholding venue in New Jersey for a firearm offense charge as part of a kidnapping that occui'red through several states, in which the firearm was possessed and used only in Maryland); see also United States v. Fabian, 312 F.3d 550, 557 (2d Cir.2002) (“[A] defendant charged under 18 U.S.C. § 924(c)(1) may be charged in any district where the underlying crime took place, ‘even if he did not use or carry the firearm in that district.’ ” (quoting Saavedra, 223 F.3d at 90)), abrogated on other grounds by United States v. Parkes, 497 F.3d 220 (2d Cir.2007).

B. Post-Arrest Statements. Speed argues that his post-arrest statements should have been suppressed as the product of a warrantless arrest without probable cause, and that the Nassau County police improperly used Speed’s parole officer as a “stalking horse” to effectuate his arrest. The police had probable cause to arrest Speed without a warrant based on the following undisputed facts: (1) the police observed two black men running from the scene of the burglary; (2) the police apprehended one of the two (Speed’s accomplice Darin Riley); (3) Riley had a mask he used to cover his face; (4) Riley possessed jewelry from the burglarized house; (5) the police saw the second suspect run from the house and escape over a backyard fence; (6) a police dog searching for the second suspect found a ski mask in the backyard; (7) the ski mask was later found to contain Speed’s DNA; and (8) after they arrested Riley, the police learned that Speed and Riley were associates. Based on the “totality of the circumstances,” the district court properly concluded that law enforcement officials had “sufficient knowledge or reasonably trustworthy information to justify a person of reasonable caution in believing that an offense has been or is being committed by the person to be arrested.” United States v. Patrick, 899 F.2d 169, 171 (2d Cir.1990).

Speed contends that his parole officer was used as a “stalking horse” to conduct a home visit so that law enforcement officers could evade the Fourth Amendment’s usual warrant and probable cause requirements for police searches and seizures. We rejected such a theory in United States v. Reyes, 283 F.3d 446, 463 (2d Cir.2002). Because Speed’s parole officer was pursuing legitimate parole-related objectives in conducting the home visit, the law permitted his cooperation with law enforcement personnel. See id. at 464.

C. The 1986 Robbery Conviction. The district court admitted limited evidence about Speed’s 1986 robbery conviction pursuant to Fed.R.Evid. 404

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Bluebook (online)
272 F. App'x 88, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-speed-ca2-2008.