United States v. Yakotus Odum

65 F.4th 714
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit
DecidedApril 26, 2023
Docket21-4076
StatusPublished
Cited by11 cases

This text of 65 F.4th 714 (United States v. Yakotus Odum) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Fourth 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. Yakotus Odum, 65 F.4th 714 (4th Cir. 2023).

Opinion

USCA4 Appeal: 21-4076 Doc: 54 Filed: 04/26/2023 Pg: 1 of 16

PUBLISHED

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

No. 21-4076

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Plaintiff – Appellee, v.

YAKOTUS ODUM,

Defendant – Appellant.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Western District of North Carolina, at Charlotte. Max O. Cogburn, Jr., District Judge. (3:19-cr-00152-MOC-DSC-1)

Argued: March 7, 2023 Decided: April 26, 2023

Before RICHARDSON and RUSHING, Circuit Judges, and MOTZ, Senior Circuit Judge.

Affirmed by published opinion. Senior Judge Motz wrote the opinion, in which Judge Richardson and Judge Rushing joined.

ARGUED: Melissa Susanne Baldwin, FEDERAL DEFENDERS OF WESTERN NORTH CAROLINA, INC., Charlotte, North Carolina, for Appellant. Anthony Joseph Enright, OFFICE OF THE UNITED STATES ATTORNEY, Charlotte, North Carolina, for Appellee. ON BRIEF: Anthony Martinez, Federal Public Defender, FEDERAL DEFENDERS OF WESTERN NORTH CAROLINA, INC., Charlotte, North Carolina, for Appellant. William T. Stetzer, Acting United States Attorney, OFFICE OF THE UNITED STATES ATTORNEY, Charlotte, North Carolina, for Appellee. USCA4 Appeal: 21-4076 Doc: 54 Filed: 04/26/2023 Pg: 2 of 16

DIANA GRIBBON MOTZ, Senior Circuit Judge:

Yakotus Odum appeals his conviction and sentence for crimes related to an armed

robbery of a Circle K convenience store. He argues that the district court erred in

instructing the jury on the elements of aiding and abetting liability, abused its discretion in

seating a juror who expressed difficulty hearing during jury selection, and responded

inadequately to his objections to several conditions of supervised release. Finding no

reversible error, we affirm.

I.

At around 4:00 a.m. on March 31, 2018, a masked man entered a Circle K in

Gastonia, North Carolina, pointed his gun at the cashier, and demanded he “[g]ive [him]

all the money.” A similar robbery took place at a Kingsway convenience store in the same

city two weeks later. A grand jury indicted Odum on five charges related to those

robberies: two counts of Hobbs Act robbery, two counts of possessing and brandishing a

firearm in furtherance of those robberies, and one count of possessing a firearm as a felon.

Odum proceeded to trial, which took place over three days in September 2020.

A.

On the first day of jury selection, the district court questioned the first 16 prospective

jurors individually. While the court questioned the prospective juror who ultimately

became Juror Eight, both Juror Eight and the court expressed some difficulty hearing.

About halfway through their conversation, the following exchange took place:

The Court: And does your wife work outside the home? Juror Eight: Yes. The Court: Pardon? Did you say yes or no?

2 USCA4 Appeal: 21-4076 Doc: 54 Filed: 04/26/2023 Pg: 3 of 16

Juror Eight: I can’t hear you. The Court: Does your wife — I didn’t hear, does she work outside the home? Juror Eight: Yes. The Court: What does she do? Juror Eight: She is in IT at UNCC. The Court: And how long has she been with those folks? Juror Eight: So I do have a hearing issue. I can’t always understand what you’re saying. The Court: You can’t understand. Okay. Juror Eight: I mean, I get bits and pieces.

The court acknowledged Juror Eight’s comment but continued to question him. Juror Eight

asked the court to repeat one more question, but otherwise answered the court’s questions

without issue.

The district court then permitted defense counsel to question the potential jurors.

While Odum’s counsel asked specific follow up questions of several potential jurors, he

did not ask Juror Eight about his hearing or, indeed, question him at all. Later in jury

selection, Odum moved to strike Juror Eight for cause. The court refused, saying, “I think

[Juror Eight] was able to hear once I spoke into the microphone.” No one raised concerns

about Juror Eight’s ability to hear at any other point in the proceedings.

B.

At trial, Odum did not dispute that the robberies occurred: security cameras

recorded both incidents. He argued only that he was not the robber.

The Government presented circumstantial evidence tying Odum to the robberies.

The Circle K cashier testified that after taking about $200, which the cashier had been

counting to put in the store’s safe, the robber fled in the direction of a nearby Arby’s.

Minutes later, a K-9 unit tracked the robber’s scent to the Arby’s parking lot, where police

3 USCA4 Appeal: 21-4076 Doc: 54 Filed: 04/26/2023 Pg: 4 of 16

found a black ski mask. The DNA on the ski mask belonged to Odum. In fact, the match

was so strong that unless Odum had a twin, the DNA could not belong to anyone else.

Surveillance footage from a nearby storage facility also showed a car resembling Odum’s

gold Buick entering and leaving the area around the time of the robbery.

After the second robbery, a K9 unit tracked the robber’s scent to an abandoned

home. Police found a handgun and a jacket with a Kleenex in one pocket. Swabs from the

gun, jacket, and Kleenex all contained mixtures of two or more people’s DNA. The

Government’s expert testified that Odum’s DNA was a major contributor to the sample

taken from the black jacket and significantly more likely than a random unrelated person

to have contributed to the other two items.

The Government then called Jalen Davidson, a federal prisoner who spent time with

Odum both inside and outside prison. While the two were together in Gastonia, Davidson

heard Odum quiz a mutual acquaintance about the money management and security

practices at the gas station where she worked as a cashier. Odum asked “How do you all

deposit the money?” “How much is in the cash register at that time?” and “When do you

all put it in the bank?” On another occasion, Davidson testified that he overheard Odum

at a cookout speaking about “hitting licks for a . . . little nothing change.” According to

Davidson, “hitting licks” meant “committing a robbery.” Davidson also testified that while

he and Odum were in the Gaston County jail, they had a conversation about the robberies

during which Odum told him he had “messed up” and “got caught.”

After the Government rested, defense counsel introduced a photo of Odum’s

tattooed hands, which he invited the jury to contrast with the hands of the gunman in the

4 USCA4 Appeal: 21-4076 Doc: 54 Filed: 04/26/2023 Pg: 5 of 16

Circle K surveillance footage. Additionally, Odum’s uncle testified that Odum allowed his

14-year-old cousin to use his car. Defense counsel suggested this cousin may have

borrowed Odum’s car to commit the robberies. And he addressed the DNA evidence

against Odum by arguing that “where it matters the most, somebody else’s DNA would

[also] be there.”

C.

During the charge conference, Odum objected to the court giving an aiding and

abetting instruction to the jury, arguing that the evidence did not support it. While the

Government argued Odum committed the robberies himself, it also maintained that there

was sufficient evidence for the jury to convict him as an aider and abettor. The district

court overruled Odum’s objection, saying it would “read directly from” 18 U.S.C. § 2, the

federal aiding and abetting statute.

The court charged the jury that it could convict Odum of robbery if, among other

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Bluebook (online)
65 F.4th 714, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-yakotus-odum-ca4-2023.