USA v. Jamaica Heflin

Filing

OPINION filed : AFFIRMED, decision not for publication. Gilbert S. Merritt, Julia Smith Gibbons and Bernice Bouie Donald, Circuit Judges.

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NOT RECOMMENDED FOR FULL-TEXT PUBLICATION
File Name: 15a0079n.06
Case No. 13-3849

FILED

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

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Plaintiff-Appellee,
v.
JAMAICA HEFLIN,
Defendant-Appellant.

Jan 27, 2015
DEBORAH S. HUNT, Clerk

ON APPEAL FROM THE
UNITED STATES DISTRICT
COURT FOR THE
NORTHERN DISTRICT OF
OHIO
OPINION

BEFORE: MERRITT, GIBBONS, and DONALD, Circuit Judges.
JULIA SMITH GIBBONS, Circuit Judge. Jamaica Heflin was convicted by a jury of
two counts of possessing a controlled substance with intent to distribute.

At trial, the

government elicited testimony on cross-examination from a defense witness that (1) during the
day before Heflin’s arrest, the witness had driven around Toledo with Heflin and another man
who owed Heflin money and who asked Heflin for heroin; and (2) the witness had dealt drugs
with Heflin in the past. Heflin argues that the witness’s testimony was inadmissible other acts
evidence and that the district court wrongly denied him a limiting instruction. For the reasons set
forth below, we affirm Heflin’s convictions.
I.
In the early morning hours of June 9, 2011, Jamaica Heflin was stopped by police as a
passenger in a red pickup truck at a 7-Eleven convenience store in Toledo, Ohio. Police
searched the vehicle and its occupants and discovered a Glock .40 caliber handgun, $1,600 in

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cash, 16.49 grams of heroin, and 7.33 grams of crack cocaine. According to several of the
responding officers, the gun, cash, and drugs all were found on Heflin’s person.
Heflin was indicted on four counts: (1) knowingly using and carrying a firearm in
furtherance of a drug trafficking crime, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 924(c)(1); (2) being a felon in
possession of a firearm, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1); (3) knowingly and intentionally
possessing heroin with intent to distribute, in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1) and (b)(1)(C);
and (4) knowingly and intentionally possessing crack cocaine with intent to distribute, in
violation of 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1) and (b)(1)(C).
At trial, the government called the responding officers to testify that Heflin had possessed
the gun, cash, and drugs. The government also introduced testimony from a Toledo police
sergeant who had interviewed Heflin in a holding cell shortly after Heflin’s arrest. According to
the sergeant, Heflin confessed that he had obtained the gun, the crack cocaine, and the heroin
from a female earlier in the day and that he intended to sell the drugs the next day.
The sergeant further testified that based on his experience as a narcotics detective, the
amount of heroin and crack cocaine that had been recovered was consistent with distribution,
rather than personal use; a typical dose of heroin would be 0.1 to 0.2 grams, and a typical dose of
crack cocaine would be 0.2 grams. Upon cross-examination, however, he acknowledged that at a
party with several people, it was possible that they could use several grams of heroin or crack
cocaine during the course of an evening.
In his defense, Heflin called three witnesses: a clerk from the 7-Eleven where the stop
occurred, himself, and Jasun Westover, who had been another passenger in the truck. The 7Eleven clerk testified at trial that she had seen the police officers pull the gun out from under the
seat of the red pickup truck, not from Heflin’s waistband as the officers said. The government

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impeached her with her prior testimony, from a suppression hearing, that the first time she saw
the drugs and the gun was when they were sitting on the hood of the red pickup truck after the
officers placed them there.
Heflin took the stand to tell his version of events on the afternoon and evening of June 8–
9, 2011. He testified that he had spent the afternoon at his mother’s house until a woman named
Kelsey called him to pick her up. Heflin did not have a ride, so he called Westover, who had a
truck. They picked up Kelsey, who, according to Heflin, was carrying a large amount of cash
because she had just robbed a drug dealer on the east side of Toledo. Heflin testified that Kelsey
gave him $1,000 of the cash as a gift and that he already had another $600 in cash that he
intended to put toward his mother’s rent. The group then did drugs at a hotel, along with another
woman who came to join them. Sometime after 1 a.m., according to Heflin, the group drove to
Kelsey’s sister’s house to pick up swimsuits for the women so that they could go swimming at
the hotel; they were on their way back to the hotel when they were pulled over. Heflin testified
that the police found the gun in Westover’s truck after Heflin had already been taken to the
ground and searched; Heflin denied that he had ever seen the gun or had it in his possession. He
also denied that the heroin and crack cocaine that the police recovered had come from his person.
Heflin further claimed that the police had beaten and threatened him while he was detained in the
holding cell, which did not have cameras.
Heflin also called Jasun Westover to the stand. On direct examination, Westover testified
that during the day on June 8, he and Heflin had driven a man named Richard to various stores in
the Toledo area so that Richard could “boost”—shoplift merchandise and then return it for
money. (Heflin denied this during his own testimony.) Consistent with Heflin’s testimony,
Westover testified that the two men later picked up Kelsey, did drugs at a hotel along with

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Kelsey and another woman, and left the hotel in the wee hours of the morning to get swimsuits
for the women, after which they were pulled over at the 7-Eleven. Westover testified that the
Glock handgun in question belonged to him—specifically, that he had purchased it from the
same person from whom he had acquired the truck a month or two previously and that he kept it
underneath the carpet under the passenger seat. Westover testified that he saw a police officer
find the gun under the passenger seat, not on Heflin’s person.
Westover’s testimony on cross-examination gives rise to this appeal.

Two separate

groups of statements are at issue. First, the government asked Westover about his interactions
with Richard in the hours before Westover and Heflin were arrested. The government asked
Westover whether he and Heflin had “picked up a guy named Richard”; Westover said yes. The
government asked Westover whether Richard owed Heflin money, and Westover replied, “I
believe so. . . . I’m speculating on that’s what I assume that he did—was owed him. I didn’t ask
him if he owed him money.” The government asked whether Richard, upon being dropped off,
had asked Heflin for heroin; Westover said yes. Finally, the government asked whether Heflin
had actually given heroin to Richard; Westover said, “No, I don’t recall. I don’t believe so.”
Impeaching Westover, the government then played a recording of a statement Westover had
previously given to investigators.
Second, the government asked Westover about his past drug dealing with Heflin:
Q:

And in the past you had sold drugs with Mr. Heflin; isn’t that true?

A:

Yes, sir.

Q:

And he would split profits with you when you sold them; is that correct?

A:

Not necessarily split profits, but—

Q:
true?

He would give you some of the money that he would make selling drugs,

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A:

He had his drugs, I had my own.

The government then played another recording of Westover’s prior statement, apparently for
impeachment, and ended cross-examination.
In a sidebar conference, counsel then made the following statements:
[DEFENSE COUNSEL]: Since it was cross examination I didn’t object under
Rule 404 to that evidence coming in. It’s like evidence but earlier the day before.
It was not on the 2:00 a.m. of the night in question, so I would like an instruction
that the jury cannot consider that as evidence of what happened that night.
[PROSECUTOR]: I think it’s inextricably intertwined with what we have to
prove which is possession with intent to distribute and within hours, probably less
than 12 before the actual event in place. There’s evidence he was in possession of
heroin and distributed and selling.
THE COURT: I agree. I mean, I think it’s clearly part of the sort of continuing
course of events. It also shows relationship between these two individuals, so
overruled.
The jury acquitted Heflin of counts 1 and 2, the gun charges, but convicted him of counts 3 and
4, the drug charges. Varying downward from the guideline range of 210 to 262 months, the
district court sentenced Heflin to a term of 120 months on each count to be served concurrently.
Heflin timely appealed.1 Heflin makes two arguments as to why he should receive a new
trial.

First, he argues that the court improperly allowed Westover’s statements on cross-

examination (discussed above) to be admitted as substantive evidence that Heflin possessed
drugs with intent to distribute at the time of his arrest. Second, Heflin argues that the court erred
by not giving a limiting instruction to the jury as he requested.
II.
We first consider Heflin’s argument that the district court erred in determining that
Westover’s statements on cross-examination constituted background evidence that did not

1

After his conviction but before sentencing, Heflin filed pro se a premature notice of
appeal, which this court dismissed for lack of jurisdiction. Heflin later filed this timely appeal.
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implicate Federal Rule of Evidence 404(b). Background evidence “consists of those other acts
that are inextricably intertwined with the charged offense . . . .”
228 F.3d 745, 748 (6th Cir. 2000).

United States v. Hardy,

Heflin contends that Westover’s statements on cross-

examination were not background evidence but rather were inadmissible other acts evidence
under Rule 404.
When an objection is properly lodged to a district court’s evidentiary ruling, the court of
appeals typically reviews that ruling for an abuse of discretion. United States v. Clay, 667 F.3d
689, 693 (6th Cir. 2012) (citing Gen. Elec. Co. v. Joiner, 522 U.S. 136, 141 (1997)). A district
court’s ruling that a piece of evidence is “intrinsic” to the charged offense, and therefore not
subject to Rule 404(b) because it is not an “other act,” falls within this rule and will be reviewed
for abuse of discretion. Flagg v. City of Detroit, 715 F.3d 165, 175–76 (6th Cir. 2013); see also
United States v. Chalmers, 554 F. App’x 440, 451 (6th Cir. 2014); United States v. Toney,
161 F.3d 404, 413–14 (6th Cir. 1998). When a criminal defendant fails to raise an argument in
the district court, however, the court of appeals will review the district court’s decision for plain
error. United States v. Mayberry, 540 F.3d 506, 512 (6th Cir. 2008) (citing United States v.
Cline, 362 F.3d 343, 348 (6th Cir. 2004)). Plain error means that “(1) an error occurred; (2) the
error was obvious or clear; (3) the error affected [the appellant’s] substantial rights; and (4) the
error seriously affected the fairness, integrity, or public reputation of the judicial proceedings.”
Id. (internal quotation marks omitted).
As an initial matter, then, we must determine whether Heflin preserved his Rule 404(b)
argument for appeal or whether it is subject to plain error review. Federal Rule of Evidence
103(a) specifies that a party’s objection to a ruling admitting evidence is preserved only if the
party “timely objects or moves to strike” and “states the specific ground, unless it was apparent

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from the context.” “[A] defendant must object with that reasonable degree of specificity which
would have adequately apprised the trial court of the true basis for his objection.” United States
v. LeBlanc, 612 F.2d 1012, 1014 (6th Cir. 1980) (internal quotation marks omitted) (quoting
United States v. Fendley, 522 F.2d 181, 186 (5th Cir. 1975)).
Without adopting a strained reading of Heflin’s counsel’s words at sidebar, we are unable
to conclude that Heflin preserved his Rule 404(b) objection to Westover’s testimony. Not only
was Heflin’s counsel’s statement “loosely formulated and imprecise,” id., but to the extent that it
was clear at all, Heflin’s counsel specifically stated that he had not raised a Rule 404(b)
objection (apparently on the mistaken belief that he could not do so for testimony elicited during
cross-examination), and he did not ask that Westover’s testimony be struck from the record. The
only thing that Heflin’s counsel did do was ask the court to instruct the jury not to consider
Westover’s testimony as substantive evidence of whether Heflin had possessed the drugs with
intent to distribute. However, “[m]erely proposing a jury instruction is insufficient to preserve
an objection.” United States v. Semrau, 693 F.3d 510, 527 (6th Cir. 2012). Nor is Heflin’s
objection preserved by his prior suggestion, in a response to the government’s pretrial motion in
limine to bar Westover from testifying at all, that Westover’s “activity the previous day is
excludable under Rule 404 of the Federal Rules of Evidence.” See United States v. Kelly, 204
F.3d 652, 655 (6th Cir. 2000) (“In the absence of a contemporaneous objection we must apply a
‘plain error’ standard of review . . . [because] a motion in limine does not preserve evidentiary
questions for appeal.”).

Heflin’s argument that the district court improperly concluded

Westover’s statements did not implicate Rule 404(b) is therefore subject to plain error review.
Looking first at Westover’s statements about his and Heflin’s interactions with Richard
during the day before they were arrested, we do not find that the district court committed any

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error, much less plain error, in finding that these statements were background evidence not
subject to Rule 404(b). Although the background evidence exception “is not an open ended basis
to admit any and all other act evidence the proponent wishes to introduce,” Hardy, 228 F.3d at
748, it does cover Westover’s statements about the day before the arrest.

“Typically,

[background] evidence is a prelude to the charged offense, is directly probative of the charged
offense, arises from the same events as the charged offense, forms an integral part of a witness’s
testimony, or completes the story of the charged offense.” United States v. Adams, 722 F.3d 788,
810 (6th Cir. 2013) (quoting Hardy, 228 F.3d at 748). Westover’s statements that Richard owed
Heflin money and that Richard asked Heflin for heroin when they dropped Richard off (as well
as his recorded statement, played for impeachment, that Heflin gave heroin to Richard) are both
a prelude to and probative of the charged offense: they tend to show that Heflin possessed drugs
and was dealing drugs only a short time before Heflin was arrested, while traveling in the same
vehicle in which the police stopped him several hours later, while in the company of one of the
same people who was with him when he was arrested. For the same reasons, Westover’s
testimony “has a causal, temporal or spatial connection with the charged offense.” United States
v. Marrero, 651 F.3d 453, 471 (6th Cir. 2011) (quoting Hardy, 228 F.3d at 748). The district
court did not err in finding that Westover’s testimony about the day before constituted “other
acts” evidence that was “part of a single criminal episode,” and therefore was background
evidence outside the ambit of Rule 404(b). United States v. Barnes, 49 F.3d 1144, 1149 (6th Cir.
1995).

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Nor did the district court commit plain error in its apparent conclusion2 that Westover’s
testimony about his past drug dealing with Heflin was admissible for another non-Rule 404
purpose: to show Westover’s bias as a witness. Although the Federal Rules of Evidence do not
explicitly address impeachment of a witness for bias, the Supreme Court has made clear that
impeachment for bias is impliedly authorized—subject, of course, to the district court’s
assessment that the evidence is relevant, per Rule 401, and that its probative value is not
substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice, per Rule 403. United States v. Abel,
469 U.S. 45, 50–54 (1984). This court’s Rule 403 balancing decision in United States v. Arnold,
890 F.2d 825 (6th Cir. 1989), is instructive for the case at hand. In Arnold, the defendant was
convicted of participation in a large conspiracy to distribute marijuana. Id. at 826. At trial,
Arnold called an alibi witness named Lewellen. Id. at 827. The district court allowed the
government to cross-examine Lewellen about a small drug transaction he had had with Arnold
eighteen years previously, for the purpose of showing Lewellen’s bias. Id. at 827–28. This court
ruled that “[a]lthough it is a very close question and we might have reached a different
conclusion, we do not believe the trial court abused its discretion in ruling that the government
was entitled to explore prior drug dealings between the witness and the defendant on the issue of
bias.” Id. at 828.
Factually, Arnold is not on all fours with Heflin’s case: among other things, the
impeached witness only acknowledged a single drug deal with the defendant, farther in the past
than the drug dealing by Heflin and Westover. Id. Nevertheless, it does hold that a defense
witness for a drug-dealing defendant can, at least in some circumstances, be impeached for bias

2

In rejecting Heflin’s request for a limiting instruction, the court stated that Westover’s
testimony about his past drug dealing with Heflin “also shows relationship between these two
individuals, so overruled.”
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by eliciting testimony on cross-examination that the witness previously was involved in a drug
transaction with the defendant. See id. In light of Arnold, then, it cannot be said that the district
court committed plain error in determining that Westover’s testimony that he had previously
dealt drugs with Heflin was admissible to show Westover’s bias.
III.
We now turn to the district court’s decision not to give a limiting instruction to the jury
about Westover’s testimony. This court reviews for abuse of discretion a district court’s decision
to deny a defendant’s request for a jury instruction. United States v. Dado, 759 F.3d 550, 568
(6th Cir. 2014). “An abuse of discretion is deemed to exist when a reviewing court is ‘firmly
convinced that a mistake has been made’ . . . or when a district court makes errors of law or clear
errors of factual determination.” United States v. Smith, 749 F.3d 465, 495 (6th Cir. 2014)
(quoting United States v. Whittington, 455 F.3d 736, 738 (6th Cir. 2006)).
“If the court admits evidence that is admissible against a party or for a purpose—but not
against another party or for another purpose—the court, on timely request, must restrict the
evidence to its proper scope and instruct the jury accordingly.” Fed. R. Evid. 105. Heflin timely
requested a limiting instruction under Rule 105: immediately after the government concluded its
cross-examination of Westover, Heflin’s counsel told the court in a sidebar conference that “I
would like an instruction that the jury cannot consider that as evidence of what happened that
night.” Although Heflin’s counsel’s statement during the sidebar was not a model of clarity, it
can fairly be understood as a request for a limiting instruction both with respect to Westover’s
statements about Heflin’s activities with Richard (“It’s like evidence but earlier the day before”)
and with respect to Westover’s statements about his own prior drug dealing with Heflin (“It was
not on the 2:00 am of the night in question”).

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“A district court’s refusal to deliver a requested instruction is reversible error only if the
proposed instruction is ‘(1) a correct statement of the law, (2) not substantially covered by the
charge actually delivered to the jury, and (3) concerns a point so important in the trial that the
failure to give it substantially impairs the defendant’s defense.’” Dado, 759 F.3d at 568 (quoting
United States v. Franklin, 415 F.3d 537, 553 (6th Cir. 2005)). Because, as discussed above, the
district court did not err in concluding that Westover’s testimony about his and Heflin’s activities
with Richard the day before was background evidence that went to the charged offense, Heflin
was not entitled to a limiting instruction on that point: it was admissible for the purpose of
determining whether Heflin had, in the wee hours of June 9, 2011, possessed drugs with intent to
distribute. See United States v. Martin, 794 F.2d 1531, 1533 (11th Cir. 1986) (per curiam).
As for Westover’s testimony that he and Heflin had dealt drugs at some point in the past,
however, Heflin’s requested jury instruction is a correct statement of the law. As discussed
above, that evidence was admissible for the purpose of showing Westover’s bias in favor of
Heflin, but it was not admissible for the purpose of showing that Heflin was dealing drugs again
on this occasion. See Fed. R. Evid. 404(b). Moreover, it was not covered by the charge that the
district court delivered to the jury.
The remaining question is whether the court’s failure to give Heflin’s requested
instruction substantially impaired Heflin’s defense. We conclude that it did not. Only a small
part of the admitted evidence—that relating to drug dealing at some time prior to the events
immediately preceding Heflin’s arrest—was arguably subject to a limiting instruction. We find
it extremely doubtful that the jury singled out the part subject to a limiting instruction on which
to base its verdict. Furthermore, a correct instruction would have had to draw the jury’s attention
to the distinction between the drug-dealing evidence that they could consider as substantive

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evidence of Heflin’s guilt and the drug-dealing evidence that they could only consider for
impeachment of Westover’s credibility, an emphasis that hardly seems helpful to Heflin.
IV.
Heflin’s convictions are, therefore, affirmed.

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