USA v. Eddie Jackson

Filing

OPINION filed: AFFIRMED, decision not for publication. Alice M. Batchelder, Circuit Judge; John M. Rogers, Circuit Judge; and Deborah L. Cook, (authoring), Circuit Judge.

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NOT RECOMMENDED FOR FULL-TEXT PUBLICATION
File Name: 15a0659n.06
Case No. 14-2208
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT

FILED
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

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Plaintiff-Appellee,
v.
EDDIE ALLEN JACKSON,
Defendant-Appellant.

Sep 28, 2015
DEBORAH S. HUNT, Clerk

ON APPEAL FROM THE UNITED
STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR
THE WESTERN DISTRICT OF
MICHIGAN

BEFORE: BATCHELDER, ROGERS, and COOK, Circuit Judges.
COOK, Circuit Judge. Following a two-day trial, a jury found Eddie Allen Jackson
guilty of three counts of child sex trafficking.

He appeals, arguing that the district court

improperly excluded evidence of the minor victims’ prostitution histories and that his 360-month
sentence is procedurally and substantively unreasonable. Finding no error, we AFFIRM.
I.
In 2012, Jackson repeatedly drove sixteen-year-old Adrianna, fourteen-year-old Alissa,
and fifteen-year-old Alexandra, from Muskegon to Grand Rapids, Michigan. Jackson plied them
with flavored vodka, cigarettes, and marijuana. For the victims, this eased what came next:
walking up and down Division Street, a known prostitution area, to solicit men for sex.

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Jackson controlled all facets of the prostitution trips. He provided transportation and
condoms. He determined where the teenagers would have sex for money—on Division Street, at
a nearby America’s Best Inn, or at the so-called “Mexican house.” And he set the transaction
terms, demanding that the victims collect extra money from customers who took longer than
fifteen minutes. In return, the victims received 50% of the prostitution money, as well as gifts of
clothes and tattoos. But they feared Jackson, who hit Alissa and threatened to shoot Adrianna.
In December 2013, a grand jury indicted Jackson on three counts of child sex trafficking
in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 1591(a)(1), (b)(2). Before trial, Jackson noticed his intent to present
evidence that the minor victims prostituted for other pimps. After a hearing, the court excluded
the evidence under Federal Rule of Evidence 412, finding that the rule’s exceptions did not apply
and that the evidence would “likely introduce prejudice and confusion into the trial.”
At trial the victims testified about their prostitution, their relationships with Jackson, and
their initial reluctance to cooperate with prosecutors. Also testifying was FBI Special Agent
James Hardie, who described typical relationships between pimps and vulnerable victims like
Adrianna, Alissa, and Alexandra. In particular, Agent Hardie noted that minor victims often
refuse at first to cooperate in sex-trafficking prosecutions out of loyalty to their pimps
The jury convicted Jackson on all three counts. In the ensuing weeks, Jackson twice
contacted Adrianna and her family. The government moved for an emergency protective order,
which was granted.

The court enjoined Jackson from harassing or otherwise contacting

Adrianna, Alissa, or Alexandra for three years. The court then sentenced Jackson to 360 months
of imprisonment on each count of sex trafficking, to run concurrently. Jackson timely appealed
his conviction and sentence.

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II.
First, Jackson contends that the district court erred in excluding evidence that the victims
prostituted themselves for other pimps. We review for abuse of discretion. United States v.
Willoughby, 742 F.3d 229, 234 (6th Cir. 2014).
Although Federal Rule of Evidence 412 prohibits “evidence offered to prove that a victim
engaged in other sexual behavior,” Jackson maintains that the victims’ prostitution histories fall
within one of the rule’s exceptions—“evidence whose exclusion would violate [his]
constitutional rights.” Fed. R. Evid. 412(a)(1), (b)(1)(C). Banning evidence of the victims’ other
pimps, Jackson argues, denied him his Sixth Amendment right to confront the prosecution’s
witnesses through cross-examination, as well as his right to present a complete defense. See
Jordan v. Warden, Lebanon, Corr. Inst., 675 F.3d 586, 593 (6th Cir. 2012).
The Sixth Amendment does not safeguard all avenues of cross-examination. Boggs v.
Collins, 226 F.3d 728, 736 (6th Cir. 2000); see also United States v. Anderson, 139 F.3d 291,
303 (1st Cir. 1998) (using prior commercial sex acts to impeach the victim’s credibility
“embod[ies] a particularly offensive form of stereotyping” and is not permissible). But it does
protect Jackson’s right to expose through cross-examination a witness’s “motivation in
testifying” or, more specifically, a “prototypical form of bias.” Boggs, 226 F.3d at 737. Jackson
insists that each victim’s prostitution history reveals her motive to tag Jackson as her pimp to
avoid prosecution herself or to shield the true pimp from prosecution.
If the court curtails cross-examination of a witness on motivation or bias, we ask whether
the jury could assess those through other evidence. Boggs, 226 F.3d at 739. And if not, we
balance the Sixth Amendment violation against the government’s interest in excluding the
testimony. Id.
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Here, the jury heard testimony about the victims’ motives to name Jackson as their pimp.
Adrianna admitted that the government agreed not to prosecute her for prostitution if she testified
against Jackson. So too Alissa, for whom the government dropped prostitution charges. And
here, the government’s interest in exclusion outweighed any Sixth Amendment violation.
Jackson’s proposed line of cross-examination strayed from any usual form of bias. His planned
cross-examination required the jury to infer or speculate that the girls initially denied but later
admitted to prostituting for Jackson in a calculated scheme to protect other pimps. As the district
court recognized, this “is not a natural inference and appears to be based on little more than
speculation.” Instead, the prototypical loyalty that prostitutes show to their pimps explains each
victim’s about-face on prostituting for Jackson. Given the tenuous inferences needed to connect
the prostitution evidence to bias against Jackson, any Sixth Amendment interest was negligible.
In contrast, the government’s interest in excluding the evidence under the rape-shield law
abounded, particularly because the victims were minors. See United States v. Ogden, 685 F.3d
600, 606 (6th Cir. 2012) (finding Rule 412’s protections “especially important” for underage
victims).
Nor did the court deny Jackson the opportunity to present a complete defense. The
excluded evidence addressed no element of the offense and had little bearing on Jackson’s guilt,
while the government had a strong interest in excluding it. See Ogden, 685 F.3d at 605–06
(finding that Ogden presented a complete defense to child pornography charges without
introducing the minor victim’s sexually explicit chat logs).
The district court acted within its discretion in excluding evidence of the victims’
prostitution histories.

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III.
Second, Jackson challenges the procedural and substantive reasonableness of his 360month sentence. According to Jackson, the district court erroneously imposed an obstruction-ofjustice enhancement, miscalculated his criminal-history score, and neglected to explain why it
overruled his objections to two other enhancements.
A. Obstruction-of-Justice Enhancement
After the trial but before sentencing, Jackson mailed Adrianna a letter asking her “[h]ow
could [she] get on the stand and lie after lie,” and telling her to “think of what [she] ha[s] done.”
Jackson also contacted Adrianna’s mother by phone.

The court interpreted these

communications as efforts “to get to these girls . . . telling them that he needed to get to them,
they needed to change their story, they were lying on him . . . . It was for the purpose of
inducing a change in their testimony and intimidating them.” Finding “clear obstruction,” the
court imposed a two-level enhancement under U.S.S.G. § 3C1.1.
We review the district court’s findings of fact for clear error, but review de novo its
determination that specific facts constitute obstruction of justice under the guidelines. United
States v. Williams, 709 F.3d 1183, 1185 (6th Cir. 2013).
Rather than seeking to influence either “a witness” or “a witness[’s] anticipated
testimony,” Jackson argues, he admonished Adrianna about “testimony previously rendered,”
which is not obstruction.

But the plain language of the guideline, which extends to the

“sentencing of the instant offense of conviction,” belies this argument.

U.S.S.G. § 3C1.1

(emphasis added). The guideline applies fully to Jackson’s pre-sentencing communications with
a witness. United States v. Irby, 240 F.3d 597, 600 (7th Cir. 2001).

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The district court correctly concluded that Jackson attempted to influence Adrianna’s
testimony. Jackson accused Adrianna of lying about her prostitution activities no less than four
times in his letter. Sandwiched between these accusations, Jackson invites Adrianna to “think
of” what her testimony did to him. The district court quite naturally inferred that Jackson wanted
Adrianna to recant and sent the letter to convince her to do so. The trial confirmed that both
Jackson and Adrianna knew that she, in fact, prostituted herself. Jackson’s efforts to secure a
recantation were therefore efforts to elicit false testimony. See United States v. Cannon, 552 F.
App’x 512, 515 (6th Cir. 2014) (upholding obstruction enhancement when Cannon asked his
wife to tell a “truth” that both knew was “manifestly false”). We discern no error in the
obstruction enhancement.
B. Uncounseled Convictions
Next, Jackson argues that the district court counted two uncounseled state-court
convictions in his criminal history, resulting in an increased criminal-history category. For both
convictions, the pre-sentence report noted that “[a]ttorney representation is unknown.” Pointing
to this language, Jackson asserted that the government failed to prove the validity of the
convictions and therefore could not count them in his criminal-history score. The district court
overruled Jackson’s objection, and we review for clear error. United States v. Adkins, 729 F.3d
559, 569 (6th Cir. 2013).
Jackson bears the burden of showing that a prior conviction is invalid because of a failure
to appoint counsel in violation of Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U.S. 335 (1963). United States v.
Kitchen, 428 F. App’x 593, 598 (6th Cir. 2011). But rather than denying representation, Jackson
merely presses the lack of documentation. Given Jackson’s silence on the point, we examine it
no further.
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C. Failure to Explain
Jackson objected to the following two-level guidelines enhancements: (1) “unduly
influenc[ing] a minor to engage in prohibited sexual conduct” and (2) “the commission of a sex
act or sexual contact” in connection with sex trafficking children. U.S.S.G. §§ 2G1.3(b)(2)(B),
(b)(4)(A).

He argued that the age difference between him and the victims insufficiently

supported the undue-influence enhancement and that the sex-act enhancement was “subsumed
within the charge of conviction.”

The district court tersely overruled these objections at

sentencing, and Jackson now claims that the “barren” record prevents meaningful appellate
review.
In handing down a sentence, the district court must satisfy us that it “considered the
parties’ arguments and has a reasoned basis for exercising [its] own legal decisionmaking
authority.” Rita v. United States, 551 U.S. 338, 356 (2007). Here, the district court briefly but
adequately explained why it rejected Jackson’s objection to the undue-influence enhancement. It
found the enhancement “appropriate” due to the age difference between twenty-nine-year-old
Jackson and his teenaged victims. See U.S.S.G. § 2G1.3 cmt. n.3(B) (“In a case in which a
participant is at least 10 years older than the minor, there shall be a rebuttable presumption that
[the enhancement] applies.”). And when summarizing the case, the court elaborated on the
undue influence, noting for example, Jackson’s provision of vodka.
As to the sex-act enhancement, the court noted that sex acts “could be subsumed” in the
charged offense of sex trafficking. But, as the government argued, sex need not actually occur.
Jackson completed the offense when he transported the victims knowing that a sex act “will be
caused in the future.” True, the court could have explained its ruling in greater detail, but
Jackson suffered no prejudice. The record and our case law allow the enhancement. See, e.g.,
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Willoughby, 742 F.3d at 241 (6th Cir. 2014) (affirming the enhancement because “a sex act does
not have to occur to satisfy the elements of the child-sex-trafficking offense”).
The court explained why it imposed the enhancements, the record supports them, and
there was therefore no error.
D. Substantive Reasonableness
We afford a within-guidelines sentence a rebuttable presumption of reasonableness.
United States v. Callahan, -- F.3d --, 2015 WL 5202925 (6th Cir. Sept. 8, 2015). Jackson’s 360month sentence fell at the low end of the advisory guidelines range, and he advances no
arguments on appeal to rebut the presumption of reasonableness.
IV.
We AFFIRM Jackson’s conviction and sentence.

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