In the
United States Court of Appeals
For the Seventh Circuit
No. 09-3524
U NITED S TATES OF A MERICA,
Plaintiff-Appellee,
v.
JAMELLE C ARRAWAY,
Defendant-Appellant.
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Central District of Illinois.
No. 2:08-cr-20010-MPM-DGB-1—Michael P. McCuskey, Chief Judge.
A RGUED F EBRUARY 26, 2010—D ECIDED JULY 20, 2010
Before F LAUM and W OOD , Circuit Judges, and ST. E VE,
District Judge.
W OOD , Circuit Judge. Jamelle Carraway made the
mistake of mixing up his involvement in the cocaine
business in Central Illinois with romance. Eventually he
was caught, thanks to good police work, and his para-
Hon. Amy J. St. Eve, District Judge for the Northern District of
Illinois, is sitting by designation.
2 No. 09-3524
mour, Lisa Owens, who decided to take a deal from
the prosecutor and testify against him. After a bench
trial, the court found him guilty of possessing with
intent to distribute more than 50 grams of crack cocaine,
in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1) and (b)(1)(A). Because
he had three prior drug felony convictions, he received
a mandatory sentence of life imprisonment. On appeal,
Carraway insists that the trial court should not have
believed Owens’s testimony and that his life sentence
was unconstitutional. Neither of these arguments has
merit, and so we affirm.
I
Our story begins with a series of conversations between
Lisa Owens and her incarcerated husband, Maurice
Owens. (For simplicity, we refer to Lisa Owens as “Owens”
and Maurice Owens, where necessary, as “Maurice.”) On
several occasions, Maurice asked Owens to assist a man
called “Big O” and his associates with their plans to
engage in crack dealing in the Decatur, Illinois, area
after Big O’s imminent release from prison. Big O is the
brother of defendant Carraway. Owens initially refused
her husband’s entreaties, but eventually agreed to assist
him. She did so, according to her testimony at Carraway’s
trial, only when Maurice suggested that if she was not
amenable to the arrangement then he would turn for
help to his former love interest (and the mother of some
of his children). Owens purported to be concerned about
that arrangement because the other woman had a his-
tory of drug problems.
No. 09-3524 3
Whatever her motivation, in the summer of 2007 Owens
met Big O, who introduced her to Carraway and others.
Owens learned that Carraway obtained drugs in Chicago
and brought them to Decatur for distribution. Later that
summer, Owens and Carraway began a romantic rela-
tionship. Carraway moved in with Owens, left clothes at
her home, and had his own set of keys to her apartment.
As a result of their relationship, Owens had the oppor-
tunity to observe Carraway’s role in the drug operation.
Owens testified that she had seen Carraway unpack,
weigh, and bag crack that he had obtained in Chicago in
preparation for selling it in Decatur. Owens testified
that she routinely saw Carraway with drugs or large
amounts of cash. Occasionally, Carraway asked Owens to
weigh, package, and deliver the crack for him, and she
obliged him. Although Owens collected money for these
sales, she said that she did not keep it; she testified that
her practice was to give the cash to Carraway or slip
it into his underwear drawer at their shared abode.
In January 2008, Owens and Carraway moved to a
house on Franklin Street. The lease and utility bills were
in Owens’s name, and Owens paid the rent. As she tells
it, Owens understood that Carraway retired from the
crack-dealing business shortly after they moved into
the new home. But she was evidently mistaken. After
police officers set up a controlled buy with Carraway,
they obtained a search warrant for Owens’s house, which
they executed on January 29, 2008. There they found
more than 130 grams of crack cocaine: 2.3 grams of moist
crack in Carraway’s pocket; 24.3 grams of moist crack in
4 No. 09-3524
small bags inside a larger paper bag on the kitchen
counter; and at least 107 grams of moist crack in other
bags in a kitchen cabinet. The officers also found a
digital scale in a drawer near the paper bag. In the bed-
room, the officers located $9,116 in cash tucked in a box
in a dresser drawer containing men’s boxer shorts. The
officers found Carraway and Owens in the home, and
found keys to the home in Carraway’s pocket.
Carraway and Owens were both charged with federal
crimes: Owens was charged with one count of possession
with intent to distribute crack cocaine, 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1)
& (b)(1), and one count of managing and making a
house available for the purpose of storing and distrib-
uting crack cocaine, 21 U.S.C. § 856(a)(2); Carraway was
charged with possession of crack with the intent to dis-
tribute, 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1) & (b)(1). Owens, however,
struck a deal under which she agreed to plead guilty to
maintaining a drug-involved house, and the govern-
ment agreed to dismiss the possession charge. Owens
also promised to cooperate with the government in
its case against Carraway. True to her word, when
Carraway went to trial, Owens testified for the govern-
ment, along with three officers involved in the case.
Carraway presented no witnesses. On June 1, 2009, the
district court found Carraway guilty of possession with
the intent to distribute more than 50 grams of crack
cocaine. It specifically found that Owens’s testimony
was credible, and that her testimony combined with the
physical evidence was sufficient to establish beyond a
reasonable doubt that Carraway knowingly possessed
the crack, knew it was a controlled substance, and
No. 09-3524 5
intended to distribute it. Because of Carraway’s prior
convictions, the district court was required to sentence
Carraway to life in prison. 21 U.S.C. § 841(b)(1)(A). The
court entered the life sentence on October 6, 2009.
Carraway appeals.
II
Carraway attacks both his conviction and his sentence
on appeal. He insists that Owens was not a credible
witness, and that without her testimony, the govern-
ment failed to provide sufficient evidence to support
the conviction. Recognizing that the life sentence that
the court imposed was required by statute, he argues
only that the mandatory life sentencing provisions of
§ 841(a)(1) and (b)(1)(A) are unconstitutional. In ad-
dressing these points, we group together his attack on
Owens’s credibility and the sufficiency of the evidence,
and then turn to the sentencing argument.
A
We start with Carraway’s effort to overturn his con-
viction. A challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence for
conviction is reviewed “in the light most favorable to the
government,” United States v. Albarran, 233 F.3d 972, 975
(7th Cir. 2000); we uphold a conviction if “any rational
trier of fact could have found the essential elements of
the crime beyond a reasonable doubt,” Jackson v. Virginia,
443 U.S. 307, 319 (1979).
6 No. 09-3524
Section 841(a)(1), the offense of conviction here,
applies if the defendant knowingly or intentionally pos-
sessed a controlled substance with the intent to dis-
tribute it, while knowing that it was a controlled sub-
stance. United States v. Lane, 591 F.3d 921, 926 (7th Cir.
2010). Carraway argues that the government failed to
establish that he possessed the crack that was not found
on his person. (Carraway effectively concedes that he
knew that the crack was a controlled substance and that,
if he is found to have possessed the large quantity of
crack recovered from the house, the evidence was suf-
ficient to establish that he intended to distribute it.) The
government must establish the possession element be-
yond a reasonable doubt; constructive possession is suf-
ficient; and the government may use circumstantial
evidence to establish constructive possession. United
States v. Campbell, 534 F.3d 599, 605-06 (7th Cir. 2008). It
is not enough for the government to show only that
Carraway was in the same house as the crack. Id. at 606.
As if the bar for sufficiency-of-evidence challenges
were not high enough, Carraway’s argument takes a
particularly difficult route by effectively conceding that
he cannot win unless we were to find that Owens, the
primary witness linking him to the crack, was not credi-
ble. Credibility determinations are best handled by the
trier of fact, not the appellate court, see, e.g., United
States v. Rollins, 544 F.3d 820, 835 (7th Cir. 2008), and the
district court expressly found that Owens’s testimony
was credible. We will “overturn a conviction based on a
credibility determination only if the witness’ testimony
was incredible as a matter of law.” United States v. Hayes,
No. 09-3524 7
236 F.3d 891, 896 (7th Cir. 2001). See United States v.
Kizeart, 505 F.3d 672, 675 (7th Cir. 2007) (referring to the
“ultra-narrow review” of the trier of fact’s credibility
determinations based on the witness’s demeanor).
Carraway forges ahead anyway, beginning with a
plea for this court to focus on Owens’s criminal history.
He believes that her conviction for welfare fraud demon-
strates a willingness to lie, and that her admission that
she would do it again bolsters this conclusion. These
facts, however, as well as their context, were brought out
at trial. Owens explained that she was homeless when
she committed the fraud and did so only to provide for
her children. Not that this is enough to condone fraudu-
lent behavior, of course, but it suggests why she in-
dicated that she might commit fraud again if the circum-
stances were similar, and why the district court might
have decided to believe her other testimony despite
this history. Carraway also points to Owens’s prior con-
viction for possession of crack cocaine with the intent to
distribute in 1996. But a single earlier conviction does
not render incredible all future statements; many cred-
ible witnesses in criminal cases would fail such a dra-
conian test.
Carraway has also pointed to more particular reasons
to distrust what Owens had to say in his case. He
mentions as especially unpersuasive her assertion that
her motives for participating in the drug operation were
pure: first to protect her husband’s former partner, and
later to hasten Carraway’s exit from the drug business.
Carraway suggests that there is evidence that Owens was
8 No. 09-3524
in fact the individual who possessed and intended to
distribute the crack cocaine. The crack house was in
Owens’s name, she paid the rent, and she participated
in drug deals and took cash from those sales. He also
stresses that Owens moved to this new, larger home
without any evidence of an increase in licit income. It is
Carraway’s view that Owens’s testimony was designed
to deflect responsibility from herself.
Once again, even if the evidence would support the
conclusions that Carraway has drawn, this is not enough
to overcome the district court’s finding that Owens’s
testimony taken as a whole was credible. Indeed, we
find many of her statements to be believable—for
example, it would not be unusual for a person to do a
favor for a spouse, even if that favor benefitted the
spouse’s ex. Moreover, none of this gives us much doubt
about the parts of Owens’s testimony that support the
finding that Carraway constructively possessed the
crack cocaine. As the government rightly notes, the physi-
cal evidence found by the officers corroborates many of
the central details of Owens’s testimony. Owens testi-
fied that Carraway lived at the Franklin Street house; the
police found Carraway at the house with keys to it in his
pocket. Owens testified that Carraway kept drugs and
money at the home; the police found moist crack in
Carraway’s pocket, moist crack in the kitchen, and cash
in the drawer containing men’s underwear. Owens de-
scribed Carraway’s process for weighing and packaging
the drugs, and testified that he undertook these tasks
in the home; the officers found a digital scale, bags,
and bagged drugs in the home consistent with these
descriptions.
No. 09-3524 9
With Owens’s credibility secure, we need ask only
whether the evidence she provided, coupled with the
fruits of the search and the other testimony at trial, is
sufficient to establish the elements of the offense. It is.
Owens’s testimony and the associated physical evidence
described above are sufficient to establish that Carraway
knowingly possessed more than 50 grams of crack. This
conclusion is bolstered by the fact that Carraway was
arrested with moist crack in his pocket—the additional
crack that the officers discovered in the kitchen also was
still moist. The quantity of crack, its preparation, and
the associated articles are sufficient to establish that
Carraway intended to distribute it. And Carraway knew
that the crack was a controlled substance. There was
ample evidence here, in short, to support the conviction.
B
We can be brief with Carraway’s sentencing arguments.
He asks us to find that the imposition of a mandatory
life sentence for dealing in crack violates the Fifth,
Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution
and is inconsistent with the doctrine of separation of
powers. (Although Carraway’s brief refers to the Sixth
Amendment, we think that he meant to invoke the
Eighth Amendment’s protection against cruel and
unusual punishment.) As he did not raise these issues
before the district court, our review is for plain error.
Puckett v. United States, 129 S. Ct. 1423, 1429 (2009); United
States v. Olano, 507 U.S. 725, 731-37 (1993).
10 No. 09-3524
Carraway concedes that this court and other courts have
ruled against him on virtually every one of these points.
See, e.g., United States v. Strahan, 565 F.3d 1047, 1052-53
(7th Cir. 2009) (rejecting Eighth Amendment challenge
to mandatory-minimum life sentence under § 841(b));
United States v. Collins, 223 F.3d 502, 511 (7th Cir. 2000)
(treating the mandatory life “three strikes” provision in
§ 841 as functionally indistinguishable from other
statutes that have survived equal protection, double
jeopardy, due process, and Eighth Amendment chal-
lenges); see also United States v. Prior, 107 F.3d 654, 658-
60 (8th Cir. 1997) (rejecting equal protection, due
process, Eighth Amendment, and separation-of-powers
challenges to a life sentence under § 841(b)). We decline
Carraway’s invitation to revisit these holdings. Under
settled law, the district court’s decision to impose the
life sentence was not error at all, much less plain error.
* * *
The judgment of the district court is A FFIRMED.
7-20-10