UNPUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 09-4272
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff - Appellee,
v.
JESSE MORALES,
Defendant – Appellant.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern
District of West Virginia, at Clarksburg. Frederick P. Stamp,
Jr., Senior District Judge. (1:06-cr-00068-FPS-JSK-3)
Submitted: September 30, 2010 Decided: October 15, 2010
Before GREGORY, DUNCAN, and AGEE, Circuit Judges.
Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.
Roger D. Curry, CURRY AMOS & ASSOCIATES, LC, Fairmont, West
Virginia, for Appellant. Betsy C. Jividen, Acting United States
Attorney, John C. Parr, Assistant United States Attorney,
Wheeling, West Virginia, for Appellee.
Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
PER CURIAM:
Jesse Morales was charged — along with several other
individuals — in a seven-count superseding indictment with
various drug offenses relating to a methamphetamine distribution
scheme stretching from Phoenix, Arizona to West Virginia. Count
One charged Morales with conspiracy to distribute more than
fifty grams of methamphetamine in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 846
(2006); Count Two charged Morales with conspiracy to travel in
interstate commerce in aid of racketeering enterprise, in
violation of 18 U.S.C. § 371 (2006); Count Three charged Morales
with conspiracy to commit money laundering, in violation of 18
U.S.C. § 1956(h) (2006). After a jury convicted Morales on all
three counts, he was sentenced to 360 months' imprisonment. On
appeal, Morales challenges the sufficiency of the evidence used
to convict him. He also argues that the jury’s verdicts were
inconsistent and his sentence was unreasonable. For the
following reasons, we affirm.
Morales first argues that the evidence was
insufficient to support a conviction. “A defendant challenging
the sufficiency of the evidence faces a heavy burden,” United
States v. Foster, 507 F.3d 233, 245 (4th Cir. 2007), and a
jury’s verdict “must be upheld on appeal if there is substantial
evidence in the record to support it,” id. at 244.
“[S]ubstantial evidence” is “evidence that a reasonable finder
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of fact could accept as adequate and sufficient to support a
conclusion of a defendant’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.”
United States v. Burgos, 94 F.3d 849, 862 (4th Cir. 1996) (en
banc). This court “consider[s] circumstantial as well as direct
evidence, and allow[s] the government the benefit of all
reasonable inferences from the facts proven to those sought to
be established,” United States v. Tresvant, 677 F.2d 1018, 1021
(4th Cir. 1982), and assumes that the fact finder resolved all
contradictions in the testimony in favor of the Government.
United States v. Brooks, 524 F.3d 549, 563 (4th Cir. 2008).
Sufficient evidence supports Morales’s conviction.
The Government presented extensive testimony from the other
members of the drug conspiracy — most notably the ringleader
James Snyder, and the driver, Wayne Prinkey — all of whom
testified to Morales’s extensive involvement as Snyder’s primary
supplier. The Government also corroborated portions of Snyder’s
testimony with physical evidence and testimony from law
enforcement recounting two occasions on which Morales was
stopped with large sums of cash. Morales’s argument is
essentially that his co-conspirators were unreliable witnesses,
but that is an argument he was free to make — and did make — to
the jury.
Morales next argues that the jury returned
inconsistent verdicts when it found him guilty on the
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substantive drug distribution count but then declined to order
any forfeiture. Under 21 U.S.C. § 853(d) (2006), the Government
is entitled to a rebuttable presumption of forfeiture upon a
guilty verdict for a drug offense and only has to prove the
forfeiture by preponderance of the evidence. In this case, two
minutes after deliberating on the forfeiture, the jury sent a
question to the district court: “The jury requests further
explanation of the verdict, the purpose and outcome of a ‘yes’
or a ‘no’ vote. What is the purpose of this forfeiture in
layman’s terms? Thank you.” The district court decided not to
supplement its initial instructions and, ten minutes later, the
jury returned a verdict declining to order a forfeiture.
“[I]t has long been settled that inconsistent jury
verdicts do not call into question the validity or legitimacy of
the resulting guilty verdicts.” United States v. Green, 599
F.3d 360, 369 (4th Cir. 2010), petitions for cert. filed, ___
U.S.L.W. ___ (U.S. July 10, Aug. 2, 2010) (Nos. 10-5288, 10-
5735). See also United States v. Powell, 469 U.S. 57, 64-65
(1984); Dunn v. United States, 284 U.S. 390, 393-94 (1932). One
reason behind this rule is that although inconsistent verdicts
“present a situation where ‘error,’ in the sense that the jury
has not followed the court’s instructions, most certainly has
occurred, . . . it is unclear whose ox has been gored.” Powell,
469 U.S. at 65. Here, given the jury’s question regarding
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forfeiture and the overwhelming evidence of guilt, it is quite
likely that the jury believed Morales was guilty on the
forfeiture counts but did not want to impose any further
hardship upon him.
Finally, Morales challenges the reasonableness of his
sentence. In reviewing any sentence, “whether inside, just
outside, or significantly outside the Guidelines range,” this
Court applies a “deferential abuse-of-discretion standard.”
Gall v. United States, 552 U.S. 38, 41 (2007). We must first
“ensure that the district court committed no significant
procedural error.” Id. at 51. “If, and only if, we find the
sentence procedurally reasonable can we ‘consider the
substantive reasonableness of the sentence imposed under an
abuse-of-discretion standard.’” United States v. Carter, 564
F.3d 325, 328 (4th Cir. 2009) (quoting Gall, 552 U.S. at 51).
Procedural errors include “failing to calculate (or
improperly calculating) the Guidelines range, treating the
Guidelines as mandatory, failing to consider the [18 U.S.C.]
§ 3553(a) [(2006)] factors, selecting a sentence based on
clearly erroneous facts, or failing to adequately explain the
chosen sentence — including an explanation for any deviation
from the Guidelines range.” Gall, 552 U.S. at 51.
Morales contends that, although the district court
correctly determined his Guidelines range, it failed to
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recognize the unwarranted disparity between his sentence and
those of the other conspirators. Most notably, Morales points
out that Snyder received a sentence of 160 months' imprisonment
and Prinkey was never charged by federal authorities. Section
3553(a)(6) provides that the district court should take into
consideration “the need to avoid unwarranted sentence
disparities among defendants with similar records who have been
found guilty of similar conduct.” The district court considered
Morales’s argument in this case and rejected it, concluding that
Morales’s situation was distinct from Snyder’s and Prinkey’s.
Morales’s sentence is not unreasonable because,
although his sentence was higher than those of Snyder and
Prinkey, it was not an unwarranted disparity. First, Snyder
pleaded guilty and did not testify falsely at trial as Morales
did. Those choices by Morales resulted in a five-level increase
in his offense level vis-à-vis that of Snyder. In addition,
Morales had a higher criminal history score than Snyder.
Regarding Prinkey, at the time the federal prosecution was
commencing, he was already in prison in Florida serving a
twenty-five year sentence for second-degree murder. Prinkey
also was the person responsible for jump-starting the
investigation by offering his cooperation to authorities after
eleven pounds of methamphetamine was discovered in his vehicle
during a car stop in Oklahoma. In sentencing Morales, the
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district court expressly recognized its duty under § 3553(a)(6)
and properly rejected Morales’s argument. Morales’s sentence of
360 months' imprisonment was not unreasonable.
For the foregoing reasons, we affirm Morales’s
conviction and sentence. We dispense with oral argument because
the facts and legal contentions are adequately presented in the
materials before the court and argument would not aid the
decisional process.
AFFIRMED
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