United States Court of Appeals
For the First Circuit
No. 09-1108
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Appellee,
v.
BLAKE FIELDS, a/k/a Streetz,
Defendant, Appellant.
APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF MASSACHUSETTS
[Hon. William G. Young, U.S. District Judge]
Before
Boudin, Circuit Judge,
Souter,* Associate Justice,
and Howard, Circuit Judge.
Dana A. Curhan for appellant.
Mark T. Quinlivan, Assistant United States Attorney, with whom
Michael K. Loucks, Acting United States Attorney, was on brief for
appellee.
November 2, 2011
*
The Hon. David H. Souter, Associate Justice (Ret.) of the
Supreme Court of the United States, sitting by designation.
Per Curiam. Blake Fields was indicted for distribution
of cocaine base, 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1)(2006), totaling five or more
grams, id. § 841(b)(1)(B)(iii), within 1000 feet of a school, id.
§ 860. He was convicted by a jury in September 2008 and in January
2009, sentenced to 216 months in prison as a career offender. He
now appeals and his arguments depend on understanding the events as
portrayed by the testimony at trial.
On October 4, 2007, members of the Special Investigations
Unit of the Boston Police Department directed a cooperating witness
("CW") to place a call to a cell phone number that the officers
believed to be used by defendant Blake Fields. Several calls were
then exchanged. In the course of the conversations, the CW
arranged to buy on the same day roughly $300 worth of cocaine base.
The CW, driven by an undercover officer, eventually
arrived at a location specified by the person he had called. An
individual--identified by officers at trial as Fields--exited from
the passenger side of a van parked across the street and entered
the rear seat of the car where the officer and CW were waiting
inside. After a short conversation, the man sold the informant
5.84 grams of cocaine base. The transaction took place roughly 700
feet from a local school.
At trial, the officer who had driven the CW identified
Fields as the man who had sold the drugs to the CW. Another
officer, who knew Fields from prior encounters, also watched the
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events from outside the car and identified Fields as the man who
left the van and entered the car to complete the transaction. A
third member of the surveillance team parked nearby also identified
Fields from a photograph as the man who left the van and entered
the car. The CW did not testify, having died before the trial.
In addition, the police made voice recordings of several
of the calls, and of the sale itself. Two of the officers
mentioned above identified Fields' voice as that of the speaker.
The third officer testified that the phone number initially dialed
by the CW was for a cell phone registered to a woman who the
parties stipulated was Fields' wife. Other witnesses established
the nature and weight of the drugs and that the sale had occurred
within 1000 feet of a Boston public school for children in the
sixth through eighth grades.
Fields rested after the government completed its opening
case. His attorney primarily argued in closing that Fields had not
been identified as the seller of the drugs, pointing to alleged
inconsistencies in testimony by the officers and a lack of
additional evidence. The trial had lasted four days; the jury
convicted Fields after three hours of deliberation. This appeal
followed.
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On appeal, Fields makes two arguments.2 The first is
that the trial judge erred because he did not define reasonable
doubt in his instructions to the jury, having told counsel in
advance that this was his practice. However, the district court
repeatedly and clearly emphasized that the government bore the
burden of proving Fields' guilt beyond a reasonable doubt and that
this standard extended to each element of the crime.
Our decisions hold that "reasonable doubt does not
require definition." United States v. Wallace, 461 F.3d 15, 30
(1st Cir. 2006); United States v. Ademaj, 170 F.3d 58, 66 (1st
Cir.), cert denied, 528 U.S. 887 (1999); United States v.
Rodriguez-Cardona, 924 F.2d 1148, 1160 (1st Cir.), cert denied, 502
U.S. 809 (1991). Rather, "[t]he term reasonable doubt itself has
a self-evident meaning comprehensible to the lay juror," United
States v. Olmstead, 832 F.2d 642, 645 (1st Cir. 1987), cert denied,
486 U.S. 1009 (1988), and "[m]ost efforts at clarification result
in further obfuscation of the concept." Id.
Fields says that nevertheless our decisions to this
effect have, in fact, always included some attempt at definition by
the trial judge. But it is far from clear that common glosses
("firmly convinced"; "not a fanciful doubt") help the jury much and
2
After briefing and argument occurred in this case, Fields
raised a concern about his sentencing in light of the Fair
Sentencing Act of 2010. Fields was sentenced well before the Act
became effective and so is outside its scope. United States v.
Goncalves, 642 F.3d 245, 251-55 (1st Cir. 2011).
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some have been successfully argued by defense counsel to lessen,
rather than reinforce, the need for strong evidence of guilt.
E.g., United States v. Colon-Pagan, 1 F.3d 80 (1st Cir. 1993).
Finally, the Supreme Court has itself said that "the Constitution
neither prohibits trial courts from defining reasonable doubt nor
requires them to do so as a matter of course." Victor v. Nebraska,
511 U.S. 1, 5 (1994).
Fields' second argument concerns evidentiary rulings. At
trial, the government elicited testimony from three different
witnesses that Fields had been the target of the sting operation.
Defense counsel clearly objected to the first and third instances
and arguably objected to the second. The judge overruled the
objection in the first instance, but added that who was the target
"doesn't prove anything about anybody," and sustained the objection
in the third instance, firmly telling the jury to disregard the
answer.
Fields describes the statements by government witnesses
as improper "bolstering" of the police witnesses, but that is not
precisely the problem.3 While the testimony does explain how the
investigation came about, it could also suggest to the jury that
the government had prior information about past drug dealing by the
3
The term "bolstering" is commonly used when the prosecutor or
another witness vouches for or endorses the credibility of the
testifying witness by alluding to information not properly before
the jury. E.g., United States v. Perez-Ruiz, 353 F.3d 1, 12-13
(1st Cir. 2003), cert denied, 541 U.S. 1005 (2004).
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defendant. If the objection were presented in these terms, a trial
judge might very well think that the benefit of the testimony in
clearing up a mystery for the jury was substantially outweighed by
its potential prejudicial effect. See Fed. R. Evid. 403.
Sometimes explaining why the police focused on the
defendant is especially relevant (e.g., to refute charges of bad
faith by the officer), the explanation is not very prejudicial, or
both; but in general we think that this line of questioning about
the reasons for investigating the defendant should be discouraged.
We have so indicated on prior occasions,4 although not regarding
similar questions as plain error in the absence of a proper
objection and when a cautionary instruction was given. United
States v. Colón-Díaz, 521 F.3d 29, 34-35 (1st Cir. 2008).
But if ever there were a case in which the answers did
not alter the result, this is that case so, if error at all, it was
patently harmless. See United States v. Hicks, 575 F.3d 130, 143
(1st Cir.), cert denied, 130 S. Ct. 647 (2009). The inference of
prior crimes was itself only indirect and, in addition, the
district judge made statements to the jury in both the first and
third instances of the targeting testimony that the answers made no
4
United States v. Benitez-Avila, 570 F.3d 364, 368-69 (1st
Cir.), cert denied, 130 S. Ct. 429 (2009); United States v.
Lamberty, 778 F.2d 59, 60-61 (1st Cir. 1985); see also United
States v. Rivas, 493 F.3d 131, 136-137 (3d Cir. 2007).
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difference to the central question before the jury, namely, whether
Fields was the person who had sold the drugs near the school.
Much more important, the evidence of Fields' guilt was
very strong--eye-witness testimony from three police officers,
voice identification of the recordings from two officers and the
cell phone records. And the evidence was neither countered with
other evidence nor meaningfully impeached. Against this
background, no jury--with or without the disputed testimony--could
have had a reasonable doubt about Fields' guilt.
Affirmed.
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