NOT PRECEDENTIAL
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT
_____________
No. 11-3694
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GOVERNMENT OF THE VIRGIN ISLANDS
v.
MAURICE RICHARDSON,
Appellant
_____________
On Appeal from the Appellate Division of the
District Court of the Virgin Islands
District Court No. 3-97-cr-00015-004
District Judge: The Honorable Raymond L. Finch
District Judge: The Honorable Legrome D. Davis
Superior Court Judge: The Honorable Patricia D. Steele
Argued December 3, 2012
Before: SMITH, HARDIMAN, and ROTH, Circuit Judges
(Filed: February 1, 2013)
Pamela R. Tepper [ARGUED]
Office of Attorney General of Virgin Islands
Department of Justice
34-38 Kronprindsens Gade, GERS
Complex, 2nd Floor
St. Thomas, VI 00802
Counsel for Appellee
1
Eszart A. Wynter, Sr. [ARGUED]
27 Estate Whim
P.O. Box 1847
Frederiksted, VI 00841
Counsel for Appellant
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OPINION
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SMITH, Circuit Judge.
In August of 1996, a jury found Maurice Richardson guilty of the March 26,
1994 murder of Officer Steven Hodge. On this direct appeal, he challenges his
convictions on constitutional and evidentiary grounds. We will affirm.
I
Officer Hodge’s murder took place shortly after 11:00 pm on March 26,
1994. He was shot fourteen times by at least two people using four different guns.
Police found only one piece of physical evidence at the scene, a towel with gun
residue. It was found near a bush close to Officer Hodge’s home and appeared to
have been recently placed there.
Richardson confessed to Athnell Coker that he was involved in the murder.
Richardson’s confession included an explanation of how the murder took place: it
was an ambush, he had hidden behind some bushes, and he had shot Officer Hodge
while he was lying on the ground. Additionally, Richardson gave Coker a sawed-
2
off shotgun with duct tape on the handle that he and Coker buried together in
Coker’s backyard. Coker later gave this shotgun to persons sent by Richardson.
Besides Coker’s testimony recounting Richardson’s confession, the other
testimony revealed that the murder was the product of a conspiracy among
Richardson and his codefendants. On the day of the murder, Gwentin Sellwood
saw three of Richardson’s codefendants—Gent Mosby, Carl Fleming, and Ricky
Vanterpool—at a store Mosby ran called New York’s Latest Fashions. Sellwood
testified at trial that he saw them there and that he saw Mosby remove three guns
from a paper bag, two of which he handed to Fleming and Vanterpool. Sellwood
also saw a long gun with a damaged handle on the counter behind Mosby. On the
back of a chair near Mosby, he saw a towel similar to the one found near the crime
scene. Finally, Sellwood also heard Mosby tell his codefendants that he would pick
them up at 11:30 pm so that they could take care of “serious business.”
Witnesses Bernice Celestine, Eustace Sorhaindo, and Shorn Pennyfeather all
heard gun shots the evening of the murder and saw four men dressed in black near
Officer Hodge’s home shortly before or after his murder. Only Sorhaindo was able
to identify at trial any of the four men he saw. He identified Mosby and another
codefendant, Pedro Harris. He later recanted his identification of Harris, but he
never withdrew his identification of Mosby.
3
Two days after the murder, Sellwood again encountered Mosby. This time,
Mosby had just been questioned by police about the murder of a police officer.
Sellwood helped Mosby clean out New York’s Latest Fashions store and heard
Mosby exclaim several times that he would not go to jail. Several months later,
Sellwood encountered Mosby, Fleming, and Vanterpool. Mosby pointedly stopped
Sellwood on the street to tell him that “whatsoever you hear in the store or
whatsoever you see in the store, don’t ever leave me hear it or otherwise me and
the boys them will take you out.”
Richardson offered two defenses at trial. First, he tried to provide an alibi for
the evening of the murder by explaining that he was at strip clubs. Second, he
claimed that the murder was committed by corrupt Virgin Islands police officers
who knew that Officer Hodge was about to report them. In support of this second
defense, Richardson offered a recording in which a person involved in the drug
business allegedly explained to a confidential informant (“CI”) that Virgin Islands
police officers had approached him to hire a contract killer to murder Officer
Hodge. The person in the recording was allegedly Vargas Paniagua, who
purportedly assisted in the murder because Officer Hodge owed Paniagua cocaine
money. Despite Richardson’s attempts, Paniagua was not produced to testify at
trial, the recording was not admitted into evidence, and the CI’s identity was not
revealed.
4
On August 19, 1996, in the Virgin Islands Superior Court, 1 a jury found
Richardson guilty of first degree murder, conspiracy to commit murder, and
unauthorized possession of a firearm. On November 16, 1996, the Superior Court
denied Richardson’s motion for a judgment of acquittal or, in the alternative, a new
trial. He then filed a timely appeal to the Appellate Division of the Virgin Islands
District Court. Richardson v. Gov’t of Virgin Islands, No. 1997-0015-2, 2011 WL
4357329, at *2 (D.V.I. Sept. 16, 2011) (per curiam). After an unexplained fifteen-
year delay, the Appellate Division affirmed Richardson’s conviction on January
22, 2010. Richardson, 2011 WL 4357329, at *12. Richardson timely appealed to
this Court.
The Appellate Division had jurisdiction to hear Richardson’s appeal
pursuant to 48 U.S.C. § 1613a(a) and (d). We review the Superior Court’s rulings
using the same standards of review as those employed by the Appellate Division.
Semper v. Santos, 845 F.2d 1233, 1236 (3d Cir. 1988); Gov’t of Virgin Islands v.
Lewis, 620 F.3d 359, 364 & n.4 (3d Cir. 2010).
II
Richardson challenges his conviction on six grounds. Three arguments relate
to the Paniagua tape recording. Richardson argues that the Superior Court violated
1
At the time of trial, the trial court was known as the Territorial Court. Starting in
October 2004, the Territorial Court became known as the Superior Court. We will
refer to the trial court as the Superior Court.
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his Sixth Amendment right to compulsory process when it denied his motion for a
writ of habeas corpus ad testificandum requiring Paniagua to testify, that the
Superior Court erred by determining that the tape was inadmissible hearsay, and
that the Superior Court incorrectly denied his motion to disclose the identity of the
CI who recorded the conversation. These arguments are meritless for the same
reasons articulated in the related case of Gov’t of Virgin Islands v. Mosby, No. 11-
3676, slip op. at 6–10 (3d Cir. Jan. 30, 2013).
Besides the Paniagua-related arguments, Richardson makes three additional
arguments. First, he argues that Athnell Coker’s testimony recounting
Richardson’s confession violated the rule of Bruton v. United States, 391 U.S. 123
(1968). Richardson lacks standing to make this argument. “The rule enunciated in
Bruton stems from the right to confrontation and is designed to protect the
nontestifying confessor’s codefendant, not the confessor himself.” United States v.
Morales, 477 F.2d 1309, 1316 (5th Cir. 1973). Thus, even if Coker’s testimony
violated Bruton, it did not violate Richardson’s right to confrontation.
Richardson also challenges the District Court’s admission of Coker’s
testimony on the grounds that it was inadequately corroborated. This argument was
not contemporaneously raised at trial, so we review for plain error only. United
States v. Richards, 241 F.3d 335, 337 (3d Cir. 2001). Confessions and admissions
of “essential elements of the crime” charged “must be corroborated.” Opper v.
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United States, 348 U.S. 84, 90–91 (1954). A confession is corroborated if other
evidence verifies enough of the confession “to justify a jury inference of [the
statement’s] truth.” Id. at 93; United States v. Wilson, 436 F.2d 122, 124 (3d Cir.
1971) (holding that a confession was trustworthy because “two parts of [the
defendant’s] admission were corroborated by other evidence”).
Richardson’s confession is reliable because the details of the murder he
described were verified by physical and forensic evidence. Coker testified that
Richardson told him that Richardson carried out the murder by going “down
Lindberg Bay in the bushes and stake out and waited until Hodge came out of his
house and shoot him.” Another witness, Bernice Celestine, testified at trial that
she saw someone place an object in a grassy area near some bushes by Hodge’s
house, which police later discovered was a clean, recently placed towel that had
gun residue. It looked similar to the towel Sellwood saw with Richardson’s
codefendants earlier on the day of the murder.
Coker also testified that Richardson shot Hodge “[w]hen [he] fall on the
ground, [Richardson] went over him and shoot him with the shotgun.” Forensic
evidence confirmed that Officer Hodge received one of the shotgun wounds in his
back while he was lying face down. The details of Richardson’s confession to
Coker are thus corroborated by other evidence, which means the Superior Court
did not err by permitting the testimony.
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Lastly, Richardson challenges the sufficiency of the evidence supporting
each of his convictions. “The burden on a defendant who raises a challenge to the
sufficiency of the evidence is extremely high.” United States v. Piekarsky, 687
F.3d 134, 146 (3d Cir. 2012) (citations omitted). Reviewing the evidence in “the
light most favorable to the Government,” id., we will affirm the conviction “if
there is substantial evidence from which any rational trier of fact could find guilt
beyond a reasonable doubt.” United States v. Brown, 3 F.3d 673, 680 (3d Cir.
1993) (quoting United States v. Frorup, 963 F.2d 41, 42 (3d Cir. 1992)) (internal
quotation mark omitted).
Coker’s testimony is sufficient to support Richardson’s convictions for first
degree murder and unauthorized possession of a firearm. A defendant can be
convicted of first degree murder for murdering the victim by “lying in wait . . . or
by any other willful, deliberate and premeditated killing.” 14 V.I. Code
§ 922(a)(1). Richardson told Coker that he participated in the murder of Officer
Hodge by waiting “in the bushes and stake out and waited until Hodge came out of
his house.” A person can be convicted of unauthorized possession of a firearm if
the Government shows that the person is not authorized to have a firearm and that
the person possessed a firearm. 14 V.I. Code § 2253(a). Richardson concedes that
he was not authorized to possess a firearm, and the possession element is satisfied
8
by Coker’s testimony that Richardson gave him the sawed-off shotgun that they
buried together.
Regarding Richardson’s conspiracy conviction, “[t]o prove a conspiracy, the
government must establish a unity of purpose between the alleged conspirators, an
intent to achieve a common goal, and an agreement to work together toward that
goal.” United States v. Gibbs, 190 F.3d 188, 197 (3d Cir. 1999) (citation omitted).
These three elements can be proved “entirely by circumstantial evidence.” Id.
(citation omitted). There are three pieces of circumstantial evidence that adequately
support Richardson’s conspiracy conviction. First, four guns were used by more
than one person. Second, witnesses testified that they saw four men dressed in
black arrive together in a truck near Officer Hodge’s home close to the time of the
murder. Third, three of Richardson’s codefendants were seen earlier on the day of
the murder distributing guns similar to those used in the murder while discussing
“a serious job to do” later that same evening. This evidence shows that the murder
was the product of multiple people who shared the common goal of murdering
Officer Hodge.
Even though this evidence lacks a direct connection between Richardson and
his codefendants, a reasonable juror could infer that he was a part of the
conspiracy. “Once the existence of a conspiracy is clearly established, slight
evidence may be sufficient to connect a defendant with it.” United States v.
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De Calvalcante, 440 F.2d 1264, 1273 (3d Cir. 1971) (quoting United States v.
Cohen, 197 F.2d 26, 29 (3d Cir. 1954)). Here, the testimony showing Richardson’s
codefendants together and acting as if they had an agreement to kill Hodge is
sufficient for a jury to conclude that a conspiracy existed. This makes Richardson’s
confession to the murder sufficient to show that he was also a part of that
conspiracy. The contrary conclusion—that he happened to show up to kill Officer
Hodge at the same time and place as three other people—is preposterous. The
evidence was thus sufficient to support his conspiracy conviction as well as his
murder and firearm possession convictions.
III
For these reasons, we will affirm Richardson’s convictions.
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