United States v. Colbert, No. 15-1374 (8th Cir. 2016)
Annotate this CaseDefendant appealed his conviction and sentence for several drug-trafficking and firearm-related charges. The court concluded that the application and affidavit used to secure the wiretap satisfied the necessity requirement set forth in 18 U.S.C. 2518(1)(c); the search warrant application alleged a nexus between the place to be searched and money laundering operation; and therefore the district court did not err in denying the motion to suppress evidence derived from the search of the property. The court also concluded that the district court did not abuse its discretion in excluding the co-conspirator's testimony; the conspiracy counts were not misjoined with the firearm-related counts under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 8(a); the district court thus did not abuse its discretion in denying the motion to sever; and there was substantial evidence that defendant was not acting in self defense when he fired on the SWAT team and the district court properly denied defendant's motion for acquittal for his conviction for assaulting a federal officer. The court also concluded that the district court did not err in applying a leadership role enhancement pursuant to USSG 3B1.1(a); no error in calculating the drug quantities involved; the sentence was substantively reasonable; and the life sentence did not violate the Eighth Amendment. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment.
Court Description: Wollman, Author, with Melloy and Colloton, Circuit Judges] Criminal case - Criminal law and sentencing. Wiretap application and affidavit used to secure a wiretap met the necessity requirement set out in 18 U.S.C. Sec. 2518(1)9c); search warrant application established a nexus between the address to be searched and defendant's money laundering operation, and the evidence seized during the execution of the warrant was admissible; proposed testimony regarding another raid and search was properly excluded as irrelevant as the two raids were not similar; no error in joining defendant's conspiracy and firearms counts and no error in denying his motion to sever the counts; evidence was sufficient to support defendant's conviction for assaulting a federal officer as there was substantial evidence that defendant was not acting in self defense when he fired at the SWAT team executing the search warrant; no error in imposing a leadership role enhancement under Guidelines Sec. 3B1.1(a) or in calculating the drug quantities involved; sentence was substantively reasonable; a life sentence does not violate the Eighth Amendment's prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment.
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