United States v. Turner, No. 13-2566 (8th Cir. 2015)
Annotate this CaseCorey Turner, Donald Turner, and Antonio Turner were among the subjects of a 2010 investigation of cocaine distribution by the Drug Enforcement Administration and the police department in Sikeston, Missouri. In 2011, 14 people were charged in a 21-count indictment with conspiracy to distribute cocaine; the remaining charges were substantive drug charges against some of the defendants. Most of the defendants pleaded guilty, with some entering into cooperation agreements with the government. Corey, Donald, and Antonio went to trial and were convicted of conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute five kilograms or more of cocaine and of all substantive drug charges. The Eighth Circuit affirmed, upholding denial of a motion to suppress evidence obtained as a result of wiretaps; admission of a co-conspirator’s lay-opinion testimony about the meaning of certain drug-related terms used in intercepted phone calls; introduction of prior convictions; and admission of a video of Antonio’s arrest.
Court Description: Criminal case - Criminal law and sentencing. Defendant Corey Turner lacked standing to contest the issuance of warrants for Precise Location Information on two other defendants' cell phones as he did not own, possess or use the cell phones which were the objects of the warrants and did not have a legitimate expectation of privacy in the phones or the location information; the government made the requisite showing of necessity to justify the issuance of wiretap orders; assuming that Corey Turner's cell phone was a tracking device for the purposes of the procedural requirements of Rule 41, the combination order in the case, granting both wire tap authorization and permission to seize PLI from Corey Turner's phone, failed to meet a substantial number of Rule 41's procedural requirements; while the court is concerned about the number of Rule 41 violations in the case, Turner has failed to show any prejudice or that the government acted in reckless disregard of the Rule, and exclusion of the evidence is not the proper remedy for the violations; in order to admit testimony from a co-conspirator regarding the meaning of certain drug-related terms in intercepted calls, the government should have qualified her as an expert; however, the error did not affect the jury's verdict as she and other witnesses interpreted the terms without objection; before admitting evidence regarding defendants' prior drug convictions, the court should have required the government to explain its purpose in offering the evidence to exclude the possibility that the evidence was being admitted solely to prove propensity; any error in admission of the evidence in this case was harmless in light of the other evidence in the case; where only the video, without sound, of defendant Anthony Turner's prior arrest was played, any error in playing the video was harmless as the jury did not hear the statements to which Turner objected; evidence was sufficient to support defendant Donald Turner's conviction for conspiracy as it was up to the jury to determine the credibility of the witnesses against Turner and the jurors were properly instructed on their responsibilities, including weighing any benefits the witnesses received for their testimony; evidence was sufficient to support defendant Antonio Turner's conviction for conspiracy; Antonio Turner's sentence was set by the enhanced penalty provisions of 21 U.S.C. Sec. 851 and any error in calculating the quantity of drugs attributable to him was harmless; no error in admitting evidence of drugs distributed by co-defendants where the distribution was reasonably foreseeable by defendant Donald Turner; the Section 851 notice provided defendant Donald Turner was adequate and any error in the notice did not deprive him of due process; claims of ineffective assistance at sentencing should be raised in a collateral proceeding under 28 U.S.C. Section 2255.
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