United States v. Battle, No. 13-3134 (8th Cir. 2014)
Annotate this CaseIowa officers saw men getting into a parked vehicle. Its license plate was not properly lit. They initiated a traffic stop. In the vehicle were the driver, Marshall; the front seat passenger, Battle; and a back right passenger, Hardy. Based on the vehicle’s slow stop and the occupants’ inconsistent accounts, the officers asked the men to exit the vehicle so they could conduct a dog sniff. Hardy ran before being apprehended. The officers did not observe him discarding anything and did not find contraband when they retraced his steps in the snow. A search revealed a handgun with a loaded magazine under the front passenger seat. Debris and tubing connected to electric controls blocked access to the gun from the back seat. Officers believed it had been placed from the front. Hardy agreed to testify in exchange for his charges being dropped. Investigators interviewed Williams, Battle’s long-time acquaintance, who stated that Williams witnessed Battle shoot a man in Des Moines. A lab report matched the firearm to the Des Moines shooting. The district court admitted evidence concerning the Des Moines shooting at Battle’s trial. Other witnesses indicated that Hardy could have been the shooter. The court held that evidence of Hardy’s prior convictions and other criminal acts was largely inadmissible and refused to grant judicial immunity to Marshall to testify about contraband he claimed he found when retracing Hardy’s footsteps after the arrest. The court applied a four-level enhancement for use of a firearm in connection with the Des Moines shooting and sentenced Battle to the statutory maximum of 120 months imprisonment as a felon in possession. The Eighth Circuit affirmed.
Court Description: Criminal case - Criminal law and sentencing. Evidence that defendant used the seized weapon in a prior shooting was highly probative of his ownership or control of the weapon and was properly admitted to prove constructive possession at the time of his arrest in this case, especially where the court gave a limiting instruction which lessened any unfair prejudice; the district court did not err in determining that evidence regarding another passenger's criminal record had minimal probative value and would risk distraction and should not be admitted; the concept of judicial immunity is not recognized in the Eighth Circuit and the court did not err in refusing to grant it to a third passenger in the vehicle; evidence was sufficient to support defendant's conviction for possession of the weapon; no error in imposing a four-level enhancement under Guidelines Sec. 2K2.1(b)(6)(B)for possession of the weapon in connection with the earlier shooting; the court did not err in denying defendant's request for a downward variance in order to avoid sentencing disparities as this principle applies to disparities among federal defendants and the persons to whom defendant sought to compare himself (the other passengers in the car who were prosecuted in state court) were not federal defendants.
Some case metadata and case summaries were written with the help of AI, which can produce inaccuracies. You should read the full case before relying on it for legal research purposes.
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.