United States v. Haynie, No. 18-2681 (8th Cir. 2021)
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The Eighth Circuit affirmed defendant's conviction for conspiracy under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) based on his involvement with the Crips street gang. The court concluded that the district court did not err in instructing the jury that defendant's attempts to commit state-law crimes could serve as RICO predicate offenses. Even assuming, that the reference to Count III in Instruction No. 35 created an obvious error in the instructions as a whole, the court concluded that defendant has not shown that the error affected his substantial rights. In this case, there is no reasonable probability that the jury, having found defendant not guilty of attempted assault with a dangerous weapon, inconsistently relied on attempted assault with a dangerous weapon to convict him of the RICO conspiracy.
However, the court vacated defendant's 84 month sentence, concluding that the district court mistakenly treated aggravated assault with a firearm as an act of racketeering for purposes of the guidelines, and this error affected the guideline range. Furthermore, the error was not harmless, and thus a remand for resentencing is required.
Court Description: [Colloton, Author, with Gruender and Grasz, Circuit Judges] Criminal case - Criminal law and sentencing. The district court did not err in instructing the jury that defendant's attempts to commit state-law crimes could serve as RICO predicate offenses; defendant's claim that the district court erroneously instructed the jury that Count III of the indictment, which charged defendant with attempted assault with a dangerous weapon, could serve as a predicate rejected; even if the jury instructions were internally inconsistent on the definition of racketeering activity, defendant has failed to show plain error because there was no reasonable probability that the jury, having found defendant not guilty of attempted assault with a dangerous weapon, inconsistently relied on attempted assault with a dangerous weapon to convict him of the RICO conspiracy; the district court mistakenly treated aggravated assault with a firearm as an act of racketeering for purposes of the guidelines; this error affected defendant's guidelines range and was not harmless; remanded for resentencing.
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