United States v. Stevenson, No. 19-3224 (8th Cir. 2020)
Annotate this CaseThe Eighth Circuit affirmed defendant's conviction for five controlled substance offenses. The court held that the evidence was sufficient to support defendant's convictions for conspiring to distribute crack and heroin and distribution of heroin; defendant's Batson challenge failed because the government offered race-neutral reasons for its peremptory strike and the district court did not clearly err in finding that defendant failed to establish that the government's combination of reasons was pretextual; and there was no error in answering the jury's question for clarification of the term "on or about" and there was no abuse of the district court's substantial discretion in formulating jury instructions.
Court Description: [Loken, Author, with Grasz, Circuit Judge, and Clark, District Judge] Criminal case - Criminal law. The evidence was sufficient to support defendant's convictions for conspiring to distribute crack and heroin and distribution of heroin; Batson challenge rejected as defendant failed to establish the government's race-neutral reasons for rejecting a juror were pretextual; the court did not err in answering the jury's question asking for a clarification of the term "on or about" by directing the jury to reread the instructions in the case.
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