Filed: Jul. 12, 2006
Latest Update: Mar. 28, 2017
Summary: UNPUBLISHED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT No. 05-4677 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff - Appellee, versus RANDALL LEE CONRAD, Defendant - Appellant. Appeal from the United States District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina, at Durham. William L. Osteen, District Judge. (CR-04-297) Submitted: July 5, 2006 Decided: July 12, 2006 Before WILKINS, Chief Judge, WILLIAMS, Circuit Judge, and HAMILTON, Senior Circuit Judge. Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinio
Summary: UNPUBLISHED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT No. 05-4677 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff - Appellee, versus RANDALL LEE CONRAD, Defendant - Appellant. Appeal from the United States District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina, at Durham. William L. Osteen, District Judge. (CR-04-297) Submitted: July 5, 2006 Decided: July 12, 2006 Before WILKINS, Chief Judge, WILLIAMS, Circuit Judge, and HAMILTON, Senior Circuit Judge. Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion..
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UNPUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 05-4677
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff - Appellee,
versus
RANDALL LEE CONRAD,
Defendant - Appellant.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Middle
District of North Carolina, at Durham. William L. Osteen, District
Judge. (CR-04-297)
Submitted: July 5, 2006 Decided: July 12, 2006
Before WILKINS, Chief Judge, WILLIAMS, Circuit Judge, and HAMILTON,
Senior Circuit Judge.
Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.
Marilyn G. Ozer, MASSENGALE & OZER, Chapel Hill, North Carolina,
for Appellant. Anna Mills Wagoner, United States Attorney, Clifton
T. Barrett, Assistant United States Attorney, Chief, Criminal
Section, OFFICE OF THE UNITED STATES ATTORNEY, Greensboro, North
Carolina, for Appellee.
Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
See Local Rule 36(c).
PER CURIAM:
In this appeal, Randall Conrad (Conrad) challenges the
sufficiency of the evidence to support his conviction on one count
of conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute fifty grams or
more of cocaine base (crack), 21 U.S.C. §§ 841(b)(1)(A), 846.1 For
reasons that follow, we affirm.
A verdict must be sustained if there is substantial evidence,
taking the view most favorable to the government, to support it.
Glasser v. United States,
315 U.S. 60, 80 (1942). Substantial
evidence is defined as that evidence which “a reasonable finder of
fact could accept as adequate and sufficient to support a
conclusion of a defendant’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.”
United States v. Burgos,
94 F.3d 849, 862 (4th Cir. 1996) (en
banc).
To prove conspiracy under 21 U.S.C. §§ 841 and 846, the
government must prove an agreement to violate a federal drug law,
the defendant’s knowledge of the conspiracy, and the defendant’s
knowing and voluntary participation in such conspiracy. United
States v. Strickland,
245 F.3d 368, 384-85 (4th Cir. 2001).
Notably, a defendant may be convicted of conspiracy without knowing
all of his coconspirators, or of all of the conspiracy’s details,
as long as he joins the conspiracy understanding its unlawful
1
At the time of his conspiracy conviction, Conrad was also
convicted of various federal firearm and drug charges. Conrad does
not challenge these other convictions in the present appeal.
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nature and willfully joins in the plan on at least one occasion.
Burgos, 94 F.3d at 858. Once the existence of a conspiracy is
established, only a slight link between a defendant and the
conspiracy is needed to support conviction. Id. at 861.
The evidence at trial, viewed in the light most favorable to
the government, showed that Conrad knowingly and voluntarily
participated in a conspiracy to possess with the intent to
distribute fifty grams or more of crack. Conrad’s cousin, Samuel
Spease (Spease), testified at trial that he served as a lookout for
Conrad either across the street from or in front of a trailer from
which Conrad sold crack to individual customers.2 Spease’s lookout
duties included him radioing by walkie talkie Charles Hairston
(Hairston), whom Spease testified “was in it with us,” when a crack
customer approached the trailer in which Conrad was waiting to make
a sale. (J.A. 130). According to Spease, once he notified
Hairston of an approaching customer, Hairston “took it from there.”
Id. Spease also testified that sometimes Hairston would serve as
the lookout. In exchange for Spease’s lookout activities, Conrad
either paid Spease money or provided him with some crack. Spease
testified that he was a lookout for Conrad for approximately two or
three weeks and that Conrad had approximately ten to fifteen
customers per day.
2
Conrad’s mother paid the rent on the trailer, which trailer
was across the street from the trailer in which she lived.
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During the time relevant to Conrad’s conspiracy conviction,
police executed a search warrant at the same trailer and
consequently seized various amounts of crack packaged for
individual distribution, $1,192 in United States currency, a set of
digital scales used to weigh drugs for individual sales, a walkie
talkie, a loaded firearm, and Conrad’s North Carolina driver’s
license, which license had been laying on a desk in the master
bedroom.
The evidence also showed drug trafficking activity at a second
trailer, located in a neighboring North Carolina county, in which
Conrad lived and sublet a portion with a separate entrance to
Hairston. During the time of the charged conspiracy, 30.5 grams of
cooling crack was seized, pursuant to a search warrant, from the
stove-top of the second trailer’s shared kitchen. A set of scales
and a box of latex gloves were also seized from the shared kitchen.
Additionally, the police seized 5.9 grams of cocaine hydrochloride,
a key ingredient of crack, from a shelf in Conrad’s bathroom.
Conrad himself even admitted on the witness stand at trial that he
knew Hairston was selling drugs from this second trailer, but that
he “needed half the rent.” (J.A. 285).
From this outlined evidence, we have no trouble concluding
that Conrad’s conviction for conspiracy to possess with intent to
distribute fifty grams or more of crack, 21 U.S.C. §§ 841(b)(1)(A),
846, is supported by substantial evidence. Accordingly, we affirm
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such conviction. We dispense with oral argument because the facts
and legal contentions are adequately presented in the materials
before the court and argument would not aid the decisional process.
AFFIRMED
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