BAUER, Circuit Judge.
On May 12, 2014, a jury convicted defendant-appellant, Vernon Chapman ("Chapman"), for distributing heroin and crack cocaine on five separate occasions. All of the drug transactions were recorded by an undercover informant wearing a Hawk recording device, which captured audio-video recordings of each transaction. The recordings were introduced at trial. Following his conviction, Chapman was sentenced to 200 months' imprisonment.
Chapman appeals his conviction on several grounds. First, he argues that the district court violated his constitutional rights to a fair trial by both refusing to grant him a third expert witness to examine the informant's recordings and by denying his motion to subpoena one of his earlier expert witnesses. Second, he argues that the district court erred in admitting the recordings at trial. Third, he argues that the district court erred in denying his motion for acquittal based on his defense of entrapment. Finally, he argues that his sentence of 200 months' imprisonment was unreasonable. For the reasons that follow, we affirm the district court's rulings.
In 2010, the Chicago Police Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigations ("FBI") conducted a joint operation (code-named "Operation Blue Knight") to investigate and arrest individuals involved in drug trafficking on the West Side of Chicago. As part of the investigation, the government obtained the assistance of an undercover informant, Bernard Baggett ("Baggett"). Baggett agreed to engage in several drug transactions while wearing a Hawk recording device, which captured audio-visual recordings. Prior to each drug transaction, Baggett met with an FBI agent who installed and turned on the Hawk recording device. Once the device was activated, the agent stated the agent's name, the time, and the date. The agent also installed a transmitter on Baggett, so that the agent could listen to the real-time transactions as they unfolded. After each transaction concluded, Baggett would again meet with the same agent. The agent would restate the agent's name, as well as the time and date before deactivating
At the government's direction, Baggett engaged in the following five drug transactions with Chapman while wearing the Hawk recording device:
Chapman was arrested on November 17, 2010. During his post-arrest statements, he admitted to selling drugs, as well as having access to drugs.
On January 6, 2011, a federal grand jury returned a single count indictment against Chapman for distribution of crack cocaine in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1). On December 15, 2011, a federal grand jury returned an additional indictment against Chapman charging him with four counts of distributing heroin in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1). The charges were consolidated into one proceeding.
On July 9, 2012, Chapman filed a motion requesting the court to appoint an expert to examine the audio-video recording from the November 2, 2010, crack cocaine transaction. Chapman claimed that certain acts that he recalled doing and certain exonerating
Dew owns and operates a video production company, and has over ten years of experience working with "digital video in all [its] forms." Dew received a DVD containing the Hawk recording device's audio-visual recording of the November 2, 2010, crack cocaine transaction. He examined the DVD and issued a report. In the "Summary of findings" section of his report, Dew stated:
On May 29, 2013, Chapman filed a second motion seeking appointment of a forensic expert to examine the November 2, 2010, recording. In the motion, Chapman again insisted that portions of the conversation between Chapman and Baggett had been removed. The district court again approved the motion, and appointed Barry Dickey ["Dickey"] as Chapman's second expert.
Dickey is an expert in "forensic evaluation and/or authentication of acoustical/visual media, including the analysis of elemental acoustics and video images contained therein." Dickey examined the DVD containing the November 2, 2010, crack cocaine transaction and issued a report. His report stated that data from the DVD was "extracted into forensic software for examination." Dickey noted that the data appeared "consistent with surveillance recordings commonly associated with federal law enforcement agencies." Dickey's procedures included verifying the frame rate of the visual recording, examining the quality of the imaging, and examining the audio embedded from the Hawk recording device. In addition, "[an] overview of HBI/VBI, color scheme, vector/waveform, embedded data, transitions and other parameters were also performed." Dickey's report was as follows: "Data integrity checks verified the files as individually and collectively continuous. . . . Data creation and download time/date information was also verified. . . . All creation time and dates are sequentially uniform." Therefore, Dickey concluded: "[the November 2, 2010, recording] does not contain any anomaly which would question its authenticity as a continuous and reliable record of the events existing therein."
On December 26, 2013, Chapman filed a motion seeking appointment of a "computer expert," and explained that the prior two experts were insufficient because they were audiovisual experts. The district court conducted hearings regarding this motion on December 27, 2013, and January 8, 2014. At the hearings, the district court pointed out that Chapman did not produce any evidence supporting his theory that the recording had been tampered with, and that Chapman's prior two experts were unable to find any issue with the recording; therefore, there was no reason to justify the appointment of a third expert. The district court denied the motion.
We find no error in the district court's ruling.
On December 17, 2013, Chapman filed a motion to subpoena Dew in order for him to testify that he did not receive the original recordings. On December 27, 2013, the district court conducted a hearing on the motion. The court denied this motion because Chapman's only basis for subpoenaing Dew was a single statement in Dew's report indicating that he did not have access to the "original camera recordings." Thus, the district court found that allowing the subpoena would "make a mountain out of a very small molehill."
We find no error in the district court's ruling.
On October 17, 2013, Chapman filed a motion to compel the government to produce the "mirror of the hard drive from the computer that was used to download the recording." On November 15, 2013, Chapman filed a motion to compel the government to produce the original Hawk recording device that recorded the November 2, 2010, crack cocaine transaction.
On November 25, 2013, the district court conducted a hearing on the motions to compel. At the hearing, the government explained why it was unable to produce a "mirror image" of the computer's hard drive:
Chapman responded that the government had violated the rules of discovery by destroying the original recording. The district court rejected Chapman's argument and denied the motion.
On appeal, Chapman argues that the district court violated the Best Evidence Rule by admitting the recording of the November 2, 2010, crack cocaine transaction at trial.
Under the Best Evidence Rule, an "original writing, recording, or photograph is required in order to prove its content unless [the Federal Rules of Evidence] or a federal statute provides otherwise." FED.R.EVID. 1002. However, "[a] duplicate is admissible to the same extent as the original unless a genuine question is raised about the original's authenticity." FED. R.EVID. 1003 (emphasis added). A "duplicate" is defined as: "a counterpart produced by . . . electronic, or other equivalent process or technique that accurately reproduces the original." FED.R.EVID. 1001(e). Furthermore, if a party challenges the admission of a duplicate, it is the challenger's burden to demonstrate that a "genuine issue of authenticity exists." Tyson v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp., 958 F.2d 756, 761 (7th Cir.1992).
Chapman claims that the data on the Hawk recording device constitutes the "original recording," and thus the DVD is non-admissible under the Best Evidence Rule. However, even assuming that the data on the Hawk recording device is the "original," the DVD constitutes a "duplicate" because the computer's software was an electronic process that, according to the special agent's testimony, reproduced a true and accurate copy of the November 2, 2010, recording. Furthermore, Chapman did not raise a genuine issue of authenticity regarding the DVD.
We find no error in the district court's evidentiary ruling.
At trial, Chapman did not deny his involvement in the drug transactions, but claimed entrapment by the government. At the conclusion of the government's evidence, Chapman filed a motion for acquittal based on entrapment, which the district court denied.
To establish the defense of entrapment, a defendant must show "government inducement" of the crime, and defendant's "lack of predisposition" to commit the crime. United States v. Theodosopoulos, 48 F.3d 1438, 1444 (7th Cir.1995) (citations omitted). In order to establish "inducement," the defendant must show that the government solicited the crime, "plus some other government conduct that creates a risk that a person who would not commit the crime if left to his own devices will do so in response to the government's efforts." United States v. Mayfield, 771 F.3d 417, 434-35 (7th Cir.2014) (en Banc) (emphasis in original). In order to establish "lack of predisposition," the court examines
In this case, the evidence presented at trial was sufficient to establish that Chapman was not induced by the government to commit the heroin and crack cocaine transactions. Chapman claims that Baggett relied on their friendship to convince him to sell him heroin and crack cocaine. But, the recordings do not demonstrate any persuasion other than a basic inquiry into the price and quantity Chapman was willing to accept. The evidence presented at trial sufficiently established that there was no inducement, and that Chapman was predisposed to engage in drug transactions.
We find no error in the district court's ruling.
On October 6, 2014, the district court conducted a sentencing hearing. Chapman's counsel argued that Chapman should receive an acceptance of responsibility credit because he never claimed that he did not commit the crimes. The district court denied the credit. After determining that the appropriate Sentencing Guidelines range was between 360 months to life, the district court sentenced Chapman to 200 months' imprisonment. Chapman appeals that this sentence was unreasonable because he should have received the responsibility credit, and the sentence imposed constituted an unwarranted disparity.
We review a denial of responsibility credit for clear error, while granting "great deference" to the district court. United States v. Collins, 796 F.3d 829, 835-36 (7th Cir.2015) (citations omitted).
In this case, the district court denied Chapman's request for acceptance of responsibility credit due to his behavior throughout the proceedings. Specifically, the district court noted that it did not believe Chapman was truthful in his trial testimony, and that Chapman's statements at the sentencing hearing were not "forthright." Since the district court is entitled to great deference and our circuit's precedent has established that dishonesty and unsupported factual allegations are sufficient to deny acceptance of responsibility credit, see United States v. Jones, 52 F.3d 697, 701 (7th Cir.1995), United States v. Munoz, 610 F.3d 989, 993-94 (7th Cir.2010), we hold that the district court did not commit error, let alone clear error, in denying Chapman's request.
Chapman argues that since he admitted to committing the crimes, he is entitled to the acceptance of responsibility credit. However, Chapman's acknowledgment of his involvement in the drug transactions does not mandate that the district court grant the reduction. See Jones, 52 F.3d at 701 (finding that if a defendant has not truthfully described and accepted responsibility, "bare statements of remorse and acceptance of responsibility will not compel the reduction") (citation omitted).
Chapman also argues that his sentence of 200 months' imprisonment was unreasonable under 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a)(6) due to the disparities between the perceived strictness of his sentence against other criminals convicted under Operation
Pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a)(6), district courts should prevent "unwarranted sentence disparities" between defendants who have similar records and are convicted of similar conduct. However, the key phrase is unwarranted sentence disparities. See United States v. Statham, 581 F.3d 548, 556 (7th Cir.2009) (emphasis added) (citation omitted). A sentencing disparity among similar defendants by itself is insufficient to render a particular criminal sentence unreasonable.
In this case, the district court properly found that Chapman's total offense level was 37, and that he had a category VI criminal history. As a result, the appropriate Sentencing Guidelines range was between 360 months to life imprisonment. The government agreed that was the correct range, but recommended a sentence ranging from 262 to 327 months' imprisonment. The district court sentenced Chapman to 200 months' imprisonment, well below both the Sentencing Guidelines and the prosecution's recommendation. The Seventh Circuit has held that a sentence below the Sentencing Guidelines range is not an unwarranted disparity. United States v. Gonzalez, 765 F.3d 732, 740 (7th Cir.2014) (emphasis in original) (citation omitted).
Furthermore, in his brief, Chapman makes an additional unwarranted sentence disparity argument. He claims that the Sentencing Guidelines range was so severe due to the government informant requesting crack cocaine during the November 2, 2010, transaction. Chapman argues that had the government not directed the informant to request crack cocaine, he would have received a lower Sentencing Guidelines range; and thus this makes the sentencing disparity unwarranted. This is not a cognizable unwarranted disparity argument. See, e.g., Gonzalez, 765 F.3d at 739 (discussing how unwarranted sentencing disparities result when multiple defendants are convicted of similar conduct, yet one defendant receives a different sentence due to "alienage, race, [or] sex").
Therefore, for the foregoing reasons, the judgment of the district court is AFFIRMED.