U.S. v. Brown

Record contained sufficient evidence to support jury’s guilty verdicts for all 10 defendants on RICO charges of conspiring to engage in racketeering enterprise known as Hobos street gang. While defendants alleged that govt. failed to show that gang was “enterprise,” since record showed that they were no more than independent participants involved in unrelated criminal activity that operated without common purpose, gang qualified as RICO enterprise, where all defendants through their course of conduct worked to control exclusive territory, earned money through cooperative drug dealings and robberies, protected each other and killed rival gang members and others who posed threats to gang. Record further supported jury’s guilty finding with respect to two defendants as to charge that said defendants murdered individual in aid of gang’s racketeering conspiracy, where witness testified that he saw said defendants pull up in car and shoot victim, and where said murder was motivated by fact that said defendants were aware that victim had told federal officials that gang member possessed drugs and firearm. Also, jury could similarly find that other defendants either killed or attempted to kill victims in support of racketeering enterprise, even though record contained inconsistent evidence with respect to each charge. Dist. Ct. also did not err under forfeiture by wrongdoing doctrine in admitting against all defendants (as opposed to defendant who had actually killed said witness) out-of-court statements made by deceased witness, where: (1) under agency principals, record showed that all defendants had acquiesced in said murder; and (2) any error was harmless, since said statements could not have contributed to jury’s guilty verdict. One defendant, though, was entitled to reconsideration of his 40-year sentence on drug charges, where Dist. Ct. had failed to explain reason for upward departure from sentencing range for said charges.