Free USCA Mandate - District Court of Connecticut - Connecticut

' Case 3:03-cr-00092-JCH Document 172 Filed O3/08/2O(K‘ C/(T
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UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT
SUMMARY ORDER
RULINGS BY SUMMARY ORDER DO NOT HAVE PRECEDENTIAL EFFECT. CITATION TO SUMMARY
ORDERS FILED AFTER JANUARY 1, 2007, IS PERMITTED AND IS GOVERNEDTBY (THIS COURT’S
LOCAL RULE 0.23 AND FEDERAL RULE OF APPELLATE PROCEDURE 32.1. A BRIEF OR OTHER
PAPER IN WHICH A LITIGANT CITES A SUMMARY ORDER, IN EACH PPiRAGRAPH§IN A
CITATION APPEARS, AT LEAST ONE CITATION MUST EITHER BE TO THE FEDERAEJAPPENDIX OR
BE ACCOMPANIED BY THE NOTATION: "(SUMM.ARY ORDER) .” UNLESS THE SUMMIBRY ORDER IS
AVAILABLE IN AN ELECTRONIC DATABASE WHICH IS PUBLICLY ACCESSIBLE WITLHOUT
OF FEE (SUCH AS THE DATABASE AVAILABLE AT HTTP://WWW.CA2 .USCOURTS.GOV`/J) i THEEPARTY
CITING THE SUMMARY ORDER MUST FILE AND SERVE A COPY OF THAT SUMMARY ORDER TOGETHER
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REASON OF THE AVAILABILITY OF THE ORDER ON SUCH A DATABASE, THE 'CITATION MUST
INCLUDE REFERENCE TO THAT DATABASE AND THE DOCKET NUMBER OF THE CASE IN WHICH THE
ORDER WAS ENTERED.
At a stated term of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, held at the
Daniel Patrick Moynihan United States Courthouse, at 500 Pearl Street, in the City of New York,
on the 25th day of January, two thousand seven.
PRESENT:
HON. CHESTER J. STRAUB, TES CDUR
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HON. PETER W. HALL, @9,. FH-ED 0;/4/0,0
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Circ `tJud es, ¤ . r
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HON. DAVID G. TRAGER, ®;””¥A;,e,,, Auia gfl
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District Judge. *
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
. Appellee,
SUMMARY ORDER
No. 06-1119-cr
v.
` The Honorable David G. Trager, District Judge for the Eastem District of New York,
sitting by designation.
I

Case 3:03-cr-00092-JCH Document 172 Filed O3/08/2007 Page 2 of 4
United States v. C0leman,No. 06-1119-cr
TROY COLEMAN, also known as Pimp,
Defendant-Appellant.

Appearing for Appellee: MICHAEL J. GUSTAFSON, Assistant United States Attomey (William
J. Nardini, Assistant United States Attomey, of counsel, Kevin J.
O’Connor United States Attorney for the District of Connecticut, on
the brief), New Haven, CT
Appearing for Appellant: ALAN J. SOBOL (O’C0nnell, Flaherty & Attmore, LLC), Hartford, CT
-
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(Janet C. Hall, Judge).
AFTER ARGUMENT AND UPON DUE CONSIDERATION, IT IS HEREBY ORDERED,
ADJUDGED AND DECREED that the District Court is AFFIRMED.

Troy Coleman appeals from a judgment entered October 22, 2004 in the United States
District Court for the District of Comrecticut (Janet C. Hall, Judge), following a jury trial,
convicting him of possession of cocaine base with intent to distribute, in violation of 21 U.S.C. §
841(a)(1) and (b)(1)(A)(iii). We assume the parties’ familiarity with the facts, procedural
history, and issues on appeal. For the following reasons, we affirm.
Coleman argues that the District Court erred in denying his motion for a judgment of
acquittal on the ground that the evidence at trial was insufficient to support his conviction. In I
reviewing a claim of insufficiency of evidence, "we are obliged to view the evidence in its
totality and in the light most favorable to the prosecution, mindful that the task of choosing
among permissible competing inferences is for the jury, not a reviewing COUI`t.” United States v.
Florez, 447 F.3d 145, 154-55 (2d Cir. 2006).
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Case 3:03-cr-00092-JCH Document 172 Filed O3/08/2007 Page 3 of 4
United States v. C0leman,No. 06-1119-cr -
The testimony of the govemment’s informant to the effect that he conducted a drug deal with
Coleman was sufficient evidence, if credited, to support Coleman’s conviction. "The law is well
established that a federal conviction may be supported by the uncorroborated testimony of even a
single accomplice witness if that testimony is not incredible on its face and is capable of
establishing guilt beyond a reasonable doubt .... [T]he govemment’s failure to corroborate a i
witness’s testimony raises a question as to the weight a jury might choose to give that testimony,
not its legal sufficiency to support a conviction." Id. (quotation marks and citations omitted).
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Moreover, although the informant was the only direct witness to the drug deal itself, his
testimony was supported by audiorecordings of prior telephone conversations between Coleman .
V and the informant and by the testimony of law enforcement officers who conducted physical 0
surveillance of Coleman shortly before and after the drug deal. Coleman’s conduct during those
conversations and while under observation by law enforcement officers was consistent with the
informant’s testimony.
The District Court therefore did not err in denying Coleman’s motion for a judgment of
acquittal. For the same reasons, we see no abuse of discretion in the District Court’s denial of
Coleman’s post-trial motion for a new trial in so far as it was based on the ground of the
sufficiency of the evidence. See United States v. Canava, 412 F.3d 331, 348-49 (2d Cir. 2005)
("In considering whether to grant a new trial, a district court may itself weigh the evidence and
the credibility of witnesses, but in doing so, it must be careful not to usurp the role of the jury. . .
. Only exceptional circumstances warrant a district COUI'[’S intruding upon the jury function of
credibility assessment.") (quotation marks omitted).
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Case 3:03-cr-00092-JCH Document 172 Filed O3/08/2007 Page 4 of 4
United States v. C0leman,No. 06-1119-cr
Coleman also argues that the District Court gave inadequate instructions to the jury
conceming the evaluation of the testimony of law enforcement officials and informants. We see
no error in the District Court’s instructions, and no substantial difference between the language
requested by Coleman and the language used by the District Court, when viewed as a whole.
United States v. Vaughn, 430 F.3d 518, 523-24 (2d Cir. 2005) ("[D]istrict courts are under no
obligation to give requested charges word for word, and there is no talismanic formula for an
instruction on accomplice testimony .... As long as district courts intelligibly identify a
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given to the jury regarding a cooperating witness’s testimony is sufficient?) (quotation marks
omitted).
For the foregoing reasons, we AFFIRM.
C FOR THE COURT:
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