Opinion
Court of Appeals No. A-10377
01-11-2012
VONNIE WILLIAMS, Appellant, v. STATE OF ALASKA, Appellee.
Appearances: David E. George, Attorney at Law, for the Appellant. Diane L. Wendlandt, Assistant Attorney General, Office of Special Prosecutions and Appeals, Anchorage, and John J. Burns, Attorney General, Juneau, for the Appellee.
NOTICE
Memorandum decisions of this court do not create legal precedent. See Alaska
Appellate Rule 214(d) and Paragraph 7 of the Guidelines for Publication of Court
of Appeals Decisions (Court of Appeals Order No. 3). Accordingly, this
memorandum decision may not be cited as binding precedent for any proposition of
law.
Trial Court No. 1JU-08-0364 CR
MEMORANDUM OPINION
AND JUDGMENT
No. 5789 — January 11, 2012
Appeal from the Superior Court, First Judicial District, Juneau,
Patricia A. Collins, Judge.
Appearances: David E. George, Attorney at Law, for the
Appellant. Diane L. Wendlandt, Assistant Attorney General,
Office of Special Prosecutions and Appeals, Anchorage, and
John J. Burns, Attorney General, Juneau, for the Appellee.
Before: Coats, Chief Judge, and Mannheimer and Bolger,
Judges.
COATS, Chief Judge.
Vonnie Williams was convicted of nine counts of aiding and abetting misconduct involving a controlled substance in the third degree, a class B felony, for assisting persons who acted as his drug couriers. He was also convicted of one count of misconduct involving a controlled substance in the first degree, an unclassified felony, based upon his actions of organizing, supervising, and managing at least five persons in a continuing criminal enterprise. Superior Court Judge Patricia A. Collins sentenced Williams to a composite sentence of forty years with ten years suspended.
AS 11.71.030(a)(1); AS 11.16.110(2)(B).
AS 11.71.010(a)(3).
On appeal, Williams argues that the evidence presented at trial was insufficient to support his convictions. He also argues that he was denied due process of law because Judge Collins refused to dismiss the charges against him after the State declined to grant transactional immunity to several witnesses Williams wished to call in his defense. In addition, Williams argues that his composite sentence is excessive. We affirm.
Factual background
Williams was tried with his codefendant, Aaron Washington. (We affirmed Washington's conviction in Washington v. State ) The evidence presented at trial showed that Williams moved to Juneau in 2002 and developed a network of people who transported and sold cocaine for him. In 2006, Washington, a college friend of Williams's, moved to Juneau. Washington had connections with drug suppliers outside of Alaska. He became the supplier for Williams's smaller business of supplying drugs in Juneau. According to the testimony presented at trial, Williams had several people working for him as drug couriers: Darlene Hurlbut, Geralyn Dougherty, Chris Faulk, Olivia Olsen, Jocelyn White, Laura Johnson, and Harriet Hotch.
Alaska App. Memorandum Opinion and Judgment No. 5700 (May 29, 2011), 2011 WL 2090174.
Williams's claim that the evidence was insufficient to support his conviction for engaging in a continuing criminal enterprise
In order to convict Williams of engaging in a continuing criminal enterprise under AS 11.71.010(b), the State had to prove that: (1) Williams committed a felony violation of the drug laws codified in Title 11, chapter 71; (2) this felony was part of a continuing series of five or more violations of these drug laws; (3) Williams undertook this continuing series of drug offenses in concert with at least five other persons whom Williams organized, supervised, or otherwise managed; and (4) Williams obtained substantial income or resources from this series of offenses.
In reviewing whether there was sufficient evidence to support a conviction, we view the evidence in the light most favorable to upholding the jury's verdict.Several witnesses testified that they acted as drug couriers and that Williams, or other people whom he supervised, managed them. Williams points out that the State made deals with and put pressure on these witnesses. But it was up to the jury to determine whether these witnesses were credible.
Rantala v. State, 216 P.3d 550, 562 (Alaska App. 2009).
Abyo v. State, 166 P.3d 55, 60 (Alaska App. 2007).
Williams also points out that the witnesses who testified against him were his accomplices. And he points out that AS 12.45.020 provides, "[a] conviction shall not be had on the testimony of an accomplice unless it is corroborated by other evidence that tends to connect the defendant with the commission of the crime ... ." But the testimony of multiple accomplices may be used to corroborate each other. In Williams's case, seven witnesses gave testimony showing a similar pattern. Williams would ask or tell them to take a trip to Seattle, Anchorage, or another city. He would arrange the trip, providing money or confirmation numbers for the plane tickets. And he provided money for the cocaine purchase if necessary. Williams checked in frequently while they were on the trip. All six female accomplices were asked to carry the cocaine internally, i.e., in their vaginas, in order to escape detection. Faulk, the only male, carried the cocaine in an adult diaper. Further, the testimony of Tanya Brown corroborated the evidence of Hotch and Dougherty.
Brown v. State, 693 P.2d 324, 329 (Alaska App. 1984).
The evidence, if believed, was sufficient for a jury to conclude that Williams supervised and managed several drug couriers, certainly more than five, as part of a continuing series of felony drug offenses from which Williams derived substantial income.
Williams's claim that there was insufficient evidence to support his other convictions
Williams was convicted of nine counts of misconduct involving a controlled substance in the third degree based upon the theory that he aided and abetted the drug couriers in bringing cocaine into Juneau for sale. Williams raises essentially the same arguments that he raised in attacking his conviction for engaging in a continuing criminal enterprise. He argues that the witnesses were not credible because they were accomplices who made deals with the State for more lenient treatment. But, as in his previous argument, Williams asks us to examine the testimony in the light most favorable to him. As we previously pointed out, the law requires us to view the evidence in the light most favorable to upholding the jury's verdict. And the question of whether the witnesses who testified against Williams were credible was an issue for the jury. We conclude that the evidence presented at trial was sufficient to support the jury's verdicts.
Williams's claim that Judge Collins erred in failing to dismiss the case after the State refused to grant the defense witnesses immunity
At the close of the State's case, Williams informed Judge Collins that the defense wanted to present the testimony of three witnesses who were active in the drug trade in Juneau. Judge Collins appointed attorneys for these witnesses, and, at a later hearing, determined that the witnesses had valid Fifth Amendment privileges to refuse to testify. The State refused to grant the witnesses immunity.
Williams moved to dismiss the charges. He argued that the State's refusal to grant his witnesses immunity interfered with his right to present a defense and denied his right to due process of law. Judge Collins denied the motion. She found that, in refusing to grant the witnesses transactional immunity, the State was acting within its discretion and was not attempting to improperly manipulate the judicial process. She also concluded that, based upon the offers of proof made by the defense attorney, the proposed testimony did not have "crucial exculpatory value" with respect to any of the charges against Williams.
In rejecting Williams's motion to dismiss the charges, Judge Collins relied on this Court's decision in Cogdill v. State Under Cogdill, the defendant must demonstrate that the trial would be fundamentally unfair without the testimony of the witness — that the witness would provide "crucial, verdict-altering evidence." If the defendant meets this test, the trial court must determine whether the State had legitimate reasons for declining to immunize the witness.
101 P.3d 632 (Alaska App. 2004).
Id. at 635-36.
Id.
In denying Williams's motion to dismiss, Judge Collins specifically found that the proffered testimony did not have "crucial exculpatory value" and that the State had not engaged in any unfair manipulation of the witnesses. These findings are supported by the record.
Williams's claim that his sentence was excessive
Williams was convicted of nine counts of misconduct involving controlled substances in the third degree, based on his aiding and abetting seven different accomplices transporting cocaine into Juneau. He was convicted of one count of misconduct involving controlled substances in the first degree, based on his engaging in a continuing criminal enterprise.
AS 11.71.030(a)(1); AS 11.16.110(2)(B).
AS 11.71.010(a)(3).
Williams had six prior felony convictions. Judge Collins found the following aggravating factors: that Williams has three or more prior felony convictions, that Williams has a history of similar criminal conduct, that the offenses involved large quantities of cocaine, and that the offenses involved importation of cocaine into Alaska.
See AS 12.55.155(c)(15), (21), (24), (25).
The most serious charge that Williams was convicted of was misconduct involving a controlled substance in the first degree. Misconduct involving a controlled substance in the first degree is an unclassified felony with a sentencing range of between five and ninety-nine years. Williams was also convicted of nine counts of misconduct involving a controlled substance in the third degree, a class B felony. In addition, Williams was convicted of two class C felonies, misconduct involving a controlled substance in the fourth degree and theft in the second degree. Judge Collins essentially sentenced Williams based upon the continuing criminal enterprise offense — she imposed the other sentences concurrently to that sentence.
AS 11.71.010(c); AS 12.55.125(b).
AS 11.71.040(a)(3)(A).
AS 11.46.130(a)(1).
In sentencing Williams, Judge Collins first considered Williams's extensive prior record of felony convictions. She observed that, as a young man, Williams had demonstrated "incredible talent" but that he had spent the next twenty years using his "considerable skills" to "all but destroy [his] life." She found that, in spite of having many opportunities to reform while on probation or parole, Williams had not changed his behavior. She concluded that he had a "pretty slim potential for rehabilitation" based upon his prior performance.
Judge Collins also emphasized the seriousness of Williams's offenses. She stated she had examined the legislative history of the statute criminalizing misconduct involving a controlled substance in the first degree based upon a continuing criminal enterprise. She concluded that the legislative history and the fact that the legislature had prescribed a sentencing range similar to murder in the second degree, attempted murder, and kidnapping demonstrated that the legislature considered this offense to be one of the most serious offenses in Alaska.
She concluded that, in terms of the size of the criminal enterprise, Washington and Williams could not be said to have a high-end operation. But she found that the combination of the two of them had taken the level of drug dealing in Juneau to another level. Williams had organized and directed a number of street-level dealers while Washington had the financial ability and the contacts with large-scale distributors in New York to supply Williams with cocaine.
Judge Collins concluded that, based upon Williams's extensive prior record and poor prospects for rehabilitation, it was necessary for her to emphasize isolating Williams from society in order to protect the public. She imposed a composite sentence of forty years with ten years suspended.
Judge Collins's findings are supported by the record and support the sentence which she imposed. We conclude that the sentence was not clearly mistaken.
See McClain v. State, 519 P.2d 811 (Alaska 1974).
Conclusion
The judgment of the superior court is AFFIRMED.