United States v. Rashaad Laws

MEMORANDUM

Appellant Rashaad Laws appeals his convictions for racketeering conspiracy in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1962 (d) and drug trafficking conspiracy in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 846 . Laws challenges the sufficiency of the evidence used to convict him of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (“RICO”) and drug trafficking conspiracies. This Court has jurisdiction over this direct appeal pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1291 . We affirm.

We review a claim for sufficiency of the evidence de novo. United States v. Garcia-Paz, 282 F.3d 1212, 1217 (9th Cir. 2002). A conviction is supported by sufficient evidence if, in viewing evidence in the light most favorable to the prosecution, any rational trier of fact could have found the essential elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt. United States v. Wright, 215 F.3d 1020, 1025 (9th Cir. 2000) (citing Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 319 , 99 S.Ct. 2781 , 61 L.Ed.2d 560 (1979)). Laws’s sufficiency of the evidence argument fails as to both his RICO conspiracy and drug trafficking conspiracy counts. On the RICO conspiracy count, the Government’s evidence showed that Laws participated in gang activity including…