United States v. Thomas

Blackwell stole cash and drugs from Thomas. To punish her and recover his cash and drugs, Thomas kidnapped Blackwell’s younger brother and sister in Indiana and had them taken to Michigan and Kentucky before law enforcement found them. Convicted of conspiracy to commit kidnapping and two counts of kidnapping, Thomas was sentenced to life in prison. The Seventh Circuit affirmed, rejecting arguments that Blackwell was allowed to offer inadmissible and prejudicial testimony; that the district court should have excluded cell-site location information about cell phones associated with Thomas; that the court erred in its Sentencing Guideline calculations; and that the court erred under Alleyne v. United States, by failing to have the jury decide that the kidnapping victims were under 18 years old, which increased the mandatory minimum sentence. Thomas had not raised any of those issues in the district court. The district court did not plainly err in dealing with Blackwell’s testimony and her apparent inability to follow instructions about answering what she was asked and not raising certain subjects or in admitting the cell-site location evidence where Thomas did not move to suppress or even object to that evidence. The court’s Alleyne error was harmless, calling for no remedy under the plain-error rule. View "United States v. Thomas" on Justia Law