United States v. Latour , 400 F. App'x 760 ( 2010 )

UNPUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 09-4856
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff - Appellee,
v.
DAVID JEREMY LATOUR,
Defendant - Appellant.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of
South Carolina, at Anderson. Henry M. Herlong, Jr., Senior
District Judge. (8:09-cr-00419-HMH-1)
Submitted: October 18, 2010 Decided: November 8, 2010
Before SHEDD and KEENAN, Circuit Judges, and HAMILTON, Senior
Circuit Judge.
Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.
Michael Chesser, Aiken, South Carolina, for Appellant.
William N. Nettles, United States Attorney, Leesa Washington,
Assistant United States Attorney, Greenville, South Carolina,
for Appellee.
Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
PER CURIAM:
David Jeremy Latour was convicted by a jury and
sentenced to 240 months in prison for being a felon in
possession of a firearm, in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 922(g)(1)
(2006), and possession with intent to distribute
methamphetamine, in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1),
(b)(1)(C) (2006). Latour asserts that the district court erred
when it refused to instruct the jury regarding simple possession
of methamphetamine as a lesser-included offense. Finding no
error, we affirm.
This court reviews a district court’s refusal to give
a jury instruction for abuse of discretion. See United
States v. Abbas, 74 F.3d 506, 513 (4th Cir. 1996).
A district court’s refusal to provide an instruction
requested by a defendant constitutes reversible error
only if the instruction: (1) was correct; (2) was not
substantially covered by the court’s charge to the
jury; and (3) dealt with some point in the trial so
important[] that failure to give the requested
instruction seriously impaired the defendant’s ability
to conduct his defense.
United States v. Lewis, 53 F.3d 29, 32 (4th Cir. 1995) (internal
quotation marks and citation omitted).
We conclude that the district court did not abuse its
discretion in denying Latour’s request that the jury be
instructed that it could convict Latour of methamphetamine
possession as a lesser-included offense of the possession with
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intent to distribute charge. Given the significant amount of
evidence introduced by the Government regarding Latour’s drug
distribution activities, whether Latour intended to distribute
was not “sufficiently in dispute to allow a jury consistently to
find the defendant innocent of the greater and guilty of the
lesser offense.” United States v. Baker, 985 F.2d 1248, 1258-59
(4th Cir. 1993); see also United States v. Wright, 131 F.3d
1111, 1112 (4th Cir. 1997) (holding that for an element to be
“sufficiently in dispute,” either “the testimony on the
distinguishing element must be sharply conflicting, or the
conclusion as to the lesser offense must be fairly inferable
from the evidence presented”) (internal citation and quotation
marks omitted).
Accordingly, we affirm Latour’s conviction. We
dispense with oral argument because the facts and legal
contentions are adequately presented in the materials before the
court and argument would not aid the decisional process.
AFFIRMED
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