United States of America v. Eugene Falls

United States Court of Appeals
For the Seventh Circuit
Chicago, Illinois 60604
Submitted March 9, 2023*
Decided March 13, 2023
Before
FRANK H. EASTERBROOK, Circuit Judge
MICHAEL B. BRENNAN, Circuit Judge
AMY J. ST. EVE, Circuit Judge
No. 22-1545
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff-Appellee,
v.
EUGENE FALLS,
Defendant-Appellant.
Appeal from the United States District
Court for the Southern District of Illinois.
No. 3:19-CR-30034-SMY-1
Staci M. Yandle,
Judge.
O R D E R
Eugene Falls is serving a 405-month federal sentence for conspiracy to commit
money laundering and multiple drug offenses. He challenges five aspects of his
conviction and sentence: the absence of a pretrial detention hearing, the sufficiency of
* On Falls’s request, we discharged his appointed counsel. We have agreed to
decide the case without oral argument because the briefs and record adequately present
the facts and legal arguments, and oral argument would not significantly aid the court.
F ED. R. A PP . P. 34(a)(2)(C).
NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION
To be cited only in accordance with F ED. R. APP . P. 32.1

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the indictment, the multiple delays of his trial, the admission of evidence from a
wiretap, and the length of his prison sentence. We affirm.
Between December 2018 and March 2019, Falls received methamphetamine and
heroin from a supplier and then distributed it in southern Illinois. Falls had met the
supplier when they served time in prison together. Falls paid for some of the drugs he
was fronted by using money transfers that he sent under false identities. In February
2019, a district judge in the Eastern District of Missouri—where the United States Drug
Enforcement Administration had an electronic monitoring facility—authorized a
wiretap of the phone of a suspected drug trafficker, who was not yet linked to Falls.
Agents intercepted calls between that person and Falls during which they discussed the
preparation of drugs for sale. This led to Falls’s arrest in March 2019 during a controlled
buy at a hotel in Fairview Heights, Illinois.
Later that month, the government filed a criminal complaint against Falls in the
Southern District of Illinois. Falls signed a written waiver of a pretrial detention
hearing, and a magistrate judge ordered him detained pending trial. About a week
later, Falls was charged in a one-count indictment with attempted possession with
intent to distribute methamphetamine, in violation of 21 U.S.C. §§ 841(a)(1), (b)(1)(A),
846. At that point, the trial date was set for May 20, 2019. Over the next few months,
two superseding indictments added three more defendants and three additional
charges against Falls. During this time, the district court continued the trial date
multiple times, each time with a finding that the ends of justice outweighed the best
interest of the public and the defendants in a speedy trial. Falls opposed just one of
these continuances, which a co-defendant had requested.
The second and final superseding indictment was returned on October 23, 2019,
and it charged Falls and three co-conspirators with attempted possession with intent to
distribute methamphetamine, drug conspiracy, heroin distribution, and money-
laundering conspiracy. See id. §§ 841(a)(1), (b)(1)(A), (b)(1)(C), 846; 18 U.S.C.
§ 1956(a)(1)(B)(i), (h). The indictment listed the relevant date and location of each
charged offense, and it described each alleged crime according to the statutory
elements. The final co-defendant was arraigned on December 11, 2019.
Over the next two years, the district court ordered around a dozen continuances,
each time finding, for purposes of the Speedy Trial Act, that the ends of justice
outweighed the best interest of the public and the defendants in a speedy trial,
rendering the time excludable. Between November 2019 and July 2020, individual

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defendants filed a total of six motions to continue the trial date, each of which was
granted. At that point, the trial was scheduled for October 13, 2020. In September 2020,
and again in November, the court ordered two more continuances because of public-
health dangers associated with COVID-19. In 2021, the court ordered four more
continuances, based on two pandemic-related lockdowns at Falls’s jail, the
unavailability of a material government witness, and a request by Falls’s new counsel
immediately after being appointed. The trial was scheduled for November 29, 2021.
Falls filed various pretrial motions. As relevant to this appeal, in June 2020, he
moved to dismiss the second superseding indictment, asserting, among other things,
that it failed to state a violation of a criminal law and that it charged him multiple times
for the same conduct. The court denied this motion, determining that the indictment
stated the elements of each statutorily defined criminal offense and had no legal
deficiencies. Falls filed another motion challenging the sufficiency of the indictment in
June 2021, asserting similar arguments; the court denied this motion as well.
Falls also moved to suppress evidence obtained from the wiretap of his co-
conspirator’s phone, contending that the issuing judge lacked jurisdiction to authorize
the wiretap. The district court denied the motions, concluding that, because the
communication interception facility was located within the Eastern District of Missouri,
the federal wiretap statute authorized the exercise of jurisdiction there.
Finally, Falls filed two motions to dismiss the case under the Speedy Trial Act
because more than 70 days passed from his indictment to his trial. The court denied the
motions, concluding that the speedy-trial clock reset with the arraignment of the last co-
defendant and was tolled during the continuances, which were accompanied by the
necessary findings that the ends of justice outweighed the defendants’ interest in a
speedy trial. The non-excludable time therefore did not add up to more than 70 days.
Trial began as scheduled on November 29, 2021, and lasted four days. The jury
found Falls guilty of all four counts in the second superseding indictment. According to
his presentence investigation report (PSR), Falls had a total offense level of 40 and a
criminal-history category of III under the Sentencing Guidelines, resulting in
imprisonment ranges of 360 months to life on each of the first two counts (attempted
methamphetamine possession and drug conspiracy), 360 months on the third count
(heroin distribution), and 240 months on the fourth count (money laundering
conspiracy). Falls raised no objections to the PSR.

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The district court sentenced Falls to 405 months’ imprisonment and 10 years of
supervised release. The court explained its reasoning based on the sentencing factors
under 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a), first highlighting that Falls and his co-conspirators had
trafficked “serious and dangerous drugs” in “staggering” quantities. The court also
referred to Falls’s lengthy criminal history, noting that he met his supplier while
incarcerated for a previous offense, “began to plan for his drug trafficking conduct
while he was still in prison[,]” and started carrying it out while on supervised release
for previous federal crimes. Finally, the court explained that it had selected a sentence
with the goals of both general and specific deterrence.
Falls appeals, articulating five challenges to his conviction and sentence. First, he
argues that the district court’s failure to hold a pretrial detention hearing, and thus the
resulting detention, violated his rights under the Eighth Amendment because he faced
dangerous exposure to COVID-19 while in jail. But we cannot consider this challenge
under the Bail Reform Act because Falls failed to raise it in the district court before his
conviction. See 18 U.S.C. §§ 3142(f), 3145(c); United States v. Schock, 891 F.3d 334, 339
(7th Cir. 2018). We note, however, that Falls signed a written waiver of a pretrial-
detention hearing at his initial appearance, and he does not argue that the court
overlooked any of the necessary considerations when ruling that he could not be
released on bond. See United States v. Robinson, 964 F.3d 632, 639–40 (7th Cir. 2020). To
the extent he believes the conditions of his confinement violated the Eighth
Amendment, that has nothing to do with the legality of his detention.
Second, Falls reprises his challenge to the sufficiency of the indictment, asserting
that the charges were not supported by probable cause and failed to allege that his
criminal conduct involved any victim. We review the denial of a motion to dismiss an
indictment de novo. United States v. Friedman, 971 F.3d 700, 710 (7th Cir. 2020). An
indictment is sufficient if it “(1) states the elements of the offense charged; (2) fairly
informs the defendant of the nature of the charge so that he may prepare a defense; and
(3) enables him to plead an acquittal or conviction as a bar against future prosecutions
for the same offense.” United States v. Miller, 883 F.3d 998, 1002 (7th Cir. 2018) (citations
omitted). The second superseding indictment satisfied these criteria: Each count set
forth a single charge against Falls, tracking the language of the pertinent criminal
statute and stating the location and time frame of the alleged offense. Falls cannot
challenge the presence of probable cause at this stage because the petit jury’s guilty
verdict rendered harmless any error in the grand jury’s charging decision. United States
v. Mechanik, 475 U.S. 66, 73 (1986). And the lack of identified victims does not make the
indictment insufficient. Miller, 883 F.3d at 1003.

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Third, Falls challenges the numerous delays of his trial date. He contends that
the lengthy two-and-a-half-year period he spent in a county jail, at the height of the
COVID-19 pandemic, violated both the Speedy Trial Act and his constitutional rights.
We review the district court’s interpretation of the Speedy Trial Act de novo, and
any decisions to exclude time for abuse of discretion. United States v. Bell, 925 F.3d 362,
373 (7th Cir. 2019). Under the Act, a defendant’s trial must begin within 70 days of the
later of his indictment or first appearance, plus any time excluded from the 70-day total.
18 U.S.C. § 3161(c)(1), (h)(1)–(8); United States v. Patterson, 872 F.3d 426, 433 (7th Cir.
2017). Although Falls was first indicted in March 2019, the speedy-trial clock restarted
on December 11, 2019, when the last of his co-defendants was arraigned. United States v.
Farmer, 543 F.3d 363, 368 (7th Cir. 2008). And the delays over the next two years, before
the trial began on November 29, 2021, were justified by continuances the court ordered
in response to a party’s reasonable motion or the COVID-19 pandemic. See 18 U.S.C.
§ 3161(h)(7)(A) (continuances ordered by the district court toll the speedy-trial clock).
Falls has not argued that the court improperly excluded time in any specific instance.
With the exclusions, at no point before the trial did 70 countable days amass, thus
foreclosing any argument under the Act. See Patterson, 872 F.3d at 434.
Further, Falls forfeited his constitutional speedy-trial challenge by failing to raise
it in the district court, and so our review is only for plain error. United States v. Thomas,
933 F.3d 685, 694 (7th Cir. 2019). Although Falls grounds his argument in due process,
the constitutional right to “a speedy and public trial” is found in the Sixth Amendment.
U.S. C ONST. amend. VI. To determine whether a constitutional violation occurred, we
consider: “(1) the length of the delay, (2) the reason for the delay, (3) the defendant’s
assertion of his speedy trial right, and (4) the prejudice to the defendant caused by the
delay.” Thomas, 933 F.3d at 694 (citing Barker v. Wingo, 407 U.S. 514, 530 (1972)).
Although delays of more than one year are presumptively prejudicial, id. at 694, Falls
comes up short on the other factors: He or his co-defendants requested, and therefore
bear primary responsibility for, more than half of the pretrial delays, and the COVID-
related delays were unavoidable; he did not assert his constitutional right to a speedy
trial in the district court; and he has not identified any actual harm resulting from the
delays (such as a negative effect on his trial defense). We thus conclude that the pretrial
delay in this case, though lengthy, does not amount to plain error under the Sixth
Amendment. See United States v. O’Connor, 656 F.3d 630, 643 (7th Cir. 2011) (nearly
three-and-a-half year delay did not violate Sixth Amendment, where defendant was

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No. 22-1545 Page 6
responsible for many of the pretrial delays and witnesses’ memory lapses during cross-
examination were not prejudicial to defense).
Fourth, Falls appeals the denial of his motions to suppress evidence obtained
from the wiretap of his co-conspirator’s phone. In this context, we review questions of
law de novo and questions of fact for clear error. United States v. Santiago, 905 F.3d 1013,
1018 (7th Cir. 2018).
Falls argues primarily that the judge in the Eastern District of Missouri lacked
jurisdiction to authorize the wiretap because the criminal conduct occurred in and was
charged in the Southern District of Illinois. This argument lacks merit. Under 18 U.S.C.
§ 2518(3), a district judge can “authoriz[e] or approv[e] interception of wire, oral, or
electronic communications within the territorial jurisdiction of the court in which the
judge is sitting.” The communications here took place in Illinois, but federal agents
intercepted (listened to and recorded) them in a wire room in St. Louis, within the
Eastern District of Missouri; thus, the authorizing judge had jurisdiction to approve the
wiretap. Id.; see also United States v. Henley, 766 F.3d 893, 911–12 (8th Cir. 2014)
(authorizing court had jurisdiction when government agents’ listening post was within
the district and target phone was based in another).
Falls also asserts generally that the wiretap was invalid because, in its application
under Title III of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act, the government did
not adequately describe the type of communications it sought to intercept or the
location of the wiretap monitoring room. See 18 U.S.C. § 2518. Falls did not raise these
arguments in his pretrial motion to suppress the wiretap evidence, nor does he
show “good cause” for failing to do so; therefore, he has waived them. F ED. R. C RIM . P.
12(c)(3); 12(b)(3)(C); United States v. Farmer, 38 F.4th 591, 605 (7th Cir. 2022); United States
v. Johnson, 655 F.3d 594, 600 (7th Cir. 2011) (applying former F ED. R. C RIM . P. 12(e)).
Fifth, and finally, Falls challenges the substantive reasonableness of his 405-
month prison sentence. He contends that the district court imposed an excessively long
sentence without articulating a sufficient justification. We review the substantive
reasonableness of a sentence for abuse of discretion. United States v. Gill, 889 F.3d 373,
378 (7th Cir. 2018). This sentence was within the properly calculated guideline range of
360 months to life, and so we presume it reasonable on appeal. United States v.
Cunningham, 883 F.3d 690, 701 (7th Cir. 2018). Here, Falls does not demonstrate that the
explanation for his sentence fell short of what is required. The district court
meaningfully considered the factors enumerated in 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a): It discussed the

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nature and circumstances of the offense (noting that Falls had trafficked “serious and
dangerous drugs” in “staggering” quantities), Falls’s history and characteristics
(including his lengthy criminal history and the fact that he met his supplier and
planned future crimes while in prison for another offense), and the need for general and
specific deterrence.
AFFIRMED

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