Kevin Gray was convicted in federal court in Washington, D.C., of 19 murders committed during the late 1980s and 1990s in the course of a drug distribution organization, the largest number attributed to any single defendant in the city. He and Rodney Moore were found by the jury to have led the group jointly, and the evidence at their trial linked the organization as a whole to 31 murders. Moore was convicted of 10. Both men faced a possible death sentence, the jury could not agree on one, and in 2005 each received life imprisonment.
The trial before U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth ran for more than ten months, one of the longest criminal trials in the history of the District. It involved six defendants, a 158-count superseding indictment and a long list of cooperating witnesses. On July 29, 2011, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit affirmed nearly all of the convictions. When Judge Thomas Hogan sentenced the last member of the group to be dealt with, he called it probably the most violent drug gang in the history of the capital.
The indictment and the government's evidence described a drug distribution business that operated in Washington, D.C., during the late 1980s and 1990s. Six men were tried together and appealed together: Rodney Moore, Kevin Gray, John Raynor, Calvin Smith, Timothy Handy and Lionel Nunn. Others charged in the same conspiracy were tried separately. Larry Wilkerson was the last of more than a dozen people to be sentenced in the matter.
The D.C. Circuit held that the evidence supported the jury's finding that Moore and Gray jointly led the charged conspiracy. Their joint management of the operation in Northeast Washington in 1995 and 1996 was established most clearly by the testimony of a former associate of Gray who pleaded guilty and testified for the government. Moore and Gray were the only two defendants convicted of continuing criminal enterprise.
Gray's date of birth and family background are not on record. Evidence of his conduct as a juvenile was admitted at trial.
Anthony Dent was killed in Washington in October 1990. Cooperating co-conspirators testified that Gray claimed credit for the killing, and the government's case was that Smith and Moore had helped Gray in it. Smith was convicted of Dent's murder.
Ricardo Bailey died in 1996. The government's evidence was that Gray was responsible.
Roy Cobb died in 1998. A cooperating witness told the jury that Gray took part in planning the killing.
The other victims are not named on record. The verdict covered 19 murders for Gray and 10 for Moore.
The jury returned guilty verdicts on several of the 158 counts. Across the six defendants the verdicts covered drug conspiracy, RICO conspiracy and murder under both the D.C. Code and federal law.
Moore and Gray were convicted of continuing criminal enterprise and of assault with intent to murder. Gray was also convicted of distribution of controlled substances and, with Moore, Raynor, Handy and Nunn, of a further federal offense. Which of Gray's 19 murders were found as racketeering acts and which as separate counts is not on record.
The government called Rayful Edmond III, a drug trafficker already serving a life sentence from an earlier case, as a witness. He described how the Gray and Moore network formed, and he also spoke of matters that had no bearing on the case. Judge Lamberth told the jury it could consider the testimony only against Moore and refused a defense request for a mistrial.
Because Moore and Gray faced the death penalty, two other defendants objected to being tried with them. The jury was anonymous, and some defendants wore restraint belts in court. The jury at the penalty phase could not reach agreement on a death sentence for either Gray or Moore.
Gray was sentenced to life imprisonment in 2005, and Moore received life as well. The district court's judgments against the six defendants generally amounted to terms in excess of life imprisonment. The four other men tried with Gray and Moore were also serving life terms in 2011.
The convictions of the co-defendants were these. Moore: drug conspiracy, RICO conspiracy, continuing criminal enterprise, murder, assault with intent to murder and a further federal offense. Raynor: a further federal offense and possession with intent to distribute a controlled substance. Smith: murder, including the death of Anthony Dent. Handy: witness tampering and a further federal offense. Nunn: a further federal offense.
The appeal was argued on March 24, 2011, before Chief Judge David Sentelle and Judges Rogers and Kavanaugh. The six men argued prosecutorial misconduct, that the restraint belts were improper, that an anonymous jury should not have been used, that irrelevant testimony had been admitted and that the prosecution had discriminated in jury selection.
In a per curiam opinion on July 29, 2011, the court rejected most of these claims. It held that the peremptory strikes were not discriminatory, that the district court's individual findings supported the restraint belts and that the anonymous jury was not an abuse of discretion. It found some of the prosecutors' remarks in opening and closing improper and condemned the overview testimony of an FBI agent, but held these errors harmless. It said evidence of some uncharged conduct had likely been admitted in error, again without reversible effect, and it rejected a claim that information about a witness's plea had been withheld. Chief Judge Sentelle had asked at argument why Edmond was called, and the court found any error in his testimony harmless given the strength of the other evidence.
The court affirmed all convictions except three matters. Moore's murder conviction at Count 32 was vacated because the parties agreed it merged with another conviction. Smith's claim of ineffective assistance of counsel on Counts 4 and 5 was remanded for a hearing. Drug Counts 126-138 were remanded for reconsideration in light of the Supreme Court's decision in Bullcoming v. New Mexico, issued after the trial, on the Confrontation Clause. The outcome of the remand is not on record.
Prosecutions in the District of Columbia draw on two bodies of law, and this case used both. The verdicts listed by the appeals court rest on provisions of the D.C. Code and on federal statutes, among them the federal law on violent crimes in aid of racketeering and the provision on murder in furtherance of a continuing criminal enterprise. The case was tried in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, and appeals from it go to the D.C. Circuit.
The D.C. Circuit identified several points of dispute at trial and held that none changed the outcome: some of the prosecutors' remarks, the overview testimony of an FBI agent, the admission of uncharged conduct and the testimony of Edmond.
Late 1980s to 1990s: the drug distribution organization operates in Washington, D.C.
October 1990: Anthony Dent killed.
1995 to 1996: Moore and Gray jointly manage the operation in Northeast Washington.
1996: Ricardo Bailey killed.
1998: Roy Cobb killed.
2000: indictment filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.
Trial of more than ten months before Judge Royce Lamberth; Gray convicted of 19 murders and Moore of 10.
2005: Gray and Moore sentenced to life imprisonment after the jury could not agree on a death sentence.
March 24, 2011: appeal argued.
July 29, 2011: D.C. Circuit affirms convictions, vacates Moore's Count 32, remands Counts 4 and 5 (Smith) and Counts 126-138.