Background
Manilester Andrade Rivas, identified in the opinion as Andrade, was a low-ranking member of the Sitios Locos Salvatrucha clique of MS-13. He and two fellow gang members were tried on charges arising from racketeering activity and the murders of Antonio Smith and Eric Tate. The government presented evidence that MS-13 members sought status and territory through violence and that members sometimes departed from the gang’s procedures requiring confirmation that a target belonged to a rival gang.
After a six-day trial, the jury convicted Andrade of racketeering conspiracy and VICAR conspiracy to murder Tate, among other offenses. It acquitted him of VICAR murder of Tate and declined to find that he aided and abetted Tate’s murder as part of the racketeering conspiracy. Andrade moved for a judgment of acquittal or a new trial, but the district court denied relief, and he appealed.
The Court’s Holding
The Fourth Circuit affirmed in an unpublished per curiam opinion. It held that sufficient evidence supported Andrade’s VICAR murder-conspiracy conviction even though Tate had not been selected when the conspirators initially agreed to kill someone. The evidence permitted a rational jury to find that the group began the night sharing an intent to murder an unidentified person and that Tate became the conspiracy’s target when the participants identified him and acted together.
The court also rejected Andrade’s challenge to the jury instructions. Andrade argued that Virginia law does not recognize conspiracy to commit second-degree murder because conspiracy requires specific intent while second-degree murder does not require premeditation. Without deciding whether the challenged phrase misstated Virginia law, the court held that the instructions as a whole repeatedly required the jury to find a knowing agreement and specific intent to murder Tate, eliminating any prejudicial confusion.
In the consolidated appeals, the court also upheld the district court’s decision to strike a cooperating witness’s testimony as a sufficient remedy for a Brady violation, upheld digital-data search warrants challenged by a co-defendant, and rejected that co-defendant’s sufficiency challenges.
Key Takeaways
- A murder conspiracy may begin with an agreement to kill an unidentified person; the victim can become the conspiracy’s subject when the conspirators select and act against that person.
- Andrade’s acquittal on the completed-murder charge did not undermine the separate conviction for conspiracy to murder Tate.
- Even assuming one phrase in a jury instruction misstated state law, reversal was unwarranted because the charge as a whole repeatedly conveyed the required specific-intent standard.
Why It Matters
The decision illustrates how the Fourth Circuit evaluates VICAR charges by looking to the elements of the incorporated state-law offense. It also confirms that uncertainty about a victim’s identity at the outset does not necessarily defeat a murder-conspiracy conviction when the evidence establishes a shared intent to kill and later concerted action against the selected victim.
The opinion further underscores that jury instructions are reviewed in their full context. A potentially problematic phrase will not require reversal when the overall charge accurately communicates the controlling elements and does not prejudice the defendant.