◆ SpookStack

The Government points to no evidence of a drug transaction in which Jones was. involved, nor any evidence that Jones ever possessed any drugs. Instead it relies upon (1) the testimony of admitted participants in the conspiracy, one of whom (Bermea) was at the Potomac Drive house when the police arrived-to the cffcct that Jones was thie ringleader of the operation and frequented the Potomac Drive house, (2) data showing Jones used his cell-phone frequently and often called some of the conspirators, including one whose phone was found at the Potomac Drive house, (3) leases in Jones's name for other properties the Government alleged were used in furtherance of the conspiracy, (4) currency seized from Jones's Jeep and mini-van, and (5) physical and photographic surveillance showing Jones visited the Potomac Drive house a few times. Jones's defense responded to each type of evidence as follows: (1) the cooperating witnesses had cut deals with the Government and were not credible, (2) the cell-phone records and (5) visits to Potomac Drive showed only that Jones knew the participants in the conspiracy, (3) Jones leased the other properties for legitimate purposes and no drugs were found there, (4) and his nightclub was a cash business.. The GPS data were essential to the Government's case. By combining them with Jones's cell-phone records the Government was able to paint a picture of Jones's movements that made credible the allegation that he was involved in drug trafficking. In his closing statement the Government attorney summarized this way the inference he was asking the jury to draw: *18 [W]hen there is a conversation with Bermea and [Jones] says, I'm coming to see you, or I'll be there in ten minutes, and within a while ... the GPS shows that that vehicle is in Potomac Drive, how does that all fit together? Well it fits together exactly as you know. That the defendant is going to 9508 Potomac Drive, and there's no reason anyone goes there other than drug activity.. .... Then, that follows these series of conversations, day after day, GPS reading after GPS reading, with the defendant speaking with [Bermea] and then the vehicle coming to Potomac Drive.... You'll have the timeline. You've got the conversations. I won't go through them all." Tr. 1/3/08 at 114-18. As mentioned earlier, the Government had also stressed in its opening remarks, which would color the jury's understanding of the whole case, that the GPS data would demonstrate Jones's involvement in the conspiracy. To be sure, absent the GPS data a jury reasonably might have inferred Jones was. involved in the conspiracy. "We are not concerned here," however, "with whether there was sufficient evidence on which [Jones] could have been convicted without the evidence complained of'; rather our concern is with "whether there is a reasonable possibility that the evidence complained of might have contributed to the conviction." Fahy y. Connecticut, 375 U.S. 85, 86-87 (1963). Without the GPS data the evidence that Jones was actually involved in the conspiracy is so far from "overwhelming" that we are 23 TTU/0TD 007104