United States v. Grimmett
United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit
236 F.3d 452 (2001)
- Written by Kelli Lanski, JD
Facts
Patricia Grimmett (defendant) was involved in a conspiracy to distribute marijuana in the late 1980s with her boyfriend, Elmont Kerns. Kerns was murdered in June 1989, and Grimmett confessed her involvement in the conspiracy to police, explaining that she had kept notes for Kerns, who was nearly illiterate, but that she did not understand the notes because they were in code. She also gave police the identities of Kerns’s associates and other participants in the conspiracy and promised to help police however she could. Three years later, police interviewed Grimmett again while investigating the activities of one of Kerns’s associates, and Grimmett provided new details at that time, including that she had traveled with Kerns when he picked up money from his drug customers. In November 1994, Grimmett was charged with conspiracy to distribute marijuana. She argued that the five-year statute of limitations had run because she withdrew her participation in the conspiracy in the summer of 1989 by confessing to police. The district court rejected Grimmett’s defense, finding that she did not withdraw from the conspiracy in 1989 because she did not fully disclose all details of the enterprise to police until 1992, and therefore the statute of limitations did not begin to run until at least 1992. Grimmett was convicted and appealed.
Rule of Law
Issue
Holding and Reasoning (Loken, J.)
Dissent (Murphy, J.)
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