No. 18-1859

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Appellee,

v.

JUAN E. SEARY-COLÓN,

Defendant, Appellant.

APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF PUERTO RICO

[Hon. Gustavo A. Gelpí, U.S. District Judge]

Before

Howard, Chief Judge, Thompson and Barron, Circuit Judges.

Johnny Rivera-González for appellant. Seth A. Tremble, Special Assistant United States Attorney, with whom W. Stephen Muldrow, United States Attorney, and Mariana E. Bauzá-Almonte, Assistant United States Attorney, Chief, Appellate Division, were on brief, for appellee.

May 4, 2021 THOMPSON, Circuit Judge. Defendant-appellant Juan E. Seary-Colón ("Seary") was charged with Hobbs Act robbery, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1951(a) (Count One); murdering a person through the use of a firearm during a crime of violence, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 924(j) (Count Two); possessing a firearm in furtherance of a crime of violence, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 924(c)(1)(A)(iii) (Count Three); and being a convicted felon in possession of a firearm, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1) (Count Four). After a three-day trial, the jury convicted him on all counts. Seary now challenges the district court's denial of his motion to suppress identification evidence, the sufficiency of the evidence supporting his convictions, and the district court's determination that Hobbs Act robbery qualifies as a "crime of violence" under 18 U.S.C. § 924(c), which underpinned his convictions on Counts Two and Three. Finding no error, we affirm.

I. Background A. Factual Background

On April 3, 2012, around 3:20 p.m., two men entered the Piezas Importadas located on Monserrate Avenue in Carolina, Puerto Rico, to commit a robbery. Piezas Importadas is an auto parts store that sells merchandise obtained from suppliers located in the mainland and abroad. April 3rd, 2012 was a busy day at the store, and several customers and employees were around at the time

-2- of the robbery. Five employees, including José Méndez-del Valle ("Méndez") and the store manager David Méndez-Calderón ("Méndez- Calderón"), were working behind the service counter facing the door through which the robbers entered. As the store owner's wife and store accountant, María Judith Sanabria-Rivera ("Sanabria"), was getting ready to leave for the day and was heading towards the door, the two men burst into the store. The first man to enter was wearing a cap and a dark hoodie. He entered the store while brandishing a firearm, announced the robbery, and ordered everyone to "lie on the ground." Sanabria noticed that the man had "very specific" eyebrows that "were marked going up and then thin coming down; not . . . like . . . regular eyebrows that men usually have." She also noticed that he had a peculiar tattoo on his left leg, which had light, basic colors, "not like the tattoos that are used nowadays with . . . lot[s] of color[s]." Before anyone could get down, the gunman walked straight to the service counter, pointed his gun at Méndez-Calderón, and shot him once in the face. Méndez- Calderón fell to the ground and died shortly thereafter as a result of the gunshot wound. The gunman started walking from one side of the store to the other while cursing and yelling at everyone not to look at him. Meanwhile, the other robber jumped over the service counter and asked Méndez for the store's petty cash. Méndez complied and handed him a metal box with approximately

-3- $1,020. The robber took the box with the money, pushed Méndez to the floor, and told him to st