Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-12-03009/USCOURTS-caDC-12-03009-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Ignacio Leal Garcia
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued February 10, 2014 Decided July 11, 2014

No. 12-3009

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

APPELLEE

v.

IGNACIO LEAL GARCIA, ALSO KNOWN AS CAMILO, ALSO 

KNOWN AS TUERTO,

APPELLANT

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Columbia

(No. 1:04-cr-00446-42)

Carmen D. Hernandez, appointed by the court, argued 

the cause and filed the brief for appellant.

Michael A. Levy, Assistant U.S. Attorney, argued the 

cause for appellee. With him on the brief were Ronald C. 

Machen Jr., U.S. Attorney, and Randall W. Jackson, Special 

Assistant U.S. Attorney.

Before: GRIFFITH, KAVANAUGH and SRINIVASAN, Circuit 

Judges.

Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge GRIFFITH.

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GRIFFITH, Circuit Judge: The Fuerzas Armadas 

Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC) is a left-wing guerilla 

group that has waged a violent insurgency against Colombia’s 

government for much of the last fifty years. FARC finances 

its operations largely through manufacturing and trafficking 

cocaine, which it exports throughout the world. Appellant 

Ignacio Leal Garcia was part of the regional leadership of 

FARC and was convicted by the district court of conspiring to 

import cocaine into the United States. Garcia challenges the 

fact of his conviction and the length of his sentence, but for 

the reasons set forth below we reject his arguments. 

I

FARC acts through approximately seventy regional 

organizational units called “Fronts.” For at least ten years,

until 2009, Garcia was part of the leadership of the Tenth 

Front, which operates in the Arauca region of Colombia. 

March 2006 a grand jury indicted Garcia and charged him

with conspiring to smuggle into the United States five 

kilograms or more of cocaine in violation of 21 U.S.C. 

§ 960(a). He was tried by a jury in 2011.

Although Garcia called no witnesses, his theory of the 

case was that he was involved only in FARC’s political 

activities and had nothing to do with its drug trafficking

operations. But the government offered extensive evidence of 

his drug-trafficking activities. For example, the government 

submitted a letter on FARC letterhead, signed by Garcia and

written in handwriting that witnesses identified as his, which

advised members of a rival guerilla organization not to disturb 

a group of FARC’s coca farmers. The government also 

introduced photographs of Garcia in his FARC military 

uniform holding an assault rifle and a recording of radio 

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intercepts of Garcia speaking with other FARC members 

about their weapons. A Colombian civilian testified that he 

had repeatedly transported cocaine, hidden in a compartment 

of his truck, at Garcia’s command. Another individual, who 

had worked undercover at the direction of the Colombian 

Army, testified that he had repeatedly purchased large 

quantities of cocaine from Garcia. He also testified that 

Garcia had directed him to help arrange eighty-seven separate

airplane flights, each carrying hundreds of kilograms of 

cocaine primarily destined for the United States. He further 

explained that on more than one occasion he had seen the 

planes returned filled with cash, often U.S. dollars, and had 

helped deliver that cash to Garcia. Finally, eight former

members of FARC, now in the “Reinsertado” Colombian

witness protection program, testified that Garcia had at times 

served as the Tenth Front’s financial leader, managing the 

manufacture and export of cocaine to the United States, 

Europe, and Mexico.

The jury found Garcia guilty. Because of the quantity of

drugs involved in the conspiracy, the district court determined 

that Garcia’s crime carried a potential sentence of life 

imprisonment and a mandatory minimum of ten years. See 21 

U.S.C. § 960(b)(1). He was sentenced to 294 months’

imprisonment.

We have jurisdiction to hear Garcia’s appeal under 28 

U.S.C. § 1291. We consider the appeal of his conviction in 

Part II and the appeal of his sentence in Part III. 

II

The central difficulty Garcia faces in challenging his 

conviction is that the evidence of his guilt was overwhelming. 

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That mountain of evidence against him renders his various 

arguments insignificant. Even if Garcia were right and the 

district court erred in the ways he asserts, none of the alleged 

errors—nor even all in combination—call the verdict into 

doubt. See United States v. Powell, 334 F.3d 42, 45 (D.C. Cir. 

2003) (setting forth the harmless error standards for 

constitutional and non-constitutional errors). 

A

At trial, Garcia tried to impeach the Reinsertado witnesses 

with reports made by the Colombian military summarizing

what the witnesses had told authorities in interviews 

conducted just after their defections from FARC. None of the 

reports made any mention of Garcia as a financial leader, a 

fact he tried to use to show that the testimony of the 

Reinsertado witnesses describing his extensive involvement 

in FARC’s drug trafficking was false.

Garcia contends that the district court refused to allow 

him to use the reports to impeach the Reinsertado witnesses in 

violation of the Confrontation Clause of the Sixth 

Amendment, which “secure[s] for the opponent the 

opportunity of cross-examination.” Delaware v. Van Arsdall, 

475 U.S. 673, 678 (1986) (internal quotation marks and 

emphasis omitted). We are baffled by Garcia’s argument on 

this point because it is clear from the trial record that the 

district court did allow Garcia to use the reports as a basis for 

cross-examination by asking witnesses whether they had 

mentioned Garcia during their intake interviews. If a witness 

could not remember, the court allowed Garcia to use the 

reports to refresh the witness’s memory. Beyond making a 

general assertion that he was denied the ability to confront the 

Reinsertado witnesses with these reports, Garcia utterly fails 

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to specify which of the court’s rulings were unreasonable and 

how, if the court had ruled differently, he would have been 

able to further undermine the credibility of the Reinsertado

witnesses.

But even had the court misstepped in restricting Garcia’s 

use of the reports, its error would have been harmless. See id. 

at 684 (applying harmless error analysis to Confrontation 

Clause claim). The reports offer weak proof, if any, of 

inconsistency or omission by the Reinsertado witnesses

because there are ample reasons why the reports would not 

mention Garcia. In the first place, the reports are only 

summaries of interviews and contain but a small portion of 

what the witnesses told the military about their time in FARC.

Furthermore, the person conducting the interviews may not 

have asked any questions that required the witness to mention 

Garcia’s name or his role and, if a witness did refer to Garcia,

there may not have been a reason to include that detail in the 

report. And most importantly, there was overwhelming

evidence of Garcia’s leadership role in FARC other than the 

testimony of the Reinsertado witnesses. Even if Garcia had 

somehow been able to use the reports to show that all eight of 

the Reinsertado witnesses were lying during trial, the 

testimony from other witnesses, the photographs, the 

handwritten letter by Garcia, and the radio intercept clearly 

established Garcia’s role in FARC’s drug trafficking. See 

Mitchell v. Esparza, 540 U.S. 12, 17-18 (2003) (per curiam)

(“A constitutional error is harmless when it appears beyond a 

reasonable doubt that the error complained of did not 

contribute to the verdict obtained.” (internal quotation marks 

omitted)); see also United States v. Wilson, 605 F.3d 985, 

1014 (D.C. Cir. 2010) (per curiam).

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B

Garcia sees a violation of Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 

83 (1963), which forbids the “suppression by the prosecution 

of evidence favorable to an accused,” id. at 87, in the 

government’s disclosure of the Reinsertado reports only two 

weeks before trial. But Garcia fails to tell us when the 

government first learned of the reports, what efforts were

made to gain them from the Colombian government, or how 

long after obtaining the reports the government disclosed

them. In fact nothing in the record suggests anything other 

than that the government disclosed the reports to Garcia as 

soon as it obtained them from the Colombian authorities. 

Moreover, the timing of the disclosure in and of itself 

cannot make out a Brady violation. To establish a Brady 

violation, Garcia “must show a reasonable probability that an 

earlier disclosure would have changed the trial’s result.” 

United States v. Andrews, 532 F.3d 900, 907 (D.C. Cir. 2008)

(internal quotation marks omitted); see United States v. 

Johnson, 519 F.3d 478, 488 (D.C. Cir. 2008) (“The defendant 

bears the burden of showing a reasonable probability of a 

different outcome.”). Garcia’s brief fails to address, in even 

the most cursory fashion, how earlier disclosure of the 

Reinsertado reports would have changed the outcome at trial.

Although Garcia suggested for the first time at oral argument 

that earlier disclosure might have allowed him to find a 

witness who could lay an adequate foundation for the

admission of the reports as business records, he made no 

showing at all that it was the government’s delay that 

hampered his efforts. In the two weeks before trial that Garcia

had the reports, he neither sent for a Colombian witness nor 

asked for a continuance to allow more time to do so. And 

even assuming Garcia had found such a witness, we have 

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already explained why he has failed to show that admitting 

the reports was likely to have changed the trial’s outcome.

C

Garcia faults the district court for admitting into evidence 

two exhibits for which he claims the prosecution had failed to 

establish an adequate chain of custody. “Chain of custody” 

evidence typically “entail[s] testimony that traces the 

[possession] of the item from the moment it was found to its 

appearance in the courtroom.” 2 MCCORMICK ON EVIDENCE

§ 213, at 14 (7th ed. 2013). In order for evidence to be 

admissible, however, a “complete chain of custody need not 

always be proved. The standard of proof requires only 

evidence from which the trier could reasonably believe that an 

item still is what the proponent claims it to be.” Id. at 15-16 

(footnote omitted); see also FED. R. EVID. 901(a). The 

proponent of the evidence must only “demonstrate that, as a 

matter of reasonable probability, possibilities of 

misidentification and adulteration have been eliminated.” 

United States v. Mejia, 597 F.3d 1329, 1335-36 (D.C. Cir. 

2010) (internal quotation marks omitted). Once the evidence 

is admitted, gaps in the chain of custody affect only the 

weight it is given by the trier of fact. Id.

Through the testimony of Reinsertado witness Francisco 

Novoa, the government introduced a video seized by the 

Colombian military during a raid of the Tenth Front in 2006. 

The video appeared to be a training video made by FARC that

showed its members practicing with weapons and explosives.

The video also contained some still images, including a 

photograph of Garcia. To establish the needed chain of 

custody, Novoa testified that he was present during the

military raid and watched the video a few days later. Novoa 

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confirmed that the video introduced into evidence was the 

same as the one he viewed just after the raid. The district 

court admitted the video over Garcia’s objection, ruling that 

there was no evidence to suggest that the video was anything 

other than what it appeared to be. Garcia argues now that the 

district court erred because no official testified regarding the 

location of the video between the time it was recovered in the 

raid and the viewing by Novoa days later. The court should 

not have admitted the video, he argues, because this gap in the 

chain of custody creates the distinct possibility that the photo 

of Garcia was added to the video after its seizure.

Through the testimony of Colombian prosecutor Carlos 

Munoz, the prosecution also introduced into evidence a 

printout of the documents from a computer seized during a 

raid of FARC in 2002. According to Munoz, he received the 

printouts within a few days of the raid. Although he had since

lost track of the seized computer and the printouts, Munoz

testified that the printouts in the courtroom were a copy of the 

ones he had viewed in 2002. Another witness corroborated 

Munoz’s statement by testifying that he recognized some of 

the printouts as FARC rules. He explained that he had created 

the rules at Garcia’s direction, implicating Garcia as a FARC 

leader. Garcia objected, pointing to the nearly ten-year gap in 

the chain of custody, but the court let the printouts into 

evidence, finding that they were what the government claimed 

them to be. Garcia now renews that objection on appeal.

Like other evidentiary rulings, a district court’s decision 

to admit evidence over a chain-of-custody objection is subject 

to harmless error review. See Mejia, 597 F.3d at 1337. We 

need not determine here whether Garcia’s objections have 

merit because neither the video nor the printouts was needed 

to show that Garcia was involved with FARC’s drug 

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trafficking. Numerous witnesses and much physical evidence 

firmly established that he was. Because we can “say with fair 

assurance” that the admission of the video and printouts “did 

not substantially affect the jury’s verdict,” any error in 

admitting them was harmless. United States v. Hampton, 718 

F.3d 978, 984 (D.C. Cir. 2013) (internal quotation marks 

omitted) (addressing non-constitutional errors). 

III

Federal law prohibits the knowing and intentional 

importation of a controlled substance into the United States, 

or the manufacture of the substance knowing or intending that 

it will be imported into the United States. 21 U.S.C. 

§ 960(a)(1), (3). The base penalty for a cocaine-related 

violation of § 960(a) is a sentence of not more than twenty 

years, see id. § 960(b)(3), but if the violation “involv[es]” five 

kilograms or more, the range shifts upward to a minimum of 

ten years and a maximum of life, see id. § 960(b)(1)(B).

Garcia was charged under § 963 with conspiring to commit a 

violation of § 960(a) that involved five kilograms or more of 

cocaine. Although the jury found that the conspiracy involved 

five or more kilograms, it made no finding that Garcia should 

have foreseen that the conspiracy would involve this amount.

Garcia argues that applying the higher sentencing range 

without such a jury finding violated the Sixth Amendment. 

See Alleyne v. United States, 133 S. Ct. 2151, 2155 (2013)

(“[A]ny fact that increases the mandatory minimum is an 

‘element’ that must be submitted to the jury.”); Apprendi v. 

New Jersey, 530 U.S. 466, 490 (2000).

Garcia is correct that the trial judge did not instruct the 

jury to make a finding as to the quantity of drugs involved in 

the conspiracy that was reasonably foreseeable to him. But 

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did the jury need to make such a finding? If Garcia had been 

charged with a count of importation directly under § 960, 

rather than a conspiracy count under § 963, the answer

presumably would be no. In United States v. Branham, 515 

F.3d 1268, 1275-76 (D.C. Cir. 2008), this court held that 

under 21 U.S.C. § 841, which is structurally and textually 

analogous to § 960, a defendant’s knowledge of the drug type 

or quantity is not an element of the offense. Thus, a drug mule 

who believed he was smuggling only one kilogram of 

marijuana across the border, but was actually carrying ten

kilograms of cocaine, would be subject to the higher

sentencing range so long as the jury found that the offense 

“involv[ed]” five kilograms of cocaine or more. On this point, 

all twelve regional circuit courts of appeal are in agreement. 

See id. at 1275 n.3 (collecting cases); see also United States v. 

Carranza, 289 F.3d 634, 644 (9th Cir. 2002) (same principle 

applies to both § 841 and § 960).

There is some disagreement, however, about what

knowledge is required to convict a defendant of conspiracy. 

The majority view is that the defendant’s knowledge of the 

drug type and quantity involved remains irrelevant. On this 

view, once the jury finds the defendant guilty of joining the 

conspiracy, his statutory penalty range is established by the 

jury’s determination of the type and quantity of drugs 

attributable to the entire conspiracy, regardless of whether the 

individual defendant should have foreseen the amount used. 

See, e.g., United States v. Robinson, 547 F.3d 632, 639-40 

(6th Cir. 2008) (collecting cases). On the majority view, the 

type and amount of drugs foreseeable to a particular 

defendant remain relevant only to determining his sentence 

within the statutory range. See, e.g., United States v. Knight, 

342 F.3d 697, 710 (7th Cir. 2003) (“[O]nce the jury has 

determined that the conspiracy involved a type and quantity 

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of drugs sufficient to justify a sentence above the default 

statutory maximum and has found a particular defendant 

guilty of participation in the conspiracy, the judge may 

lawfully determine the drug quantity attributable to that 

defendant and sentence him accordingly. . . .” (internal 

quotation marks omitted)).

But several circuits have held that the law requires a jury 

to determine the type and quantity of drugs the defendant 

should have reasonably foreseen the conspiracy would 

involve. See, e.g., United States v. Collins, 415 F.3d 304, 311-

14 (4th Cir. 2005); United States v. Banuelos, 322 F.3d 700, 

704 (9th Cir. 2003). As Garcia notes, our opinion in United 

States v. Law, 528 F.3d 888 (D.C. Cir. 2008), appears to 

support this minority view. See id. at 906 (“[A] defendant 

convicted of conspiracy to deal drugs . . . must be 

sentenced . . . for the quantity of drugs the jury attributes to 

him as a reasonably foreseeable part of the conspiracy.”). But 

Law did not directly confront the Apprendi argument Garcia

raises. And in the most recent case where this issue was 

squarely raised, we did not reach the matter. See United States 

v. Lopesierra-Gutierrez, 708 F.3d 193, 208 (D.C. Cir. 2013),

cert. denied, 134 S. Ct. 330 (2013) (“According to Lopesierra, 

Apprendi required the jury to find the quantity of drugs 

attributable to Lopesierra individually—as opposed to the 

quantity attributable to the conspiracy as a whole. But we 

need not resolve this issue, for even assuming Apprendi error, 

such error was harmless.”). 

Nor need we do so here. We review the district court’s 

decision for plain error because Garcia failed to argue below 

that the district court should have asked the jury to find the 

quantity of cocaine attributable to him. See United States v. 

Fields, 251 F.3d 1041, 1044-45 (D.C. Cir. 2001). The 

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Supreme Court has held that there is no plain error when, in a

case where the jury does not make a required finding relating 

to drug quantity, the evidence of the higher drug quantity is 

“overwhelming.” United States v. Cotton, 535 U.S. 625, 633 

(2002); see also United States v. Mouling, 557 F.3d 658, 666 

(D.C. Cir. 2009), abrogated on other grounds by Henderson 

v. United States, 133 S. Ct. 1121 (2013); United States v. 

Johnson, 331 F.3d 962, 968 (D.C. Cir. 2003). Here there can 

be no doubt that it was reasonably foreseeable to Garcia that 

the massive drug trafficking operation he managed involved 

at least five kilograms of cocaine. The evidence was 

overwhelming. Indeed, the district court concluded that, based 

on all the evidence presented at trial, Garcia was personally

involved in the manufacture and import of more than 7,000

kilograms. And this, said the district court, was “a 

conservative figure.” Garcia offers us no reason to think the 

district court’s estimate was flawed in any way. We conclude 

that any Apprendi error is not reversible.

IV

We have given full consideration to the various 

additional arguments that Garcia raises, but find none 

convincing or worthy of discussion. We therefore affirm his 

conviction and sentence.

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