Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca10-90-04055/USCOURTS-ca10-90-04055-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Jose Novoa Ochoa
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

.,, FI LED 

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS 

TENTH CIRCUIT 

United States Court of Appeals 

Tenth Circuit 

MAR 2 . 1991 

R.OBERT L. HOECKER 

Clerk 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 

Plaintiff-Appellee, 

v. 

JOSE NOVOA OCHOA, 

Defendant-Appellant. 

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ORDER AND JUDGMENT* 

No. 90-4055 

(D.C. No. 89-CR-162S) 

(D. Utah) 

Before HOLLOWAYI Chief Judge, LOGAN, Circuit Judge, and BRETT, 

District Judge. * 

The defendant, Jose Novoa Ochoa, appeals his conviction for 

distributing cocaine in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(l). We 

affirm. 

The government's chief witness in the case against defendant 

was an informant by the name of Quintana--after Quintana informed 

police that defendant was selling drugs, Quintana purchased 

cocaine from defendant at the government's behest. While testifying, Quintana denied ever illegally using or dealing drugs. When 

* This order and judgment has no precedential value and shall not 

be cited, or used by any court within the Tenth Circuit, except 

for purposes of establishing the doctrines of the law of the case, 

res judicata, or collateral estoppel. 10th Cir. R. 36.3. 

** The Honorable Thomas R. Brett, United States District Judge 

for the Northern District of Oklahoma, sitting by designation. 

Appellate Case: 90-4055 Document: 010110031304 Date Filed: 03/26/1991 Page: 1 
defense counsel called witnesses and asked whether they had seen 

Quintana deal drugs, the district court repeatedly sustained the 

government's Fed. R. Evid. 608(b) objections. The court indicated 

that it would only permit testimony that contradicted what happened in the specific drug transaction at issue in the case. 

Defense counsel informed the court that it intended to call 

several witnesses, including Quintana himself, to develop the 

theory that Qunitana was a major drug trafficker. Defense counsel 

further informed the court that some of these witnesses would 

testify that they had seen Quintana deal drugs. See III R. 117, 

129. IV R. 7. The district court responded that it would only 

allow reputation or opinion testimony as to Quintana's tendency 

towards veracity. 

Defendant first argues that the district court erred when it 

sustained the government's Fed. R. Evid. 608(b) objections. Under 

that rule, extrinsic evidence of specific instances of the conduct 

of a witness ordinarily is inadmissible. Citing United States v. 

Calle, 822 F.2d 1016 (11th Cir. 1987), however, defendant argues 

that 608(b) does not bar the admission of such evidence when offered to contradict the material testimony of a prior witness. 

Defendant argues that the excluded evidence should have been 

admitted to contradict Quintana's testimony that he had never used 

or dealt drugs. 

In Calle, a government informant unwittingly sold cocaine to 

an undercover policeman. Upon being arrested, he claimed that the 

defendant (Calle) was the supplier of the cocaine and offered to 

testify against him in return for lenient treatment. At trial, 

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Appellate Case: 90-4055 Document: 010110031304 Date Filed: 03/26/1991 Page: 2 
' ... 

the most damaging evidence implicating Calle was the informant's 

testimony; without the testimony, "there would have been no other 

evidence upon which [the jury] could have based a guilty verdict." 

Id. at 1021. When Calle attempted to rebut this testimony with 

evidence that the informant was a major drug dealer, the trial 

court sustained the government's Rule 608(b) objection. The 

Eleventh Circuit reversed, however, holding that the preferred 

external evidence was admissible. It was not offered simply to 

attack the informant's testimony--it was offered to show that the 

informant (and not Calle) was the dealer and that he had a motive 

to testify falsely, to "shift the major part of the blame in th[e] 

case from himself to Calle." Id. 

After reviewing the record on appeal, we conclude that 

defense counsel did not make an offer of proof sufficient to bring 

the instant case within Calle's exception to Rule 608(b). Defense 

counsel did not suggest that he had witnesses who would testify 

that Quintana had somehow tricked defendant into unwittingly 

delivering the cocaine. Defense counsel simply informed the trial 

court that he had witnesses who had seen Quintana deal drugs. III 

R. 117, 129; IV R. 7. Such testimony does not go to the material 

testimony of Quintana; it goes only to his credibility. Unlike 

the informant in Calle, Quintana was buying drugs at the 

government's behest. Moreover, the evidence against the instant 

defendant, unlike the defendant in Calle, is overwhelming. Accordingly, the district court did not abuse its discretion when it 

sustained the government's Rule 608(b) objections. 

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Appellate Case: 90-4055 Document: 010110031304 Date Filed: 03/26/1991 Page: 3 
<lilf I _..,_ 

Defendant next argues that the trial court's rulings 

precluded defendant from calling witnesses and thus deprived him 

of his right to due process. We disagree. The trial court did 

not preclude defendant from calling any witnesses. Rather, the 

court simply warned defendant that his witnesses would not be 

permitted to offer testimony regarding specific instances of 

Quintana's past conduct. Since we already have ruled that the 

district court properly excluded such testimony, we reject this 

argument. 

AFFIRMED. 

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Entered for the Court 

James K. Logan 

Circuit Judge 

Appellate Case: 90-4055 Document: 010110031304 Date Filed: 03/26/1991 Page: 4