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JOHN S. LEONARDO

United States Attorney

District of Arizona

CHRISTINA M. VEJAR

Assistant U.S. Attorney

State Bar No. 024795

United States Courthouse

405 W. Congress Street, Suite 4800 Tucson, Arizona 85701

Telephone: 520-620-7300

Email: Christina.vejar@usdoj.gov Attorneys for Plaintiff

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE DISTRICT OF ARIZONA

United States of America,

 Plaintiff, 

 vs. 

Veronica Guadalupe Saldivar,

 Defendant.

CR 15-02062-TUC-JAS (LCK)

GOVERNMENT’S MOTION IN LIMINE 

TO PRECLUDE EVIDENCE OF DURESS 

DEFENSE AND DURESS JURY

INSTRUCTION

The United States of America, by and through undersigned counsel, hereby moves

the Court in limine to preclude all questioning, evidence, testimony and argument related 

to a duress defense which may be offered by the defendant at the trial in this case. The 

defendant recently noticed an expert (Dr. Peter Chalk). In her notice, she indicated that the 

expert would be relevant to a duress defense. This motion is made under Rules 401 and 

403 of the Federal Rules of Evidence, and is made to request that the Court bar the 

defendant from presenting a duress defense (and from presenting expert and other evidence 

in support of it) because she will fail to establish a prima facie claim of duress.

I. Statement of Facts

On October 22, 2015, the defendant presented herself for inspection at the 

pedestrian crossing of the DeConcini Port of Entry in Nogales, Arizona. During her 

inspection to enter into the United States, Saldivar was referred to secondary inspection 

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where a canine alerted to an odor that it was trained to detect on the defendant’s person. 

Agents told her she should come clean if she had any drugs on her person. At that point, 

the defendant admitted that she was carrying drugs because she needed the money. Officers 

then conducted a pat down of her person and found one package of suspected narcotics

around her stomach, four packages in her bra and three packages in her underwear. The 

packages were weighed and field tested and were determined to be 3.52 kilograms of 

methamphetamine and 1.18 kilogram of cocaine. 

The defendant’s arrest in the current case is not the defendant’s only involvement 

in the drug trade. The defendant was also arrested in 2014 for a similar incident which is 

even more salient in light of the defense’s new claim of duress: On December 4, 2014, the 

defendant entered the United States through the DeConinci Port of Entry in Nogales, 

Arizona. She was the driver, owner, and sole occupant of a 2002 Toyota Tundra. When she 

approached primary inspection, the agent noticed that the defendant was exhibiting nervous 

behavior. After being sent to secondary, she told the officer that she was in Mexico buying 

candy for her daughter’s birthday party. During secondary inspection, a canine alerted to 

the rear seat of the vehicle. Officers probed the seat which revealed a white powdery 

substance. A search of the seats revealed 8 packages of suspected narcotics that tested 

positive for cocaine and methamphetamine. Specifically, the packages were 9.26 kilograms 

of cocaine and .94 kilograms of methamphetamine. During her post Miranda interview, 

she told agents she knew nothing of the drugs in her vehicle. She said that the piñata she 

had ordered was not finished when she arrived at the store in Mexico, so she went and got 

her car detailed. She said the detailing took about an hour. The defendant claimed that the 

drugs must have been placed in her vehicle in the one hour that it took to have the car 

detailed. 

II. Law and Argument 

At trial, the defendant bears the burden of proving duress by a preponderance of the

evidence. Dixon v. United States, 126 S.Ct. 2437, 2442-48 (2006) (holding that a defendant 

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bears the burden of proving a duress defense); United States v. Beasley, 346 F.3d 930, 935 

(9th Cir. 2003) (holding that burden should be placed on defendant to prove justification 

defense). “...a defendant is not entitled to present a duress defense to the jury unless the 

defendant has made a prima facie showing of duress in a pre-trial offer of proof”. United 

States v. Vasquez-Landaver, 527 F.3d 798, 802 (9th Cir. 2008). A district court may 

preclude the defendant from presenting irrelevant testimony, including her own testimony 

regarding a duress claim, where the defendant’s proffer failed to make a prima facie 

showing of the required elements. Id. 

“In order to make a prima facie showing for a duress defense or a jury instruction, 

a defendant must establish: ‘(1) an immediate threat of death or serious bodily injury, (2)

a well-grounded fear that the threat will be carried out, and (3) lack of a reasonable 

opportunity to escape the threatened harm.’ In the absence of a prima facie showing of

duress, evidence of duress is irrelevant and may be excluded, and a jury instruction is not

appropriate.” United States v. v. Ibarra-Pino, 657 F.3d 1000, 1005 (9th Cir. 2011), quoting 

United States v. Vasquez–Landaver, 527 F.3d 798, 802 (9th Cir. 2008) (citations and 

internal quotation marks omitted).

Defendant should be precluded from offering any evidence of duress because 

defendant will not be able put forth facts that amount to a prima facie showing of duress.

The facts known to the government in this case appear to directly contradict the defendant’s 

new claim of duress. When the defendant presented herself at the port of entry, she was 

asked if she had anything to declare and gave a negative declaration. She had the 

opportunity to escape the threatened harm at the point and chose not to do so. When 

arrested for the present offense, the defendant claimed that she “needed the money”. At no 

time did she tell agents that she was being forced or threatened to commit this offense. In 

addition, the defendant is a U.S. citizen who lives in the United States. Her notice of a 

defense expert on corruption in Mexican policing and the control the Mexican cartels have 

would not have prevented her from coming forward to U.S. authorities where she lives and 

where she is a citizen of. This is especially true when considering the defendant’s first 

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attempt to cross illegal drugs into the U.S. occurred approximately 11 months prior to the 

current offense. 

Absent defendant coming forth with some factual basis for her claim of duress, 

sufficient to make a prima facie showing, all questioning, evidence, testimony and 

argument which may be offered by the defendant on this issue at any trial in this case

should be precluded.

III. Conclusion 

For these reasons, the United States respectfully requests that the Court preclude 

under Rules 401 and 403 of the Federal Rules of Evidence all questioning, evidence, 

testimony and argument related to a duress defense which may be offered by the defendant 

at the trial in this case.

Respectfully submitted this 6h day of October, 2016.

JOHN S. LEONARDO

United States Attorney

District of Arizona

s/Christina M. Vejar

CHRISTINA M. VEJAR

Assistant U.S. Attorney

Copy of the foregoing served electronically or by other means this 6th day of October, 2016, to:

Elias Damianakos, Esq.

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