Opinion ID: 758015
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The New Story

Text: 10 As explained above, a curious and surprising development occurred on remand when Levy abandoned his claims of having been in Florida until March 28 or 29, 1987, and presented an entirely new alibi for the weekend of March 27-29, 1987. He now claims to have spent that time in Puerto Rico with three close friends, washing their cars and installing new tires. This evidence was never proffered at trial, and was thus outside of the scope of the remand which was ordered to determine the reliability of the proffered and excluded alibi evidence. 11 Nonetheless, in an ambiguous half-page ruling issued after the hearing on remand, the district court took no explicit notice of the fact that Levy's alibi had been changed. In fact, no specific factual findings were issued whatsoever. The ruling merely found that the evidence presented in support of an alibi defense during the course of this hearing was reliable. According to Levy, this ruling should be construed as a finding of fact that all of his alibi evidence, including his new Puerto Rico alibi, is reliable evidence. In light of the fact that most of the testimony adduced at the hearing pertained to this new alibi, we agree that Levy's proposed construction of the ruling is sensible. We must, therefore, determine what effect, if any, this finding has. 12 Despite the fact that Levy's whereabouts for the March 27-29 weekend had been very much at issue for years, the evidence that Levy was in Puerto Rico with friends working on cars had never been proffered. Nonetheless, it was this evidence which was placed into the record on remand. Although we could not have foreseen that Levy would be allowed to proceed as he did on remand, see United States v. Bell, 988 F.2d 247, 250 (1st Cir.1993) (an appellate disposition of an appeal must be read by the district court against the backdrop of prior proceedings in the case); United States v. Cornelius, 968 F.2d 703, 706 (8th Cir.1992) (a limited remand does not automatically rejuvenate other issues in a case), we recognize that in some situations, the trial court may possess limited discretion to examine or re-examine issues or evidence outside of the four corners of the remand. See Bell, 988 F.2d at 250-51 (even where, as here, an appellate court's mandate does not contemplate resurrecting an issue on remand, the trial court may still possess some limited discretion to reopen the issue in very special situations.). Thus, rather than ignoring this new alibi evidence and any findings thereupon as being outside the scope of the remand, we will assume that the trial court exercised its limited discretion to hear this portion of his current alibi as newly discovered evidence. See id. at 251 (exercise of limited discretion to reopen issues on remand may be appropriate to hear significant new evidence not earlier obtainable in the exercise of due diligence); see generally, 3 Charles Alan Wright, Federal Practice and Procedure; Criminal 2d, § 557 (2d ed.1982) (potentially exculpatory evidence not proffered at trial can be considered as newly discovered evidence under Fed.R.Crim.P. 33). 13 A district court may only hear newly discovered evidence after the close of a criminal trial in order to determine whether the evidence is sufficient to warrant a new trial. See Fed. R. Crim P. 33. The standard for granting a new trial based upon newly discovered evidence is that the evidence must be newly discovered, that it must be material to the issues, that it must be such as to have some effect on the outcome ... and that the failure to obtain the evidence not be due to a lack of diligence on the part of the defendant. Vega Pelegrina v. United States, 601 F.2d 18, 20-21 (1st Cir.1979). 14 Unfortunately for Levy, the new alibi evidence does not even approach this standard. Almost nine years after Levy was alleged to have off-loaded 5,000 pounds of marijuana, he presented evidence, in the form of the testimony of a few of his close friends, that he was working on cars all during the weekend in question. Despite the fact that the friends' memories were remarkably clear about many of the details of the weekend, this story never surfaced during the entire three-year period between his indictment, in March 1992, and the oral argument before this court in Levy I. Levy did not argue, and could never hope to argue persuasively, that this alibi could not have been obtained through the exercise of due diligence on his part, because the new evidence involved his own whereabouts during the weekend in question. A convicted criminal cannot successfully lay claim to a new trial when, years after his conviction, his friends suddenly provide a new alibi unsupported by anything other than their collective word. Thus, as a matter of law, Levy's new alibi evidence is insufficient to warrant a new trial and must be disregarded. The district court's finding that this new evidence is credible is insufficient, under these circumstances, to satisfy the rigorous requirements justifying a new trial.