Opinion ID: 540010
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Excluded Exculpatory Evidence.

Text: 211 Pedro Cruz claims that the district court committed reversible error by excluding evidence tending to exculpate Cruz with respect to counts seven (possession of heroin with intent to distribute it) and fifteen (use of a firearm during and in relation to a drug trafficking crime). At trial, Cruz attempted to enter the following evidence: (1) the minutes of a guilty plea by Manuel Vazquez, a codefendant, see supra note 2, who was arrested during the raid at 2700 Grand Concourse; (2) a magistrate's complaint filed against Cruz prior to his indictment; and (3) the testimony of his estranged common law wife, Nancy Curbelo, that Cruz expressed to her, the evening before his arrest, his intention to borrow a car the next day and join her at noon for a planned trip to the beach. The district court denied admission of all this evidence. 212
213 In his plea allocution, Manuel Vazquez admitted that the heroin flung from the window of the apartment at 2700 Grand Concourse during his arrest had been packaged by members of the Torres Organization, and that the semi-automatic weapon in the apartment was there to protect the heroin. Cruz, who was arrested in the same apartment, proffered these plea minutes on the theory that Manuel Vasquez there accepted responsibility for the heroin and the weapon, thereby rebutting the government's contention that Cruz was in constructive possession of these items. Cruz contends that the plea minutes constitute either an admission, see Fed.R.Evid. 801(d)(2), or a declaration against penal interest, see id. 804(b)(3), or were admissible under the general exception to the hearsay rule stated in id. 803(24). 214 Our review of the plea minutes reveals nothing that would tend to exculpate Cruz. At one point, Vazquez affirmed that he possessed together with others with intent to distribute (emphasis added) the heroin pitched from the apartment window as the NYDETF agents entered the apartment. At no juncture did Vazquez claim exclusive possession of the heroin or weapon. Cruz was charged on a theory of constructive possession, for which [i]t is not necessary that the exercise of dominion and control by others be disproved; it is only necessary that the evidence support the jury's finding that [Cruz] exercised dominion and control over the weapon [and heroin]. United States v. Rivera, 844 F.2d 916, 926 (2d Cir.1988). In sum, the plea minutes were properly excluded as irrelevant to Cruz' defense. 215
216 Cruz claims that he was entitled to offer the complaint which was filed against him on June 24, 1987 immediately following his arrest in order to reveal inconsistencies between the information contained in the complaint and the testimony of the arresting officers who entered the apartment and made the arrests. The officer who filed the complaint was not one of the officers who first entered the apartment. In filling out the report, he was only recounting the descriptions given to him by the other officers on the scene. The district court therefore properly excluded this document as hearsay pursuant to Fed.R.Evid. 802. We note also that the NYDETF agents who participated in the raid, as well as the agent who swore to the complaint, testified at trial and were available for cross-examination by Cruz' counsel. 217
218 Cruz maintains that he was present in the apartment at 2700 Grand Concourse on the day of the arrest in order to borrow a car so he could take his common law wife to the beach, and that he had no involvement with the drug activity taking place there. At the time of the raid, Cruz was arrested clad, according to a government witness, in a cabana outfit, a top and a rather loud pair of bathing trunks. 219 Cruz' estranged common law wife, Nancy Curbelo, testified as a defense witness in support of this position. She was allowed to testify that Cruz visited her the evening of June 23, 1987, the night before his arrest, that they made arrangements to go to the beach the following day with their son, and that they were supposed to leave for the beach about noon. The court sustained the government's objection, however, to proffered testimony that Cruz told her that he was taking her to the beach the following day and that he had to stop by and pick up a car to drive them to the beach the following day, that he would be by at approximately 12 o'clock the following day. 220 Cruz contended that this testimony was permissible under the exception to the hearsay rule first articulated in Mutual Life Ins. Co. v. Hillmon, 145 U.S. 285, 12 S.Ct. 909, 36 L.Ed. 706 (1892), and now set forth in Fed.R.Evid. 803(3), which provides for the admission of [a] statement of the declarant's then existing state of mind. Cruz cited Hillmon to the court as authority for his position, as well as United States v. DiMaria, 727 F.2d 265, 270-72 (2d Cir.1984). The district court nonetheless excluded the evidence stating: 221 Well, it seems to me the level of untrustworthiness of this statement is so great that the court can't permit it as an exception to the hearsay rule under these circumstances. I will preclude it. 222 The record can stand the way it is, I'm not going to strike out what's in there, but I'm not going to permit this witness to testify in effect to a purported alibi as to the issue of intent of this witness that is somehow inferred from what this witness may have heard the night before, and my concerns are two-fold. 223 First of all, it is hearsay, and, secondly, the circumstances under which it was made are unreliable in the sense that there was no reason that this witness would necessarily have been told all the details under which Mr. Cruz was going to operate in terms of going to the beach. 224 To me its probative force is minimal and it seems rank hearsay, and I will exclude it. 225 We disagree with this ruling. Following Hillmon and Fed.R.Evid. 808(3), we have ruled that [a] declarant's out-of-court statement of intent may be introduced to prove that the declarant acted in accordance with that intent. United States v. Delvecchio, 816 F.2d 859, 863 (2d Cir.1987); see also United States v. Badalamenti, 794 F.2d 821, 825-26 (2d Cir.1986); United States v. Cicale, 691 F.2d 95, 103 (2d Cir.1982), cert. denied, 460 U.S. 1082, 103 S.Ct. 1771, 76 L.Ed.2d 344 (1983). 226 In one case, we said that a trial court would have discretion to refuse [Hillmon ] evidence where its usefulness to show the victim's state of mind was outweighed by its likely prejudicial effect on the jury.... United States v. Kennedy, 291 F.2d 457, 459 (2d Cir.1961) (Friendly, J.); see also J. Weinstein & M. Berger, 4 Weinstein's Evidence p 803(3), at 803-121 (1988). Kennedy, however, preceded the adoption of the Federal Rules of Evidence. More recently, construing Fed.R.Evid. 808(3), Judge Friendly said: 227 It is doubtless true that all the hearsay exceptions in Rules 803 and 804 rest on a belief that declarations of the sort there described have some particular assurance of credibility. See Introductory Note, supra. But the scheme of the Rules is to determine that issue by categories; if a declaration comes within a category defined as an exception, the declaration is admissible without any preliminary finding of probable credibility by the judge, save for the catch-all exceptions of Rules 803(24) and 804(b)(5) and the business records exception of Rule 803(6) ..., even though this excludes certain hearsay statements with a high degree of trustworthiness and admits certain statements with a low one. This evil was doubtless thought preferable to requiring preliminary determinations of the judge with respect to trustworthiness, with attendant possibilities of delay, prejudgment and encroachment on the province of the jury. 228 DiMaria, 727 F.2d at 272; see also United States v. Lawal, 736 F.2d 5, 8 (2d Cir.1984) (DiMaria held that relevant declarations which fall within the parameters of Rule 803(3) are categorically admissible, even if they are self-serving and made under circumstances which undermine their trustworthiness.); United States v. Harris, 733 F.2d 994, 1005 (2d Cir.1984) (same) (quoting DiMaria ). 229 In view of this authority, the district court's exclusion of the proffered testimony on the basis of its likely untrustworthiness and unreliability cannot be affirmed. We nonetheless have no hesitation in deeming this error harmless within the meaning of Fed.R.Crim.P. 52(a). [A]ppraisal of a particular error's impact necessarily depends on the nature of the violation in the context of a given factual setting. Hawkins v. LeFevre, 758 F.2d 866, 878 (2d Cir.1985). The evidence of Cruz' guilt was strong, Curbelo was allowed to testify concerning the planned outing to the beach, and the excluded testimony was inherently implausible. In light of the substantial evidence of Cruz' participation in the activities of the Torres Organization, reviewed in section A4 of this Discussion, and his aborted effort to turn a semi-automatic weapon on the NYDETF agents when they entered the apartment at 2700 Grand Concourse, we doubt that the jury would have been impressed with the notion that Cruz' presence at this operational location of the Organization resulted solely from his need to borrow a car to go to the beach. In sum, we conclude that the trier of fact would have found the defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt with the additional evidence inserted. United States v. Lay, 644 F.2d 1087, 1091 (5th Cir. Unit A May 1981), cert. denied, 454 U.S. 869, 102 S.Ct. 336, 70 L.Ed.2d 172 (1981). 230