Opinion ID: 6111678
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Admission of Video and Audio Evidence

Text: We first turn to Pena and Ortiz's respective grievances concerning the video and audio evidence of their controlled drug sale to R.E. Pena, fixating on statements attributable to Ortiz, Black, and the unidentified man in the January 5 and 6 videos, contends that the district court erroneously admitted these individuals' purported hearsay statements into evidence under Federal Rule of Evidence 801(d)(2)(E) (coconspirator exception to hearsay). Ortiz, focusing on the prejudicial effect of these statements, by comparison, argues that the district court abused its discretion under Federal Rules of Evidence 403 (unfair prejudice) and 404(b) (bad acts evidence) by allowing the prosecution to play the January 6 audio in its entirety. We disagree on all fronts, finding no reversible error in any of the defendants' hearsay or unfair prejudice arguments.
Pena asserts that the district court erred by admitting into evidence purported hearsay statements from three individuals -- Black, the unidentified man in the hotel suite, and his codefendant, Ortiz, each of whom were arguably members of a - 16 - conspiracy with Pena to sell cocaine base11 -- under Rule 801(d)(2)(E). Because Pena did not object to the admission of these purported hearsay statements at the close of evidence when the district court made its final Rule 801(d)(2)(E) determination under United States v. Petrozziello, we review for plain error. United States v. Leoner-Aguirre, 939 F.3d 310, 320 (1st Cir. 2019); see also Fed. R. Crim. P. 52(b) (plain error rule). Under that grueling standard, we can reverse only if the appellant demonstrates '(1) that an error occurred (2) which was clear or obvious and which not only (3) affected the defendant's substantial rights, but also (4) seriously impaired the fairness, integrity, or public reputation of judicial proceedings.' United States v. Perez-Ruiz, 353 F.3d 1, 9 (1st Cir. 2003) (quoting United States v. Duarte, 246 F.3d 56, 60 (1st Cir. 2001)). Under Rule 801(d)(2)(E), an out-of-court statement made by a party's coconspirator during and in furtherance of the conspiracy does not constitute inadmissible hearsay, even when admitted for its truth. E.g., United States v. Bradshaw, 281 F.3d 278, 283 (1st Cir. 2002). To avoid the hearsay barrier, the statement's proponent must establish by a preponderance of the 11At trial, the prosecution opted to argue that the third unidentified man was not a member of the conspiracy charged in the superseding indictment, despite its pretrial position that the man's statements were admissible as coconspirator statements under Rule 801(d)(2)(E). - 17 - evidence that a conspiracy embracing both the declarant and the defendant existed, and that the declarant uttered the statement during and in furtherance of the conspiracy. Id. (quoting United States v. Sepulveda, 15 F.3d 1161, 1180 (1st Cir. 1993)). The first half of this two-part requirement demands the introduction of extrinsic evidence. United States v. Piper, 298 F.3d 47, 52 (1st Cir. 2002). While the trial court may consider the contents of an alleged coconspirator's statements as evidence of a conspiracy, to ensure admissibility, the statement's proponent must also present some other evidence sufficient to delineate the conspiracy and corroborate the declarant's and the defendant's roles in it. Id.; see also United States v. Portela, 167 F.3d 687, 703 (1st Cir. 1999). Of course, the proponent need not meet these conditions if a statement is not offered for its truth. See Fed. R. Evid. 801(c)(2). Here, none of the statements Pena identifies were admitted in plain error.
As an initial matter, we need not consider whether the prosecution met its burden under Rule 801(d)(2)(E) as to the unidentified third man in the hotel suite because his statement, as recounted by Ortiz, that he was pushing drugs, was relevant and admissible for a non-hearsay purpose: to explain why Pena completed the January 6 drug transaction in the bathroom without the unidentified man or Ortiz. For an out-of-court statement to - 18 - constitute hearsay, and thus be deemed inadmissible under Rule 802, the statement must be offered to prove the truth of the matter it asserts. United States v. Soto, 799 F.3d 68, 89 (1st Cir. 2015); see also Fed. R. Evid. 801(c) (defining hearsay). Outof-court statements offered not to prove the truth of the matter asserted but merely to show context -- such as a statement offered for the limited purpose of showing what effect the statement had on the listener -- are, by definition, not hearsay and thus not excludable under Rule 802. United States v. Cruz-Díaz, 550 F.3d 169, 176 (1st Cir. 2008) (citing United States v. Castro-Lara, 970 F.2d 976, 981 (1st Cir. 1992)). Though Pena posits that the jury may have considered the unidentified man's statement beyond the limited purpose for which it was offered, he fails to explain how such consideration constitutes plain error when neither he nor Ortiz requested a limiting instruction under Federal Rule of Evidence 105 or otherwise raised the potential hearsay issue at any time prior to the guilty verdict. Cf. United States v. Lebrón Cepeda, 324 F.3d 52, 60 (1st Cir. 2003) (noting that it would be most unusual for us to find that a district court erred in failing to give a limiting instruction that was never requested regarding an extra-judicial statement by the appellant's codefendant implicating both defendants). In the absence of cited authority, we are also unpersuaded by Pena's claim that the prosecution was required to - 19 - present a witness to explain the effect the unidentified man's statement had on Pena or Ortiz before it could be deemed nonhearsay. Because the prosecution introduced the unidentified third man's statement not for its truth -- that is, to prove that the man was in fact pushing . . . a whole bunch of dope or crack -- but rather to explain that Pena wanted to avoid the involvement of a potentially competing drug dealer, the statement did not constitute hearsay as defined by Rule 801(c). The prosecution accordingly was not required to show that the out-ofcourt statement was admissible under Rule 801(d)(2)(E). See United States v. Bailey, 270 F.3d 83, 87 (1st Cir. 2001). We thus find no plain error.
Turning to Ortiz's statements, we reject Pena's contention that the prosecution failed to present evidence extrinsically corroborating that he and Ortiz were members of a drug selling conspiracy. Stated plainly, Pena's own recorded interactions with Ortiz -- admissible as opposing party statements under Federal Rule of Evidence 801(d)(2)(A), see United States v. Ruiz, 999 F.3d 742, 748-49 (1st Cir. 2021) -- provided sufficient extrinsic evidence to corroborate that Ortiz uttered his challenged statements in furtherance of a conspiracy with Pena to sell cocaine base. According to Pena's own statements, he and - 20 - Ortiz met with R.E. on January 5 to transact a sale of two baskets of crack cocaine, which he presumably had on his person, in lieu of an originally arranged sixty-two. These statements corroborate the drug conspiracy actions of Ortiz, who drove Pena to the Malden parking garage meeting, communicated directly with Pena and R.E. -- a man the defense maintains Ortiz never previously met -- about Black (the purported source of supply per Pena's statements) being about his business, and declared that he would call Black to set up a second time and place to meet. Ortiz was also present in the hotel room on January 6 and saw Pena and R.E. go to the bathroom together to consummate the drug transaction negotiated the previous day. Though this extrinsic evidence is certainly not overwhelming, it is easily sufficient to withstand plain error review.
The admission of Black's purported double-hearsay statements12 presents a more difficult evidentiary question, but ultimately does little to undermine the defendants' convictions. In an argument presented for the first time on appeal, Pena contends that the prosecution presented no extrinsic evidence These statements include: [Black] thought it was two 12 baskets; [Black] was like, 'Yo, try to see if he even want that seven'; [Black] [s]aid he could come back after traffic; and [Black] wants to do like six, seven [p.m.]. - 21 - whatsoever about Black at trial, preventing admission of Black's out-of-court statements under Rule 801(d)(2)(E). The United States disagrees, arguing that under this Court's decision in United States v. Merritt, 945 F.3d 578, 586 (1st Cir. 2019), cert. denied, 140 S. Ct. 2783 (2020), Pena and Ortiz's own conduct extrinsically corroborated the existence of a drug selling conspiracy that included the defendants and Black as coconspirators. We review the admission of statements attributable to Black for plain error. While this case's facts present a closer question than those in Merritt, we need not decide whether Pena and Ortiz's conduct provided sufficient corroborating evidence of a conspiracy for purposes of Rule 801(d)(2)(E). This is because Pena has failed to show that, under the plain error standard, any of Black's statements, as recounted by the defendants on the video, clearly constituted hearsay that was admitted in plain error. See F. R. Evid. 802 (rule against hearsay). Simply put, only one of Black's statements -- specifically, that he thought the negotiated deal was two baskets -- was arguably offered to prove the truth of the matter asserted.13 13The record does not indicate how Pena knew what Black thought – for example, whether Black told him his thoughts or whether Pena inferred Black's thoughts from his actions – adding a further complication to Pena's appellate hearsay argument. - 22 - We address that statement infra. Other statements concerning Black, however, were evidentiarily benign. Pena's statement to Ortiz -- What time can Black be here for sure? -- for example, was not an assertion at all, but a question. Likewise, Ortiz's responses that Black [wa]s about his business and want[ed] to do like six, seven [p.m.] were not offered to show that Black was in fact about his business (whatever that may be) or in fact met with the defendants at that later time; instead, these statements -- true or not -- explained why Pena and Ortiz needed to postpone the drug transaction until the next day -- to provide the previously agreed-upon sixty two. See Cruz-Díaz, 550 F.3d at 176 (explaining that an out-of-court statement made by a codefendant to authorities was not offered for its truth when it was offered to explain why the FBI and police did not pursue other investigatory options after apprehending the defendants). The same can be said about Black thinking the deal was for two baskets. Because the statement shows the reason Pena gave -- true or false -- for having only seven grams of cocaine base on his person for the cancelled January 5 parking garage transaction, rather than the agreed-upon sixty-two, it was not clearly inadmissible. Notably, neither Pena nor Ortiz specifically objected to the admission of Black's statements under Rule 801 or any other evidentiary principle at any point at trial, depriving this Court - 23 - of a clear record for appellate review. Nor did they request an instruction under Rule 105 limiting the jury's consideration of these statements solely to contextual matters like those described above, rather than the additional question of whether Black, a possible member of the defendants' drug distribution conspiracy, indeed thought the drug deal between the defendants and R.E. was for two baskets (seven grams) of cocaine base. But even if we assumed that Pena is correct that the district court clearly erred by failing to exclude Black's outof-court statement about drug quantities (even though Pena failed to recognize and raise the issue himself at trial), Pena has not shown how this purported error would entitle him to a new trial under the demanding third and fourth prongs of plain error review. This is because, given the evidence admitted at trial, excluding statements about intended drug quantity, Pena has failed to show a reasonable probability that the verdict would have been different for the crime charged: conspiring with each other or with other persons known and unknown . . . to distribute a controlled substance (emphasis added).14 As Pena implicitly concedes, the 14As noted in Part I.A, supra, the indictment charged the defendants with conspiring with each other, and with persons known and unknown (emphasis added). Though it may seem counterintuitive, the law is well established that where an indictment charges in the conjunctive several means of violating a statute, a conviction may be obtained on proof of only one of the means, and accordingly the jury instruction may properly be framed in the disjunctive. United States v. García-Torres, 341 - 24 - bulk of the evidence against him and Ortiz arose from their own recorded words and actions, which were entirely proper for the jury to consider as evidence of a drug-distribution conspiracy. This video evidence showed both defendants actively working together at the same times and places to sell nearly fifty grams of cocaine base in furtherance of a drug-distribution conspiracy. Without Black's statements, the jury could still have easily inferred the existence of a conspiracy to distribute from the quantity of cocaine base recovered from the controlled drug purchase -- a quantity far larger than is customary for personal use -- and the large cash exchange observed between Pena and R.E. See United States v. Rivera-Ruiz, 244 F.3d 263, 269 (1st Cir. 2001); United States v. de Jesus-Rios, 990 F.2d 672, 680 (1st Cir. 1993). When a jury returns a general verdict of guilty on a single count charging more than one criminal act, just like the general verdict in this case, our precedent makes clear that the verdict will stand[] if the evidence sufficiently supports any of the acts charged. United States v. Nieves-Burgos, 62 F.3d 431, 434 (1st Cir. 1995); see also United States v. Sweeney, 887 F.3d F.3d 61, 66 (1st Cir. 2003) (quoting United States v. Simpson, 228 F.3d 1294, 1300 (11th Cir. 2000)). Said more plainly, when an indictment uses the conjunctive and in a charge, it operates as a disjunctive or. Id. - 25 - 529, 541 (1st Cir. 2018) (same). Given the evidence described above, the district court's detailed conspiracy instructions to the jury, and the general guilty verdict forms returned against both defendants, we are not persuaded that the defendants' convictions, if allowed to stand, would impair the fairness, integrity, or public reputation of the defendants' criminal proceedings.15 See Sweeney, 887 F.3d at 541; United States v. Kelley, 471 F. App'x 840, 845 (11th Cir. 2012) (affirming conviction where the prosecution presented two bases for a conspiracy charge, each covering different objects and coconspirators, and the evidence was sufficient to support at least one base). Accordingly, we find no reversible error as to the hearsay-related sufficiency arguments raised by Pena and proceed to Ortiz's perceived evidentiary issues.
In addition to Pena's hearsay-based sufficiency arguments, Ortiz separately contends that the district court erroneously admitted into evidence the full audio from the 15Indeed, because the jury found both Pena and Ortiz guilty, we think it is highly unlikely that the jury convicted the two of them for participating in separate conspiracies with Black, as necessarily required to support their reversible error argument, rather than a singular conspiracy that included at least Pena and Ortiz. We nevertheless address the validity of a conviction based on a conspiracy that included Black below, finding no error. See Part II.C.2, infra. - 26 - January 6 video recording, in which the defendants, R.E., and the unidentified man used racial and misogynistic epithets while discussing crimes unrelated to this case. In Ortiz's view, this bad acts audio evidence was irrelevant to any material issue at trial and was not admissible for any purpose under Federal Rule of Evidence 404(b). Additionally, he asserts that the admission of the audio was highly prejudicial, in violation of Federal Rule of Evidence 403, particularly given the prosecution's closing argument, in which it used the objected-to audio to attack the plausibility of Ortiz's mere-presence defense (that is, he was merely present at the drug transaction). Ortiz's arguments here implicate two separate standards of review. Because he objected to the introduction of this evidence at trial only under Rule 403, and not as other acts evidence under Rule 404(b), we review the district court's Rule 403 ruling for abuse of discretion and his newfound argument under Rule 404(b) for plain error. United States v. Pena-Santo, 809 F.3d 686, 694 (1st Cir. 2015) (citing United States v. Casas, 356 F.3d 104, 113 (1st Cir. 2004). We fail to find such error on this issue. [W]here a defendant challenges a district court's admission of [other] bad acts evidence [under Rule 404(b)], the first question for a reviewing court is whether the objected-to evidence 'has special relevance' to the case, by which we mean - 27 - that the objected-to evidence 'is relevant for any purpose apart from showing propensity to commit a crime.' United States v. Habibi, 783 F.3d 1, 2 (1st Cir. 2015) (quoting United States v. Doe, 741 F.3d 217, 229 (1st Cir. 2013)); see also Fed. R. Evid. 404(b)(1) (generally prohibiting propensity evidence). In particular, the Federal Rules of Evidence specifically enumerate a number of purposes for which evidence of a crime, wrong, or other act may be used, including 'proving motive, opportunity, intent, preparation, plan, knowledge, identity, absence of mistake, or lack of accident.' Habibi, 783 F.3d at 2 (quoting Fed. R. Evid. 404(b)(2)); see also United States v. Landry, 631 F.3d 597, 602 (1st Cir. 2011) (explaining that Rule 404(b)'s list of permissible purposes is illustrative and not exhaustive). Here, we agree that the post-transaction audio had special relevance by serving at least two purposes permitted by Rule 404(b): rebutting Ortiz's mere-presence defense and demonstrating Ortiz's familiarity with drug transactions. In this objected-to audio, Ortiz admitted to drug dealing, having a runner, and renting cars under other people's names. He also revealed that the unidentified third man in the hotel room was a drug dealer, credibly explaining, in the prosecution's view, why Pena and R.E. completed the deal in the bathroom (to avoid the prying eyes and ears of a potential competitor). Because Ortiz did not personally participate in the bathroom deal, it was - 28 - arguably important that the prosecution rebut any possible inference that Ortiz was merely present or some unknowing participant in a drug deal between Pena and R.E., rather than a member of a drug selling conspiracy. Ortiz's own words, recorded in the objected-to January 6 audio, arguably did just that. Or, put in the language of Rule 404(b), Ortiz's statements, made immediately after and in the same hotel suite in which a substantial drug transaction was occurring, showed that he likely knew the subject that drew these individuals together in that room, and was not present at the drug transaction because of mere accident or mistake. Our inquiry does not stop, however, with a finding that the objected-to audio had the requisite special relevance under Rule 404(b). Habibi, 783 F.3d at 4. A reviewing court must also evaluate the evidence's admissibility under Rule 403, specifically, whether its probative value is substantially outweighed by a danger of . . . unfair prejudice, confusing the issues, misleading the jury, undue delay, wasting time, or needlessly presenting cumulative evidence. See Fed. R. Evid. 403. In doing so, we are mindful that district courts are afforded 'especially wide latitude' in balancing the relative probative and prejudicial values of evidence. Habibi, 783 F.3d at 4 (quoting United States v. Li, 206 F.3d 78, 84 (1st Cir. 2000)). As such, [o]nly rarely -- and in extraordinarily - 29 - compelling circumstances -- will [this Court of Appeals], from the vista of a cold appellate record, reverse a district court's [midtrial] judgment[s] concerning the relative weighing of probative value and unfair effect. Id. (first alteration in original) (quoting Li, 206 F.3d at 84-85); see also United States v. Burdulis, 753 F.3d 255, 263 (1st Cir. 2014) (explaining that reversal under Rule 403 is appropriate only if the reviewing court is left with a 'definite and firm conviction that the court made a clear error of judgment' (quoting United States v. Trenkler, 61 F.3d 45, 57 (1st Cir. 1995))). This is not such a case. Though the objected-to audio certainly had a potential for prejudice, it was also relevant to refuting Ortiz's mere presence defense -- an issue Ortiz's closing put before the jury -- as well as any potential argument that R.E. framed, or had the opportunity to set up, Pena or Ortiz. As such, we are not convinced, on this record and under this standard of review, that the district court erred in its weighing of probative value and unfair prejudice. See United States v. Currier, 836 F.2d 11, 18 (1st Cir. 1987) (That the recording disclosed appellant using expletives and sexually explicit language does not make it unfairly prejudicial.); Li, 206 F.3d at 85 ([T]o be excluded, the evidence must [] not only be prejudicial, but unfairly prejudicial, and must not only outweigh probative value, but substantially outweigh probative value. (emphases in - 30 - original) (citing United States v. Rivera, 83 F.3d 542, 545 (1st Cir. 1996))). We accordingly find no reversible error in the admission of the January 6 video's post-transaction audio.