Opinion ID: 799956
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Hearsay, Overview, and Bolstering Testimony

Text: In the first of several evidentiary challenges, Valdivia contests the admission of certain testimony from three of the government's primary witnesses: Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent Eliú Estrada, who interrogated the courier Giovani Castro after his October 2001 arrest; D.E.A. agent Vincent Carpio, who supervised the American investigation of Valdivia's activities; and Jan Meulenberg, the Aruban officer who spearheaded the De Sousa wiretap operation. We review the preserved challenge to Estrada's testimony for abuse of discretion, but because the appellant failed to raise contemporaneous objections to the statements of Carpio and Meulenberg, we review the court's decision to admit that testimony only for plain error. See United States v. Brown, 669 F.3d 10, 21-22 (1st Cir.2012). If any of the identified testimony was improperly admitted, we may still affirm [the] judgment of conviction where the government has met its burden of showing that any such error was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. United States v. Cabrera-Rivera, 583 F.3d 26, 36 (1st Cir.2009) (internal citation omitted).
On the first day of trial, Agent Estrada provided a comprehensive account of Castro's arrest, which included several of Castro's post-arrest statements. For example, as recounted by Estrada, Castro explained that he [had been] approached in Aruba by an individual called ... José, to see if he wanted to bring some narcotics into the United States, and provided authorities with a detailed description reproduced by Estrada on the standof the process by which he was fitted for and supplied with the drugs for delivery to Valdivia. The appellant now contends, as he did below, that this testimony constituted inadmissible hearsay, which the trial court erroneously admitted under the co-conspirator exception to the hearsay rules. See Fed.R.Evid. 801(d)(2)(E) (providing that a statement will be excluded from the rules of hearsay where it was made by the party's co-conspirator during and in furtherance of the conspiracy). The government concedes the point, acknowledging that the statements were not made in furtherance of the alleged conspiracy. Instead, the government makes a somewhat strained argument that the testimony was admissible for the non-hearsay purpose of providing context or background to show the basis for the government's actions. Put another way, the government would have us believe that it meant for the jury to take Castro's statements, as recalled by Estrada, only for the fact that he made them, and not for their truth. We need not reach the merits of the government's alternative argument, however, because we find that the admission of this material, if erroneous, was harmless error. Even if the challenged testimony was inadmissible hearsay, the source of the out-of-court statementsGiovani Castro later testified himself, and was subject to thorough cross-examination by defense counsel. He largely corroborated Estrada's account, repeating many of the same details, and the few discrepancies were adroitly incorporated by the defense to undermine the credibility of both witnesses. In short, the purported hearsay testimony is cumulative of other evidence in the record, and the error in admitting the statements under the co-conspirator exception was harmless. See United States v. Piper, 298 F.3d 47, 58 (1st Cir. 2002) (Cumulative evidence is typically regarded as harmless.).
In a quite different claim of error, Valdivia relies on several of our recent cases to assert that various statements from witnesses Carpio and Meulenberg amounted to improper overview testimony. See, e.g., United States v. Meises, 645 F.3d 5 (1st Cir.2011); United States v. Flores-De-Jesús, 569 F.3d 8 (1st Cir.2009); United States v. Casas, 356 F.3d 104 (1st Cir. 2004). Because the argument was not preserved below, we review it now through the lens of plain error. [10] See United States v. Andújar-Basco, 488 F.3d 549, 554 (1st Cir.2007). To prevail under this standard, the appellant must demonstrate that there was a clear or obvious error that seriously affected not only his substantial rights, but also the fairness, integrity, or public reputation of the judicial proceedings. Id. In its problematic form, overview testimony comprises declarations by a witnessmost commonly a law enforcement officer involved in the relevant investigationpresented in the early phases of a criminal trial to describe the government's general theory of the case. See United States v. Vázquez-Rivera, 665 F.3d 351, 356 (1st Cir.2011); Meises, 645 F.3d at 14 n. 13 (noting that such evidence often provides an anticipatory summary of the prosecution's case by previewing the testimony of other witnesses). Because the witness is, in essence, testifying about the results of a criminal investigation before the government has presented any evidenceoften including aspects of the investigation in which he did not actually participatewe have repeatedly admonished the use of such testimony. United States v. Rosado-Pérez, 605 F.3d 48, 55 (1st Cir.2010). Specifically, we have cautioned that the evidence promised by the overview witness [might] never materialize[], and that even if it does, the testimony still represents a problematic endorsement of the veracity of the testimony that will follow. Vázquez-Rivera, 665 F.3d at 356 (internal citation omitted). Although the questionable use of overview witnesses has become something of a troubling trend, see Flores-De-Jesús, 569 F.3d at 17, the declarations at issue here are largely distinguishable from those that we have previously considered problematic. On the second day of trial, Agent Carpio testified that De Sousa was bringing drugs into the island of Aruba for further distribution into different areas in the Caribbean, including the United States, Puerto Rico, and Europe, and was smuggling the proceeds ... back [to] Aruba. In a similar vein, halfway through trial, Officer Meulenberg testified that he was the leader of the group that... investigat[ed] a group of persons led by [De Sousa], and explained that [De Sousa] was ... buying drugs in Colombia and Venezuela and selling drugs, not only to the local market but to the American... and European market[s]. He also testified that the potential involvement of an airport security guard, a cruise-ship official, and a police officer in the suspected criminal activities was a major impetus for the investigation. Unlike prior cases where we have criticized the use of overview witnesses, the prosecution here laid a sufficient foundation that both Meulenberg and Carpio had personal knowledge of the alleged conspiracy. Officer Meulenberg testified that he led the Aruban investigation of drug activity involving De Sousa, assisted in preparing the report submitted to obtain the Aruban wiretap, participated in wiretap surveillance, and conducted the arrests and home searches of several of the conspiracy's participants, including De Sousa. Similarly, Carpio testified that he was the American liaison to the Aruban investigation, that he reviewed the wiretap recordings and pertinent telephone records, which were ultimately entered into evidence, and that he had conducted his own independent investigation of Valdivia's role in De Sousa's activities. Thus, far from being a scripted overview of the government's case by uninvolved agents, the testimony represented the fruits of first-hand police work. See Rosado-Pérez, 605 F.3d at 55-56 (concluding that the prosecution had laid a sufficient foundation of personal knowledge where the testifying agent was the lead investigator ... and ... participated in video and personal surveillance, wiretap surveillance, and controlled drug buys). To the extent that Carpio and Meulenberg described the cast of characters as an organization or groupa characterization, as we have noted, to which the appellant did not objectany misstep was heavily outweighed by the substantial evidence of the appellant's guilt, which included wiretap recordings, phone records, and co-conspirator testimony, among other things. See, e.g., Flores-De-Jesús, 569 F.3d at 27-31 (finding the use of overview testimony ameliorated in part by the substantial evidence of defendant's guilt). As such, we find that the admission of this testimony was not plainly erroneous.
On three occasions during the government's case, the prosecutor elicited testimony from agents Estrada and Carpio that they had corroborated or verified various aspects of their investigation, including the content of certain statements made by co-conspirators Giovani Castro and Jeffrey Grueninger. Although Valdivia failed to properly object to this testimony at trial, he now contends that it constituted a form of due process violation known as bolstering. The argument, for the reasons elucidated below, is unavailing. Generally, [b]olstering occurs when [a] prosecutor implies that [a] witness's testimony is corroborated by evidence known to the government but not known to the jury. United States v. Francis, 170 F.3d 546, 551 (6th Cir.1999); see also United States v. Balsam, 203 F.3d 72, 88 (1st Cir.2000) (noting that a prosecutor may not indicate that facts outside the jury's cognizance support the testimony of the government's witnesses). While prosecutors can commit improper bolstering during argument to the jury, the issue may also arise through the testimony they elicit from other government witnesses on direct examination. United States v. Rosario-Díaz, 202 F.3d 54, 65 (1st Cir.2000). Here, the appellant asserts that the contested statements improperly bolstered the prosecution's case by suggesting to the jurors that the government had undisclosed evidence which independently supported the existence of the charged conspiracy. Because the evidence underlying each of the three purported instances of bolstering was ultimately presented to the jury, however, the testimony did not run afoul of Valdivia's due process rights. We explain briefly. In the first instance, Agent Estrada testified that he was able to corroborate that the Jos identified by Castro as his point of contact in Puerto Rico was indeed José Valdivia. This corroboration, he explained, was enabled in part by information obtained from subpoenaed phone records, which were subsequently entered into evidence. In the second instance, Estrada later testified that during the course of the investigation, he was able to determine that two different men named Jos were pertinent to the conspiracy. The sources for this determination, which can be divined from the surrounding testimonyincluding phone records and information from at least one witnesswere later presented for the jury's consideration. In the third and final instance, Agent Carpio testified that [a]fter the arrest of [Jeffrey] Grueninger in Miami, we were able to debrief him and help him identify the voices on the [Aruban wiretap tapes], and that's how we obtained the identification of Mr. Valdivia later on, how we were certain who he was. The recordings to which Carpio alluded were all played for the jury. In order for a criminal defendant to establish a colorable claim of bolstering, the challenged statements must do more than simply bolster the government's case. Criminal prosecution is, after all, nothing more than the use of evidence to bolster the government's allegations of criminal conduct. The potential for impropriety emerges only when such bolstering is predicated upon unsubmitted evidence, thereby implying some indicia of reliability on the basis of materials that may or may not exist. See Francis, 170 F.3d at 551 (noting that bolstering occurs under the implication that testimony is corroborated by evidence known to the government but not known to the jury ) (emphasis added). Here, in every instance, the evidence supporting the corroborat[ions] and determin[ations] was eventually put before the jury. Thus, whatever objections Valdivia might have been able to raise against these lines of questioning, bolstering is not one of them. To the extent that the appellant alternatively characterizes this challenged testimony as improper witness vouching, the argument misses the mark. A prosecutor (or government witness) improperly vouches for a witness when she impart[s] her personal belief in a witness's veracity or impl[ies] that the jury should credit the prosecution's evidence simply because the government can be trusted. United States v. Pérez-Ruiz, 353 F.3d 1, 9 (1st Cir.2003). The conduct of the witnesses here does not fit the bill. They did not testify that Castro and Grueninger were truthful, honest, or reliable, or that their statements should be believed because of their affiliation with the government. Rather, they confirmed, through independent sources, the veracity of certain facts attested to by the cooperating witnesses, conduct that is conceptually distinct from witness vouching. [11]