Opinion ID: 370140
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Agent Rivera's Testimony

Text: 38 Agent Rivera was the DEA agent who made the decision to arrest the defendants on January 31, 1978 at the airport. After he described the arrests on direct examination, he was cross-examined sharply. Defense counsels' goal seemed to be to establish that, as defendants' activities at the airport were, to all appearances, innocent, their arrests were groundless. Counsel belabored that the agents had no warrant and that one easily could have been secured. Coming, as it did, after the suppression proceeding at which the validity of the arrests was thoroughly explored and the court, with good reason, had ruled in favor of the government, this cross-examination was entirely misdirected, and indeed is cited by Ariza's appeal counsel as evidencing the incompetency of Ariza's trial attorney. 39 It is perhaps not surprising that as soon as this ill-conceived exercise ended, the prosecution leapt to its feet to establish that Rivera, indeed, had had good reason to order the arrests. The following transpired: 40 Q. You said to questions of (defense counsel) that you decided to put them under arrest because you knew of the crime that they had committed. What was that crime, in your opinion, that made the 41 (Defense counsel): We object to the question because that is for the jury to decide. 42 The Court: The objection is overruled. What was the crime that they had committed, if you know? 43 (Rivera): They had conspired 44 (Rivera): They has conspired and agreed among them and with other people to deliver a load of 25 kilograms of cocaine and 50,000 pounds of marijuana ( 12 to the United States of America . . . .Appellants now contend that the court committed reversible error in permitting Rivera to testify as he did. 45 We disagree, although we think that the court should Sua sponte have instructed the jury that Rivera's views concerning defendants' guilt were to be considered solely for the purpose of determining whether he had a reasonable basis to make the arrests, and not as evidence of their guilt in this trial. The government did not have to sit supinely by while defense counsel tried to make the jury believe that the arrests were examples of police brutality or error. As it was the defense who unwisely chose to raise the question of probable cause for the arrests, the prosecution could respond to the extent necessary to demonstrate that Rivera had, in fact, a proper basis for the arrests. To this end, Rivera was entitled to testify to the nature of the crime or crimes he believed defendants had committed when making the arrests as well as to the sources of his information. 46 Testimony of this sort, of course, would not have been admissible, had the defense not first rashly insisted upon raising the issue of probable cause in the presence of the jury. Rivera's opinion as to whether or not defendants were guilty was in no event admissible to prove their guilt, 13 and the narrow question of probable cause to arrest, on which Rivera's earlier views concerning their guilt and the information available to him were relevant, was a legal issue that normally should have been left to the suppression hearing held outside the jury's presence. But once the defense injected the probable cause issue directly into the trial itself, the prosecution was entitled to respond by giving its witness an opportunity to demonstrate that he had probable cause to arrest. The court should then have taken pains to tell the jury that the witness' testimony concerning his information and belief as to defendants' guilt was admitted solely because relevant to whether or not Agent Rivera had reasonable cause to make the arrests. The jury should have been forbidden to consider Rivera's testimony concerning his beliefs and information about defendants' guilt as actual evidence of guilt. 47 If the court's failure in this situation to give a limiting instruction Sua sponte were the sole error in a case, we would be unlikely to find plain error and reverse, although this of course would depend on all the facts and circumstances. The defense, having played with fire, is in a poor position to scream when burned. Since a new trial is required in any event, we do not pursue the matter further.