Opinion ID: 200397
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Sufficiency Arguments

Text: 13 Caraballo and Lebrón together assert that the evidence was insufficient to support the jury's determination that they had the mens rea required by 18 U.S.C. § 2119. 2 Relying upon a portion of the penultimate sentence of Holloway v. United States, 526 U.S. 1, 12, 119 S.Ct. 966, 143 L.Ed.2d 1 (1999) (The intent requirement of § 2119 is satisfied when the Government proves that at the moment the defendant demanded or took control over the driver's automobile the defendant possessed the intent to seriously harm or kill the driver....) (emphasis supplied), they say that the evidence was inadequate to ground a finding that they were prepared to seriously harm or kill Fontánez prior to learning that he was a police officer — which happened only after they had taken control of his automobile. The government's response is built from the remainder of the sentence appellants quote, which says that a conditional intent to seriously harm or kill the driver if necessary to steal the car is sufficient to satisfy the statute. Id. In the government's view, the evidence was adequate to support a determination that appellants were prepared to seriously harm or kill Fontánez in the beach parking lot had he resisted their initial demand for his car. 14 The evidence that Caraballo placed a loaded and cocked revolver against Fontánez's head at the inception of the carjacking and verbally threatened him permitted the jury to infer that Caraballo would have shot Fontánez had Fontánez failed to comply with Caraballo's demand that he turn over the car. See Evans-Garcia, slip op. at 8; cf., e.g., United States v. Adams, 265 F.3d 420, 424 (6th Cir.2001) (evidence sufficient to support intent finding where the defendant threatened and then physically touched the victims with his gun); United States v. Lake, 150 F.3d 269, 272 (3d Cir.1998) (evidence sufficient to support intent finding where defendant placed a gun near the head of the victim and asked for her keys). Moreover, the evidence that Lebrón willfully and knowingly participated in the initiation of the carjacking while fully cognizant of how Caraballo intended to (and did in fact) use the revolver permitted the jury to draw the same inference as to him. See Evans-Garcia, slip op. at 8. Because the evidence was sufficient to permit the jury to draw these inferences, it was adequate to ground its determination that appellants took the vehicle with the required mens rea, See id.; see also Holloway, 526 U.S. at 12, 119 S.Ct. 966. 3 15 In his brief, Lebrón makes an additional sufficiency argument. Lebrón starts by asserting that the evidence pertaining to his role in the offense derived solely from out-of-court, post-offense confessions he made to a number of third parties, which the third parties recounted to the jury (and which were admissible against Lebrón as admissions under Fed.R.Evid. 801(d)(2)). Building from this base, Lebrón contends that the accounts of his various confessions that the jury heard so conflicted with one another that we should treat them as inadequate to sustain his conviction. In pressing this claim, Lebrón invokes [t]he general rule that a jury cannot rely on an extrajudicial, post-offense confession, even when voluntary, in the absence of `substantial independent evidence which would tend to establish the trustworthiness of the statement.' United States v. Singleterry, 29 F.3d 733, 737 (1st Cir.1994) (brackets omitted) (quoting Opper v. United States, 348 U.S. 84, 93, 75 S.Ct. 158, 99 L.Ed. 101 (1954)). The argument fails for several reasons. 16 First, if Lebrón understands the trustworthiness requirement to apply where the issue is the credibility of witnesses' testimony about an accused's confession — and not the credibility of the confession itself — he is mistaken. The trustworthiness requirement is imposed out of concern that people sometimes fabricate stories about their involvement in a crime, and accordingly requires the government to introduce evidence other than the confession which tends to prove that the confession was not such a fabrication. See id. at 736-37 & n. 3. But to the extent that the in-court testimony about an extra-judicial confession may be unreliable, that is a matter for cross examination. Second, this circuit has not decided whether the trustworthiness requirement constitutes grounds for launching a sufficiency challenge (as Lebrón has done) or acts merely as a rule governing the admissibility of evidence. See id. at 737-39 & nn. 4-6. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, Lebrón is wrong in stating that there was no evidence against him except that derived from what he told third parties about his role in the crime. Among other things, Torres's testimony about the tragic events that transpired in Fontánez's Hyundai constituted independent proof of the commission of the charged offense and was more than sufficient to establish the trustworthiness of Lebrón's confessions within the meaning of the rule he cites. See id. at 737 & n. 2.