Opinion ID: 812319
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: facts

Text: In 1998, Cruz-Sosa pleaded guilty to conspiring to distribute marijuana and cocaine, in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 846, and distributing cocaine, in violation of § 841(a)(1). He received a sentence of 135 months’ imprisonment, followed by 5 years of supervised release. As a condition of supervised release, Cruz-Sosa was prohibited from possessing any firearm. Cruz-Sosa began his term of supervised release in March 2008. On July 1, 2011, Cruz-Sosa’s federal probation officer, Nelson Valenzuela, was told by an informant that he feared Cruz-Sosa because the latter “often possesses a firearm which he carries in the small of his back.” Because Valenzuela knew that Cruz-Sosa was also on probation for a Florida conviction for third-degree theft, Valenzuela shared the tip with Christine Bullins, a state 1 We deny the government’s motion to supplement the record on appeal. 2 Case: 11-15436 Date Filed: 11/21/2012 Page: 3 of 17 probation officer. Around eleven o’clock that same evening, Bullins and other probation and local officers drove to the house of Cruz-Sosa’s girlfriend, Janet Rosillo-Dominguez (“Rosillo”), where Cruz-Sosa had been living for approximately five weeks. Bullins and another state probation officer, Freddy Vidal, entered Rosillo’s house and followed her to a bedroom that she shared with Cruz-Sosa. The officers found Cruz-Sosa lying on the bed. While Vidal went to search Cruz-Sosa’s truck, Bullins searched the bedroom closet and found a loaded .45 caliber Taurus pistol with a full magazine and extra bullets, all concealed in a fanny pack.
Probation officer Valenzuela petitioned the district court to revoke CruzSosa’s supervised release, and a magistrate judge held two detention hearings about whether to detain Cruz-Sosa pending his revocation hearing. At the initial detention hearing, Rosillo produced her permit to carry the firearm. Rosillo testified that officers discovered the firearm inside the trunk of her car and the officers said that they were going to use the firearm against CruzSosa. On cross-examination, Rosillo acknowledged that Cruz-Sosa was a felon and was not allowed to possess firearms. Rosillo admitted that she had shared the closet with Cruz-Sosa, but denied that the officers found the firearm in the closet. 3 Case: 11-15436 Date Filed: 11/21/2012 Page: 4 of 17 At the second detention hearing, state probation officer Bullins testified about receiving the tip from Valenzuela, entering the house to find Cruz-Sosa lying on a bed adjacent to a closet, and finding the firearm in the closet on the same day as the tip. The defense introduced the testimony of Rosillo’s son, Manuel Lopez, who was present in the house during the search. Lopez testified, inter alia, that Rosillo usually stored the firearm at her sister’s house; the firearm was in his car2 on the evening of the search; he heard the officers say that they found the gun in the car and would use it against Cruz-Sosa; and the officers failed to find any evidence in Rosillo’s bedroom, given that Lopez did not see them carry anything out of the house. At the conclusion of the evidence, the magistrate judge ordered Cruz-Sosa detained without bond.
Subsequently, the district court held a hearing to determine whether CruzSosa’s supervised release should be revoked. At the revocation hearing, federal probation officer Valenzuela testified about the informant’s tip and sharing the tip with state probation officer Bullins. Bullins and Vidal testified that, when they came to search the house, Rosillo answered the door and led them to the bedroom. 2 According to Lopez, the gun was found in his car, but Rosillo had bought the car for Lopez and used that car to pick-up the gun from her sister’s house. 4 Case: 11-15436 Date Filed: 11/21/2012 Page: 5 of 17 Bullins testified that she saw Cruz-Sosa lying in bed, escorted Cruz-Sosa to the living room, and discovered inside the bedroom closet a closed fanny pack containing the firearm and some ammunition. With regard to the closet, Bullins testified that “it was a very tight space and the door didn’t open up all the way and there was a lot of clothes in there. It was a very packed closet.” The defense called Rosillo as a witness, who testified that she owned the firearm and that she always kept it inside a fanny pack in which she also stored her jewelry. Rosillo produced her permit to carry the firearm and a receipt that stated that she purchased the firearm in December 2001 at the Miami Police Supply. Rosillo testified that she stored the firearm at her sister’s house because she wanted Cruz-Sosa to move in with her, and that she had retrieved the firearm on the day of the search because she was going on a trip and wanted her son to have a firearm for protection. Rosillo also stated that, when Cruz-Sosa moved in with her, Cruz-Sosa’s ex-wife would call numerous times, to the point that Cruz-Sosa had to change his number. In one voicemail message, the ex-wife stated that Cruz-Sosa was a convict and that “she was going to put him back in prison.” Rosillo further testified that she never told Cruz-Sosa that she owned a firearm; Cruz-Sosa did not know that the firearm was in the house; and Cruz-Sosa had never seen the firearm. On cross-examination by the government, Rosillo insisted 5 Case: 11-15436 Date Filed: 11/21/2012 Page: 6 of 17 that the officers found the firearm in her car and that Cruz-Sosa had been standing in the hallway when the officers entered the house. At the close of the hearing, the government argued that the evidence demonstrated Cruz-Sosa’s constructive possession of the gun, given his proximity to the gun. The government also argued that Rosillo’s testimony was not credible. In response, Cruz-Sosa’s defense counsel argued that he was not relying on Rosillo’s testimony about the gun being found in the car and that he did not know whether this testimony was true or not. Defense counsel pointed out that he did not elicit this testimony. Rather, Cruz-Sosa’s defense counsel argued that there was no evidence to show that Cruz-Sosa knew that there was a gun in the closet.
After the parties made their closing arguments, the district court found that the gun was located in the closet next to the bed on which Cruz-Sosa was lying. The district court, however, found that Cruz-Sosa’s proximity to the gun “probably would not be enough even on a preponderance of the evidence standard” to show that Cruz-Sosa knew about the gun, stating: Certain things are clear. First, I find that [Cruz-Sosa] was in the bed in the house. There was proximity. . . . Very close by is the closet where the Taurus revolver and two magazines were in a fanny pack. Now, if you stop there, I think there would be a stronger case. It 6 Case: 11-15436 Date Filed: 11/21/2012 Page: 7 of 17 is clear the gun belonged to her. There’s the receipt. But he had been living in the house for some time. Proximity is not enough. You need to have knowledge. I agree with you on that. He has to know the gun’s there. Usually I think people who are right next to a closet in which they keep some of their clothes know what’s in that closet. But even that probably would not be enough even on a preponderance of the evidence standard. (emphasis added). The district court then found that Rosillo’s testimony—that the gun was not in the house but was found in the trunk of her car—was not credible. The court inferred from this adverse credibility finding that Rosillo was deliberately lying to protect and exonerate Cruz-Sosa, which meant that Cruz-Sosa must have known about the gun. The district court found that Rosillo’s deliberate false testimony constituted the principal evidence of Cruz-Sosa’s guilt, stating: What troubles me, frankly, here is the testimony of Ms. RosilloDominguez. If she had come in and said, look, it’s my gun, he never knew about it, I never told him about it that would be one thing. But her testimony is not that. She instead says the gun was not in the house, it was at my sister’s house, and it was brought back that day and was in the car outside. And her testimony, which is contradicted by the other two witnesses, is that somebody, either the Hialeah Police or the Florida probation people, went out, searched her car, not his car, which is contrary to their testimony, got the gun, came in, put it in the closet. And that’s not believable to me. I find that not to be credible evidence. So the question is why does she make that story up. And I think she—that story is just too strong an effort to try to exonerate him, and I think in the same way you look at flight or you look at someone who just tells an untruth I think that is a factor that really makes a big 7 Case: 11-15436 Date Filed: 11/21/2012 Page: 8 of 17 difference in my mind in terms of—it’s true that’s not him, but why is she making a deliberate falsehood to try to protect him but for I think the clear implication that he knew the firearm was there. And you couple that with the circumstance, and I don’t put a lot of weight in it because we don’t know the identity of the tipster or any of that, this is all started by someone who comes in and says I’m in fear of this guy and he’s carrying a gun and they go to the house and lo[] and behold they find a gun and then the girlfriend lies about it. (emphasis added). The district court concluded that Cruz-Sosa violated the terms of his supervised release by constructively possessing the firearm in the closet. The district court sentenced him to 30 months’ imprisonment, the low end of the guideline range, with no further term of supervised release.