Opinion ID: 198383
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: facts

Text: 2 The factual background was detailed in our earlier decision, United States v. Montilla-Rivera 115 F.3d 1060 (1st Cir.1997). Rather than repeat ourselves, we will review only that evidence relevant to the claim currently before us. 3 On March 22, 1995, a confidential government informant approached Caldern about purchasing drugs. Caldern suggested that they go see the mechanic and arranged to meet two days later. When they did meet, Caldern took the informant to an auto repair shop behind a nightclub. Zorilla and Montilla were mechanics at that auto shop at various times, and were both waiting there for Caldern and the informant. When the two arrived, they went with Zorilla and Montilla into a small room inside the back of the shop. 1 4 Caldern and Zorilla negotiated to sell the informant two kilograms of cocaine while Montilla stood ten to twelve feet away by the door watching and looking. Once the price and quantity had been agreed upon, Zorilla made a call to have the drugs delivered, and the informant called DEA Agent Carrasquillo (Agent Carrasquillo) to arrange for the money. When the drugs were delivered, the informant found the quality of the cocaine to be good, so he and Caldern went to a nearby shopping center to meet Agent Carrasquillo and get the money. Zorilla and Montilla stayed at the shop with the cocaine. 5 After he had seen the money, Caldern returned to the repair shop; the informant and Agent Carrasquillo followed ten minutes later. When they arrived, the informant reentered the small room and told the others that his partner, Agent Carrasquillo, would not come inside and would only buy the cocaine outside where Carrasquillo was parked. After some disagreement about where the exchange would take place, Montilla, Zorilla, and Caldern went outside. Caldern approached Agent Carrasquillo's car with the cocaine. When the delivery was made, federal agents quickly arrested Caldern, Zorilla and Montilla. 6 At trial there was conflicting testimony as to whether Montilla was actually in the back room during the negotiations, and as to precisely where he was when the agents converged to arrest the three. The government recorded the operation in two ways: the informant wore an audio recording device, and a DEA agent named Rodriguez videotaped the auto shop from across the street. All parties agree that Montilla neither appears in the videotape nor is heard on the informant's audio tape. However, several government witnesses testified to Montilla's role as a lookout. 7 While both Caldern and Zorilla pled guilty, Montilla chose to go to trial. Before trial, Montilla moved to produce his codefendants to testify at trial, but they exercised their privileges against self-incrimination and refused to testify. The jury found Montilla guilty, and the court sentenced him to 60 months of imprisonment and eight years of supervised release. 8 After Caldern and Zorilla had been sentenced, Montilla requested that they attest to his innocence. He sent, and they signed, nearly identical affidavits stating that Montilla was not involved in the drug transaction for which they both had pled guilty. Claiming that Caldern's and Zorilla's testimony was previously unavailable, Montilla filed a post-conviction motion for a new trial. The district court denied the motion because it found that the evidence was both known and available at trial. Montilla-Rivera, 115 F.3d at 1065. On appeal, this court refused to apply a categorical rule that exculpatory affidavits from codefendants who did not testify at trial because they exercised their Fifth Amendment privileges could never qualify as newly discovered evidence for the purposes of a motion for a new trial. Id. Instead, while shar[ing] the general skepticism concerning [such belated exculaptory] statements [of codefendants], we remanded to allow the district court to consider whether the interests of justice require a new trial. Id. at 1067. 9 The district court held an evidentiary hearing at which both Caldern and Zorilla testified. The court subsequently issued an opinion and order finding that they were not credible, and that the inconsistency between their post-conviction statements and the trial testimony made it unlikely that the new evidence would lead to acquittal if a retrial were granted. Consequently, the court denied Montilla's motion, and he now appeals that decision to us.