Opinion ID: 202945
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Introduction of Evidence of a Separate Conspiracy

Text: The appellants' principal argument on appeal is that the district court should have granted their motion for a mistrial based on the prosecutor's misconduct in introducing evidence of a separate December 8 conspiracy. It is undisputed that five of the government's eleven witnesses [1] testified about the FBI's attempt on December 8, 2002, to seize another shipment of drugs. That attempt was stymied when the alleged drug traffickers were notified of the presence of federal agents. In fact, two of the witnesses testified exclusively about the December 8 events. In the course of the trial, the government admitted that the events of December 8 involved a different conspiracy, to which the appellants were not parties. For present purposes, we will assume that the government did not advise the defendants of the error until April 6, 2005, during the jury charge conference after the government had rested. Then, the government clearly admitted that the December 8 events involved a different conspiracy that did not involve the appellants. The defendants immediately objected and filed a motion for a new trial the next day, which the district court denied. Appellant Mangual-Garcia first argues that a mistrial should have been granted because the prosecutor's delayed disclosure regarding the separate December 8 conspiracy violated his rights under Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83, 83 S.Ct. 1194, 10 L.Ed.2d 215 (1963), to access to exculpatory material. Mangual-Garcia argues that if the information had been disclosed earlier, he would have been able to impeach the truthfulness of Escobar-Lopez's testimony and cast reasonable doubt on the amount of drugs involved in the charged conspiracy. It is unclear how further cross-examination would have benefitted Mangual-Garcia. Mangual-Garcia's vague assertions that this evidence could have impeached the cooperating witness, without explaining why or how, is insufficient to establish that Brady material was withheld. In any event, Mangual-Garcia admits that he did not request a continuance or seek to recall any witnesses when he learned about this evidence before he presented his case-in-chief. As a general rule, a defendant who does not request a continuance will not be heard to complain on appeal that he suffered prejudice as a result of late-arriving discovery. United States v. Sepulveda, 15 F.3d 1161, 1178 (1st Cir.1993); see also United States v. Osorio, 929 F.2d 753, 758 (1st Cir.1991). Mangual-Garcia has failed to establish the manifest abuse of discretion required to overturn the presider's decision to allow a criminal case to go forward, notwithstanding delayed disclosure of material relevant to impeachment of a witness. Sepulveda, 15 F.3d at 1179. [2] Next, both appellants assert that the introduction of the December 8 evidence constituted prosecutorial misconduct that warrants a new trial. [W]e determine the legal question of whether the prosecutor's actions constitute misconduct de novo, [and the question] of whether the alleged misconduct requires a new trial . . . for abuse of discretion. United States v. Casas, 425 F.3d 23, 39 (1st Cir. 2005). We assume, without deciding, that the prosecutor's actions constituted misconduct. See United States v. Auch, 187 F.3d 125, 128-29 (1st Cir.1999) (finding misconduct where a prosecutor made repeated references to an uncharged armored car robbery during the prosecution of a different armored car robbery). However, we conclude that the district court did not abuse its discretion in determining that a new trial was not warranted. In determining whether prosecutorial misconduct so poisoned the well as to require a new trial, this circuit considers (1) whether the prosecutor's misconduct was isolated and/or deliberate; (2) whether the trial court gave a strong and explicit cautionary instruction; and (3) whether any prejudice surviving the court's instruction likely could have affected the outcome of the case. Id. at 129. The claimed misconduct in this case was clearly repeated. However, this is not a close case since the evidence plainly supported a conviction. Indeed, the appellants do not argue otherwise, with one exception noted below. Most important, as part of the jury charge, the district court explicitly, clearly, and repeatedly instructed the jury not . . . to consider at all any testimony regarding the December 8th [events] . . . You are not to make any connection between that event . . . and the drug conspiracy charge . . . since the December 8, 2002 events are not evidence of the conspiracy charge . . . [Y]ou shall disregard all references by these witnesses to the December 8 [events]. [3] During these instructions, the jurors were told twice that the December 8 events were not part of the charged conspiracy; twice that the testimony regarding December 8 had been stricken; and three times that they should not consider the testimony regarding December 8. We are at a loss as to how the district court, under these circumstances, could have provided stronger curative instructions. [4] This court has repeatedly held that a strong, explicit, and thorough curative instruction to disregard improperly admitted evidence or improper comments by the prosecutor is generally sufficient to cure any prejudice from prosecutorial misconduct in that regard. See, e.g., United States v. Cormier, 468 F.3d 63, 74 (1st Cir.2006) (finding no prejudice where the court issued final instructions to the jury that were strong and clear on their duty to disregard the improper comments (internal quotation marks and alterations omitted)); United States v. Boldt, 929 F.2d 35, 41 (1st Cir.1991) (finding that a very strong and thorough curative instruction [to disregard] . . . sufficed to dispel any prejudice from the [prosecutor's] improper comment). This follows from the fact that our system of trial by jury is premised on the assumption that jurors will scrupulously follow the court's instructions. . . . United States v. Owens, 167 F.3d 739, 756 (1st Cir.1999). There may be some circumstances in which the improper evidence introduced by the prosecutor so overwhelms the trial as to make no instruction sufficient to cure the prejudice. However, this is not such a case. As noted earlier, the record discloses significant other evidence that could have been the basis for the jury's guilty verdict, and the December 8 evidence was not central to the government's theory of the case. In fact, there was no specific testimony at trial that linked the appellants to the December 8 events. We conclude that a new trial was not required.