Opinion ID: 752407
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Motion to Dismiss Indictment (Mangual, Cirilo, Ramirez )

Text: 18 Appellants first maintain that it was error to disallow their pretrial motion to dismiss the indictment. Relying on United States v. Basurto, 497 F.2d 781 (9th Cir.1974), they argue that the indictment violated due process because the government knew it was based in material part on the testimony of Special Agent Rene F. Medina, who related to the grand jury two perjured versions of the relevant events previously provided by Lugo. 14 19 After a grand juror voiced concern about Lugo's credibility, Agent Medina expressed the belief that Lugo had recognized the implausibility of his first story and decided to come clean. However, Medina did not disclose to the grand jury that Lugo, at a later debriefing, had corrected yet other inaccuracies in his second version. Finally, after the grand jury returned the indictment, Lugo came forward with a third version, essentially recasting the four codefendants in the respective roles later ascribed to them by Lugo at trial. 20 Appellants maintain that (i) Lugo's prevarications, as relayed by Agent Medina, were the only competent evidence upon which the grand jury could have based its indictment, (ii) Agent Medina's come clean characterization of Lugo's second version misled the grand jury into believing it was the whole truth, whereas it contained yet other inaccuracies, and (iii) at the very least the government owed a duty under Basurto to return to the grand jury after Lugo had come forward with the third version. 15 21 Basurto has been accorded mixed reviews, even by the court which decided it. See United States v. Bracy, 566 F.2d 649, 654-55 (9th Cir.1977), stay denied, 435 U.S. 1301, 98 S.Ct. 1171, 55 L.Ed.2d 489 (Rehnquist, Circuit Justice 1978) (suggesting that government's use of grand jury testimony which later proves to have been perjurious never implicates defendant's Fifth Amendment rights), cert. denied, 439 U.S. 818, 99 S.Ct. 79, 58 L.Ed.2d 109 (1978). For our part, we have declined to endorse Basurto on several occasions. See United States v. Garcia-Rosa, 876 F.2d 209, 232 (1st Cir.1989), vacated on other grounds, 498 U.S. 954, 111 S.Ct. 377, 112 L.Ed.2d 391 (1990); United States v. Maceo, 873 F.2d 1, 3 (1st Cir.1989); United States v. Rivera-Santiago, 872 F.2d 1073, 1088 (1st Cir.1989); United States v. Flaherty, 668 F.2d 566, 584 (1st Cir.1981). 22 Moreover, even under Basurto it is extremely doubtful that the variance in Lugo's descriptions of the events relayed to the grand jury by Agent Medina, however troubling, was sufficiently material to require dismissal of the indictment. See Basurto, 497 F.2d at 785. For one thing, after the unsuccessful attempt to exculpate himself in the first post-arrest interview, Lugo directly implicated Mangual, Ramirez, Cirilo, and himself, albeit even then without complete consistency in certain nonexculpatory details (e.g., how Mejias and Cirilo were dressed) or the respective roles of the participants. 23 Furthermore, were Basurto thought to require a determination as to whether the grand jury would have indicted had it been fully apprised of all the inconsistent pretrial statements made by Lugo, we would have to respond in the affirmative, especially since the petit jury found appellants guilty beyond a reasonable doubt after an exhaustive probe into all of Lugo's prevarications, including others which occurred at trial. 16 See Rivera-Santiago, 872 F.2d at 1088 ([T]his error was cured by the verdict of the petit jury, which was made aware during trial of [the government witness's] past perjury.); see also United States v. O'Brien, 14 F.3d 703, 706 (1st Cir.1994) (credibility assessments reserved for factfinder). As the trial jury found guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, we are not persuaded that a similarly informed grand jury would not have found probable cause. 17 24