Opinion ID: 741156
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Acosta's Vindictive Prosecution claim.

Text: 8 Appellant Acosta moved to dismiss the indictment for vindictive prosecution, and appeals denial of her motion. 9 It is a nasty business to indict two people, in order to use the pressure to make one of them talk about an entirely different matter. But it is not what the precedents call vindictive prosecution. Vindictive prosecution occurs when the government penalize[s] a person merely because he has exercised a protected statutory or constitutional right. People of Territory of Guam v. Fegurgur, 800 F.2d 1470, 1472 (9th Cir.1986); see also Adamson v. Ricketts, 865 F.2d 1011, 1017 (9th Cir.1988). There is no constitutional right not to snitch. See United States v. Gardner, 611 F.2d 770, 773 (9th Cir.1980). 10 Acosta showed that she was indicted to pressure her fiancee to talk. We can find no precedent for the proposition that prosecution is vindictive when used to pressure a spouse, so long as the prosecutor has probable cause to believe a defendant committed a crime. See United States v. Duran, 41 F.3d 540, 544 (9th Cir.1994). The government may indict, even if its motive is to get cooperation in another case, United States v. Gardner, 611 F.2d 770, 773 (9th Cir.1980), where the government has probable cause. Here the government had Paguio Jr.'s and Acosta's signatures on a loan application which was plainly and demonstrably fraudulent, seeking to borrow $200,000 which their present circumstances would not enable them to repay. Indicting them for this crime was not vindictive, even though the prosecution had an ulterior motive.B. The Car Loan. 11 Acosta argues that the district court abused its discretion in admitting evidence that she had applied and been turned down for an $18,000 car loan to buy a BMW. The government put on a witness and this document: 12 Excessive obligations for amount requested. Good credit history. Will reconsider in lesser amount. $10,000 and 20% down. 13 Her argument is that the evidence should have been kept out as other bad acts to prove character, under Federal Rule of Evidence 404(b), and even if not, that the danger of unfair prejudice substantially outweighed its probative value under Federal Rule of Evidence 403. 14 The evidence was admissible to show knowledge of the limited extent of her borrowing capacity, under the knowledge exception in the second sentence of Rule 404(b). As for unfair prejudice under Rule 403, there may have been none, because being turned down for a car loan did not invite the jury to find against Acosta on an inappropriate ground. There is nothing wrong with trying to borrow $18,000 to buy a car, with getting turned down, or with being approved up to $10,000, so there is no reason why a jury would deny such a loan applicant a fair evaluation of the other evidence. 15 The prosecutor might have been angling for an innuendo that Acosta must be an extravagant person to try to buy a BMW in her financial circumstances, but any such innuendo was weak, because $18,000 is not extravagant for a car. To the extent that any unfair prejudice might lie in the innuendo, the district judge was within his discretion under Rule 403 in deciding that the probative value of the evidence, to show knowledge, was not substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice. 16 C. The Absent Witness Statement. 17 Paguio Jr.'s lawyer had obtained a statement from Paguio Sr. that his son had nothing to do with it. When the case was retried, Paguio Sr. was a fugitive, so the defense tried to get the statement into evidence by means of the absent witness hearsay exception for statements against penal interest, Federal Rule of Evidence 804(b)(3). The district court excluded it, and Paguio Jr. and Acosta appeal this evidentiary ruling. 18 Paguio Jr.'s lawyer and paralegal assistant interviewed Paguio Sr. Defense counsel advised Paguio Sr. that she was not his attorney, she represented his son, and what he told her was not privileged. He told her that the whole scheme was his, and his son (and by implication, his son's fiancee) had nothing to do with it. 1 The father had refused to testify about this, claiming his Fifth Amendment privilege at the first trial, and he became a fugitive prior to the retrial. The district court ruled that the portions of the evidence in which the father admitted his own criminal responsibility, but not those exonerating the son, could come into evidence. 19 Certain statements against penal interest have long been admissible as an exception to the hearsay rule, and the common law exception has been codified in the Federal Rules of Evidence: 20 Hearsay exceptions. The following are not excluded by the hearsay rule if the declarant is unavailable as a witness: 21 .... 22