Opinion ID: 370140
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Larain's reliability and hearsay statements identifying

Text: 12 defendants as drug dealers 13 Before trial, defendants moved to suppress the evidence found on their persons when they were arrested, asserting that there was no probable cause to arrest them. Agent Rivera, who made the decision to arrest, outlined the information that caused him to do so, cited Larain as a major source of that information, and quite properly testified to Larain's reliability in other investigations in order to demonstrate that the agents had good reason to credit him. The court sustained the arrests and the seizures. 14 So far, all procedures were correct. Unfortunately, however, after the trial began, the prosecution decided once again to pursue the issue of the informer's reliability, this time in front of the jury. In his opening statement the prosecutor said: 15 Now, you will hear during the course of this case that there was an informant. His name is Alberto Larain Mestre. This informant you will hear from the undercover agent, Mr. Fortunato Jorge, who will testify was recruited originally in Spain and he has been working continuously thereafter with the Drug Enforcement Administration for the last seven years. In order that you may gauge the reliability of this informant we will bring evidence to you that this informant had given evidence in other cases, has developed other cases; that the undercover agent who has been working with him had four cases in Europe. 16 Defendants objected to this statement and to the prosecutor's expressed intention to introduce evidence of the informant's reliability on the ground that it was both prejudicial and irrelevant, a finding of reliability having been made when probable cause to arrest was established; the question of reliability was, they argued, a question for the judge, not the jury. The court overruled the objection, but instructed the jury that the cases on which the agent and the informant had worked previously had no relation to the defendants. The prosecution then continued this line of argument, saying that, 17 What we are trying to emphasize is the fact that this informant has given information which is for you to determine in the light of all the facts in the case whether that informant is reliable or is not reliable and, therefore, you can trust what is said about him or not. 18 Larain's reliability was raised again at the outset of Agent Jorge's testimony: Jorge testified that he had known Larain since 1964, that Larain became an informer in 1972, and that he established an official relationship between agent and informer with him in 1975. Jorge described the role of an informant in DEA investigations and, when asked how many cases he had been involved in with Larain, replied 10 or 12, four of which had resulted in arrests. Jorge stated that 19 defendants had been developed through these investigations. Defense counsel again objected. The government responded that it was 19 entitled to establish that the information that his man has as a result of prior experience can be trustworthy and, therefore, he acted on the information. . . . He had reason to believe that information. That is our position. 20 The court again overruled the objection and instructed the jury, 21 The only reason I am allowing this testimony in as to previous experience of this agent with the informant is to allow you to reach a conclusion as to the reliability of this informant in previous work. I instruct you nothing that may have happened in relation to this informant in previous cases has anything to do with these two defendants. In fact, I can tell you as a matter of fact that these two defendants have not been the object of those previous investigations. It has nothing to do with these defendants. 22 Jorge then testified that he had worked with Larain in international investigations in the United States, South America and Europe. 23 The theme of Larain's reliability was raised for the last time in the prosecutor's summation to the jury: 24 Now, the most important testimony here was that of Fortunato Jorge. Fortunato Jorge is an agent who for the past 17 years has worked in drug enforcement and for the past seven years in the office of the DEA. 25 He told you about the informant, who he is, Mr. Alberto Larain Mestre, how the informant was recruited in Spain, how that informant has worked with Mr. Fortunato Jorge in cases which have resulted in at least 17 arrests and investigations that carried these two individuals to nine different countries France, Spain, New York I am sorry, cities, Santo Domingo, Colombia, Aruba, Guadelupe and from the very evidence obtained in this case which are the recordings of the conversations, you can tell the veracity of what the informant was telling Fortunato Jorge. 26 You recall that the informant came to Fortunato Jorge on the 30th and told him about the conversation he had with Mr. Ariza. As a result of that meeting he provided that information. He provided Mr. Jorge with two telephone numbers. . . .  27 The emphasis upon Larain's reliability was coupled with testimony that Larain gave the DEA agents telephone numbers that led them to Ariza, and that Jorge was entering into drug negotiations that to some degree already had been initiated by the informer in a prior meeting with Ariza. 5 It was thus conveyed to the jury, implicitly but unmistakably, that Larain knew first-hand that Ariza was a drug dealer and that Larain himself was exceptionally reliable in such matters. 6 28 We are obliged to hold that the district court committed reversible error in allowing the prosecution to introduce evidence and make an issue at trial of Larain's past identifications and reliability. Defendants were entitled to have their guilt or innocence determined by the jury on the basis of evidence from witnesses that they had had an opportunity to confront at trial. See U.S.Const. Amend. VI; Barber v. Page, 390 U.S. 719, 721, 725, 88 S.Ct. 1318, 20 L.Ed.2d 255 (1968); Pointer v. Texas, 380 U.S. 400, 404, 85 S.Ct. 1065, 13 L.Ed.2d 923 (1965). The reliability of witnesses at trial is often a legitimate issue, of course, but because the jury may not give any credit whatever to the implied testimony, much less the views concerning guilt, of an absent witness, the reliability of non-witnesses is usually wholly irrelevant. Because the absent drug informant's implied beliefs in relation to the charges against Ariza and Rodriguez were not matters for the jury to consider at all, to bolster his reliability as was done here could only serve the illegitimate purpose of directing the jury's attention to these improper items of hearsay, and of giving them enhanced credibility. See Fed.R.Evid. 801, 802; Moore v. United States, 429 U.S. 20, 21-22, 97 S.Ct. 29, 50 L.Ed.2d 25 (1976); United States v. Barash, 365 F.2d 395, 399 (2d Cir. 1966); Wright v. Tatham, 7 Ad. & E. 313, 388-89, 112 Eng.Rep. 488, 516-17 (1837). Bolstering the government's case in this manner served to place the experienced informer alongside Fortunato Jorge as an additional witness, yet one immune from cross-examination by defendants. 7 29 The issue involved here is similar to those in Barash, 365 F.2d 395; United States v. Falley, 489 F.2d 33 (2d Cir. 1973); and United States v. Check, 582 F.2d 668 (2d Cir. 1978). In Barash, 365 F.2d 395, a government witness testified that the defendant was introduced to him by a Miss Lupescu, who had never introduced (him) to anyone except someone who was going to pay (him) off. 365 F.2d at 399. The court held that this was inadmissible hearsay because Miss Lupescu's conduct conveyed her meaning without the use of words. Id. This and other errors required reversal. Falley, 489 F.2d 33, a drug importation case, also involved an effort by the government to establish the credibility of an informant, albeit one who did take the stand. The government introduced in evidence narcotics that the informant had brought into the country, not for the defendants but for a third party. The Second Circuit held that this evidence should have been excluded because it had no relation to the defendants and was highly prejudicial. 489 F.2d at 37. In Check, 582 F.2d 668, a government informant allegedly had been involved in meetings with the defendant but refused to testify. Spinelli, an undercover agent, became the chief government witness and, in response to careful questions on direct, so related his conversations with the informant as to convey, in effect, what the informant had said to him about his meetings with Check. The court observed that, for much of his testimony Spinelli was serving as a transparent conduit for the introduction of inadmissible hearsay information obviously supplied by and emanating from the informant . . . . 582 F.2d at 678. 30 The evidence of Larain's past ability to identify drug dealers, coupled with evidence making it plain that he had so identified defendants, was tantamount to a hearsay statement by Larain incriminating defendants, just as the hearsay statements condemned in Check, Barash and Falley incriminated the defendants in those cases. 31 The question remaining is whether this error was so prejudicial as to require reversal and a new trial. To affirm, we would have to find that the error did not influence the jury or that it had but slight effect, See Kotteakos v. United States, 328 U.S. 750, 764, 66 S.Ct. 1239, 90 L.Ed. 1557 (1946). 8 This we regret we cannot say, notwithstanding the substantial evidence of guilt. It is true that Jorge's credibility was the central issue. If his accounts of his meetings with defendants were believed, Larain's hearsay views concerning defendants' guilt were merely cumulative. If, moreover, the jury disbelieved Jorge, it would scarcely have convicted merely because the informer was supposedly reliable, and thought defendants guilty. But one cannot confidently separate Jorge's credibility from the impression made by placing Larain's reputation for reliability, and his implied testimony against defendants, on the same side of the scale. The latter reinforced the former. The importance the prosecution placed on bringing Larain into the picture is reflected by the prosecutor's references to the informer's reliability in both his opening and closing arguments, and by his successful efforts to acquaint the jury with Larain's participation in the investigation and his knowledge of defendants' illicit activities. We cannot say that matters so strenuously and deliberately emphasized by the prosecution were harmless. 32