Opinion ID: 764882
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: sufficiency of the evidence

Text: 61 We next address the denial of Lara's, Boyd's, and Roman's motions for judgment of acquittal under Fed. R. Crim. P. 29. In reviewing such denials, the court of appeals affords plenary review and applies precisely the same regimen that obtains in the trial court. This regimen entails considering the evidence in the light most favorable to the prosecution and determining whether this body of proof, as a whole, has sufficient bite to ground a reasoned conclusion that the government proved each of the elements of the charged crime beyond a reasonable doubt. See United States v. Valle, 72 F.3d 210, 216-17 (1st Cir. 1995); United States v. Olbres, 61 F.3d 967, 970 (1st Cir. 1995). This prosecution-friendly standard requires the resolution of all evidentiary disputes and credibility questions in favor of the government, and also requires the acceptance of those reasonable inferences from the evidence (whether or not inevitable) that support the government's view of the case. See United States v. Carroll, 105 F.3d 740, 742 (1st Cir.), cert. denied, 520 U.S. 1258 (1997). The jury's verdict must stand unless the record, viewed from this coign of vantage, would not allow a rational jury to find the defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. See id.; see also Olbres, 61 F.3d at 970. With these criteria in mind, we turn to the specifics of the appellants' claims. 62
63 Lara contests the sufficiency of the evidence in regard to two separate convictions. We discuss these initiatives sequentially. 64
65 Initially, Lara attacks his conviction for intimidating a government witness, Manuel Pacheco (variously referred to as Manny or Joey). As it applies in this case, the statute of conviction requires the government to prove two elements: (i) that the defendant knowingly used intimidation, physical force, or threats against another, and (ii) that this conduct was intended to influence, delay, or prevent the testimony of any person in an official proceeding. 18 U.S.C. § 1512(b)(1). The term official proceeding encompasses both federal criminal trials and grand jury sessions. See id. § 1515(a)(1)(A); see also United States v. Victor, 973 F.2d 975, 978 (1st Cir. 1992). 66 The facts, marshaled in the light most flattering to the government, amply support the jury's verdict on this count. The jury reasonably could have found that Pacheco aided the authorities in their investigation of the Latin Kings, that the organization's top brass suspected as much, and that they feared that Pacheco had appeared (or would soon do so) as a witness before the grand jury and/or at an ensuing trial. In November 1994, Sepulveda (then the president of the Providence chapter) ordered Pacheco's termination (a disposition which, in Latin King parlance, might mean anything from a beating to a slaying). 67 At the time, Pacheco was housed in the Rhode Island state penitentiary (as was Lara). Vasquez and two fellow Latin Kings (Alex Mesa and Rodney Santi) were dispatched to explain the situation and communicate the order to a pickup team of incarcerated Latin Kings. At the penitentiary, the three messengers visited one on one with a trio of Latin King inmates (Lara, Kareem Abdulla, and Edson Toro) and carried out their assignment. To be specific, Vasquez met with Lara, Mesa with Abdulla, and Santi with Toro. The following evening, Lara, Abdulla, Toro, and a fourth incarcerated Latin King, Richard Rodriguez, approached Pacheco in a dark corner of the prison yard. The group surrounded Pacheco and taunted him about being a rat. He was then struck from behind and savagely beaten. 68 Lara declares that this evidence is inadequate because no direct testimony showed that he received the termination order (indeed, Vasquez testified to the contrary) or participated in administering the beating. These declarations comprise more cry than wool. Mesa and Santi testified that they rode to the prison with Vasquez, that the three of them discussed the termination order en route, and that they each relayed the message to the inmate with whom they spoke. Vasquez signed the prison's visitor log. He admitted visiting with Lara. Pacheco testified that Lara had been in the group that surrounded him and had been behind him when he was struck from the rear. 69 Although this evidence is largely circumstantial, the jury reasonably could have disbelieved Vasquez's self-serving denial and inferred that he followed orders (as his fellow messengers had) and communicated the directive to Lara. By like token, the jury reasonably could have credited Pacheco's account and thus inferred that Lara participated in the beating. Any divergent view of the evidence would elevate coincidence to an art form. The proof, therefore, was sufficient to convict on the witness intimidation count. See United States v. Castro-Lara, 970 F.2d 976, 981 (1st Cir. 1992) (explaining that circumstantial evidence, in and of itself, is often enough to ground a conviction); see also Carroll, 105 F.3d at 743 (noting, in the context of rejecting an insufficiency challenge, the reticence of appellate courts to second-guess a jury's credibility judgments). 70
71 Lara and Perry were convicted of a carjacking on September 6, 1994. This scenario involved Temujin Vandergroen, who apparently precipitated the incident by playing with a knife in front of Perry's children. Perry interpreted this as a sign of disrespect, intolerable to a Latin King, and asked Lara to accompany him while he relieved Vandergroen of his Ford Escort (which was adorned with tire rims that Perry fancied). 72 The two men asked Vandergroen to take a ride with them. When he agreed, Perry (who had brought along a sawed-off shotgun) sat behind Vandergroen in the car, while Lara sat in the front passenger seat. At Perry's request, Vandergroen drove to a deserted neighborhood. Perry then told Vandergroen to slow or stop the vehicle, and, when Vandergroen complied, Perry shot him. Perry and Lara shoved Vandergroen's body into the street and returned to a Latin King hangout, where they were seen with blood and brain matter on their clothing. The two later burned and abandoned the car. 73 On these facts, the jury convicted Lara of carjacking in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2119(3). 5 Lara attacks the sufficiency of the evidence from an odd angle. He does not allege that the government failed to prove that he committed specific elements of the offense, but, rather, claims that the only witness whose testimony implicated him in the carjacking (Pacheco) was unreliable. This attack is impuissant. In the usual case, the credibility of witnesses is for the jury, see Carroll, 105 F.3d at 743; United States v. Laboy-Delgado, 84 F.3d 22, 27 (1st Cir. 1996), and there is nothing here that mitigates against the conventional application of this rule. There were conflicting accounts of Lara's participation in the carjacking, and the jury was free to decide which, if any, to believe. 74 Lara has a fallback position. Perry had given testimony exculpating Lara from complicity in the Vandergroen carjacking. See supra Part III(C). Lara hypothesizes that Perry's disgusting courtroom conduct, see United States v. Perry, 116 F.3d 952, 954 (1st Cir. 1997), unfairly undercut this exculpatory testimony. 6 But there is simply no evidence that Perry's conduct prejudiced the jury against Lara. When a defendant presses a plausible claim of spillover effect, differentiated verdicts often constitute tangible evidence of the jury's enduring ability to distinguish between the culpability of codefendants. See, e.g., United States v. Flores-Rivera, 56 F.3d 319, 326 n.2 (1st Cir. 1995). This case is of that stripe: even after Perry's dramatic display, the jury acquitted Lara, but convicted Perry, on several counts, including the charge of using or carrying a firearm during the Vandergroen carjacking. Then, too, the trial judge instructed the jurors soon after Perry's gaffe that they should draw no adverse inference therefrom against any defendant (Perry included). See Perry, 116 F.3d at 954. This timely instruction further supports the conclusion that Lara was not prejudiced by Perry's actions. 7 See Richardson v. Marsh, 481 U.S. 200, 206 (1987) (remarking the almost invariable assumption of the law that jurors follow their instructions); United States v. Sepulveda, 15 F.3d 1161, 1185 (1st Cir. 1993) (similar). 75 To sum up, because the evidence allowed a rational jury to find Lara guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of both witness intimidation and carjacking, the district court did not err in refusing to grant an instructed verdict of acquittal on either or both of these counts. 76
77 Boyd and Roman challenge the sufficiency of the evidence to support their convictions for committing a violent crime (the murder of Jose Mendez) in aid of racketeering. The relevant facts, stated from the perspective most conducive to the verdict, are as follows. 78 On Saturday, November 5, 1994, several members of the Providence Latin Kings attended a party in Connecticut. On that occasion, they learned that their Connecticut counterparts were at war with a rival gang, the Netas. Two Connecticut Latin Kings returned to Rhode Island with the Providence contingent. One of them, Peter Natal, later became a confidential informant. 79 At a meeting of the Providence chapter held on Monday, November 7, Sepulveda told his cohorts about the war in Connecticut. Immediately after this announcement, the officers of the Providence chapter (including, at least, Sepulveda, Boyd, and Roman) went into executive session and discussed a plan to kill the leader of the Netas in Providence. This strategy was hatched on the theory that, in Sepulveda's words, without the head, the body falls. The executive session ended on this note, the main meeting resumed, and Sepulveda asked the general membership to forget what he had said about a war. 80 Natal attended the executive session. He testified that, during this discussion, the Latin King hierarchs noted the near-dearth of local Netas; Providence was virgin territory and there were only four full members of the Neta gang at that point. Mesa confirmed this assessment. He testified that there was [sic] very few Netas out here. There's probably like four Netas. Each one had a position [i.e., held an office in the gang]. Initially, there was confusion over whether Jose Mendez might be the president of the Providence Netas, but a consensus gradually developed in favor of the view that Winston Navarette held that office. 81 After the meeting adjourned, several participants repaired to the dwelling that Roman shared with his then-paramour, Tia Barboza. A small group, including Boyd and Roman, met in Tia's bedroom and finalized the plan to kill the head of the Netas. Four members were assigned responsibility for carrying out the assassination: Perry, Santi, Hakim Davis, and Juan Garcia. Witnesses stated that Boyd and Roman each chose at least one member of the hit squad. The next day, Roman distributed weapons from the gang's cache to the appointees. 82 In retrospect, it appears that, at the crucial time, the Providence Netas had four officers: Winston Navarette (president), Jose Mendez (vice-president), Edgar Pichardo (disciplinarian), and Maquiva Mendez (secretary). The Netas lived together. When the hit squad arrived at their abode, they asked for Navarette and were informed that he was out of town. The trial testimony was unequivocal that when the Neta president was away, the vice-president assumed his responsibilities. Thus, Jose Mendez, nominally the Neta vice-president, was the head of the Netas in Navarette's absence. 83 Upon learning of Navarette's unavailability, the crew invited Jose Mendez, who was wearing his Neta colors at the time, to smoke some marijuana. The group, now five in number, walked to a nearby field where Perry shot Mendez from behind, killing him. The four Latin Kings fled. 84 Boyd claims that this evidence failed to link him sufficiently to Mendez's murder. He argues that even the most generous view of the evidence fails to support the jury's verdict because there was no evidence (1) that the plan was to kill whomever was the Neta leader, (2) that the shooter was aware that his target was the de facto leader, or (3) that the shooter knew Mendez had become the de facto leader of the Netas in Navarette's absence. 85 Before coming to grips with these arguments, we address a procedural issue. Roman did not raise the sufficiency question in his opening brief, but, after perusing Boyd's brief, sought leave from this court to adopt the argument. By order entered February 1, 1999, we granted this request provisionally, subject to a final determination after the case was heard. 86 The standard for adoption of arguments by reference involves a determination of whether the arguments are readily transferrable from the proponent's case to the adopter's case. David, 940 F.2d at 737. We ordinarily look with disfavor upon attempts to adopt factbound arguments by reference. See, e.g., Castro-Lara, 970 F.2d at 982; David, 940 F.2d at 737. Under the peculiar circumstances of this case, however, we allow the adoption. Roman, like Boyd, moved for judgment of acquittal below, and relied on the same three grounds in support of his claim that the evidence was insufficient to convict him of Mendez's murder. More importantly, although the evidence as to each varies on the first two grounds, Boyd's arguments are generally relevant to Roman, who, like Boyd, was a part of the officers' meetings, but not a member of the crew sent to carry out the execution. Thus, the David ready transferability standard is satisfied and we will entertain the insufficiency claims of both appellants. 87 Boyd's and Roman's first two points are easily dispatched. Davis, a first-hand participant, described the plan and the implementing order as being aimed at killing the head of the Netas. 8 This order was given in the presence, and with the acquiescence, of Boyd and Roman. It was designed as a preemptive strike on the Neta leadership. 9 88 Although some of the witnesses whose testimony the government hawks had made prior inconsistent statements, the same is true for several witnesses whose testimony Boyd and Roman espouse. The jurors were entitled to choose which witnesses to credit, and, in the posture of a sufficiency-of-the-evidence challenge, we must assume that they credited those witnesses whose testimony lent support to the verdict. See Carroll, 105 F.3d at 742-43; Laboy-Delgado, 84 F.3d at 27-28. At any rate, jurors are not required to discard testimony that appears to contain internal inconsistencies, but may credit some parts of a witness's testimony and disregard other potentially contradictory portions. See United States v. O'Brien, 14 F.3d 703, 707 (1st Cir. 1994). 89 The third deficiency to which Boyd and Roman allude is more nettlesome. The government offered no direct evidence that the shooter (Perry) knew of Jose Mendez's position as de facto leader of the Netas at the time of the murder. Still, direct evidence is not essential to proof of criminality. See id. at 706-07; Castro-Lara, 970 F.2d at 981; United States v. Ortiz, 966 F.2d 707, 711 (1st Cir. 1992). In this instance, the circumstantial evidence is telling: the proof (particularly the testimony of Natal and Mesa) showed that at least some Latin Kings knew there were only four full-fledged members of the Netas in Providence, and that all of them were officers of the gang. Mendez's name was bandied about at the executive session (which both Boyd and Roman attended) as the possible head of the Netas. Although consensus later formed around the idea that Navarette occupied the top rung on the ladder, the discussion of Mendez's involvement strongly suggests that the Latin King leadership was keenly aware that he held a relatively high position in the Netas. 90 We have held before that evidence of events that occur subsequent to the commission of a crime can shed light upon an actor's guilt vel non. See, e.g., United States v. Sutton, 970 F.2d 1001, 1007 (1st Cir. 1992); United States v. Mena, 933 F.2d 19, 25 n.5 (1st Cir. 1991). In this instance, evidence of the Latin King leaders' reaction to the murder bolsters the government's case. Davis recalled that Sepulveda, then the Latin King president, responded to the report of Mendez's demise by remarking that the hit squad had done a good job. Moreover, the Latin Kings did not mount a manhunt for Navarette after the Mendez murder because, in Davis's words, their mission had been completed successfully. 91 Jurors are entitled to draw reasonable inferences from proven facts. On this record, we think that two key inferences are supportable. First, the jury reasonably could have inferred that Perry was aware of Mendez's leadership role in the Netas. Second, the jury reasonably could have inferred that when the hit squad encountered Mendez, its members believed that he was likely the highest available member of the Neta leadership and killed him for that reason, in compliance with the order that had issued. Boyd's and Roman's alternate hypothesis -- that Navarette's absence foiled the plot, and that Perry killed Mendez in order to satisfy his bloodlust -- was not implausible, but the jury rejected it in favor of a finding that Perry pulled the trigger to effect the directive that had been handed down by the Latin King hierarchs. This choice fell well within the jury's proper purview. See United States v. Gifford, 17 F.3d 462, 467 (1st Cir. 1994) (noting that the evidence need not rule out other hypotheses more congenial to a finding of innocence in order to defeat a Rule 29 motion). Thus, we conclude that the evidence suffices to sustain the disputed convictions. See Bourjaily v. United States, 483 U.S. 171, 179-80 (1987) (explaining that individual pieces of evidence, insufficient in themselves to prove a point, may in cumulation prove it); Stewart v. Coalter, 48 F.3d 610, 615-16 (1st Cir. 1995) (discussing permissible inferences in criminal cases).