Opinion ID: 195094
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: David Chase's Testimony.

Text: At trial, David Chase testified that he regularly 25We note that the district court also granted an ends-ofjustice continuance on December 18, 1990, in response to David Sepulveda's motion for an extension of discovery deadlines, thereby providing an additional source of excludable time. See 18 U.S.C. 3161(h)(8)(A). 61 purchased cocaine from appellant Cullinane until, having grown dissatisfied with the quality of Cullinane's wares, he began buying directly from David Sepulveda. Cullinane argues before us, as he argued below, that Chase's testimony should have been purged because Chase did not explicitly tie Cullinane to Sepulveda. We disagree. The relevancy of a witness's testimony cannot be gauged in isolation. See United States v. Hickey, 596 F.2d 1082, 1089 (1st Cir.), cert. denied, 444 U.S. 853 (1979). Several witnesses other than Chase described Cullinane's dealings with Sepulveda, including his purchases of contraband and their joint participation in drug-buying excursions. Given this contextual detail, the jury could well infer that the sales to Chase were connected to the Cullinane-Sepulveda axis. In a criminal case, proof need not be explicit; juries are permitted, indeed, encouraged, to draw reasonable inferences from the facts before them. See, e.g., Echeverri, 982 F.2d at 679; United States v. Ingraham, 832 F.2d 229, 239-40 (1st Cir. 1987), cert. denied, 486 U.S. 1009 (1988). The district court did not abuse its discretion in admitting evidence of Cullinane's sales to Chase as circumstantial evidence of Cullinane's role in the distribution network.