Opinion ID: 199833
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 8

Heading: Failure to Provide Jury Instruction on the Alien Smuggling Theory (Santana)

Text: 56 Santana alone claims it was reversible error for the district court to refuse to instruct the jury to acquit if the jury determined that Santana was just as likely smuggling aliens as importing cocaine. We give plenary review to the question of whether the evidence adequately supported the requested instruction. United States v. Rodriguez, 858 F.2d 809, 812 (1st Cir.1988). 57 At the jury instructions conference, Santana's counsel requested a jury instruction stating if it's equally probable that defendants could have been involved in some alien smuggling venture, then you must acquit. The district court refused to provide the instruction because of insufficient evidence in the record to support the alien smuggling theory. The court noted that there was no evidence to connect Santana to any smuggling ring. Counsel responded by stating that aliens routinely hide for long periods of time before they start moving and implied that such hiding occurs in the areas where Santana was arrested, but conceded that the evidence for these claims was not ... in this record. 58 On the facts, the district court was well within its discretion in finding that the evidence in the record was insufficient to support a claim that it was equally plausible that Santana was involved in an alien smuggling operation. Although a defendant has a right to have the jury instructed on his theory of the defense, this right extends only to those defenses for which there is sufficient evidentiary support. Mathews v. United States, 485 U.S. 58, 63, 66, 108 S.Ct. 883, 99 L.Ed.2d 54 (1988); United States v. McGill, 953 F.2d 10, 12 (1st Cir.1992); United States v. Passos-Paternina, 918 F.2d 979, 984 (1st Cir. 1990). The defendant is not entitled to an instruction on a defense when the evidence in the record does not support that defense. See generally 2A C.A. Wright, Federal Practice and Procedure § 482, at 346-50 & n. 20 (3d ed.2000). 59 Here, although the location where Santana was apprehended may well have been one where illegal aliens sometimes entered Puerto Rico, there was no evidence in the record connecting Santana to any alien smuggling operation. Even considering the evidence in the light most favorable to Santana, there was insufficient evidence to conclude that he might have been part of an alien smuggling operation, and thus insufficient evidence to warrant his proposed instruction. Furthermore, the district court permitted the defense to present its alien smuggling theory at closing, so long as the defense presented it in a way that did not distort the evidence, thereby further undermining Santana's claim here. 60