Opinion ID: 198913
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: The Murder Site

Text: 35 Hughes objects to these statements of the prosecutor: 36 Let me ask you, Ladies and Gentlemen, an ideal place to kill Brian McCarthy, but why would bandits select that site? The evidence suggests they wouldn't, and this is why. You will recall that Hughes tells us that once they're attacked, they're put in the car and driven around for some length of time. This is a toll road, and to get off this road, you have to go through another toll. What bandits. What bandit is going to drive through a toll booth, where there's evidence there are police with Mr. Hughes in the back seat as a hostage? 37 . . . . . . . 38 No Robber is going to work off that toll road. Why?... [T]here's a toll booth just before you get on it.... [L]ikewise,... there's a toll booth just before you get off. 39 Hughes argues that [t]here is no evidence, expert, circumstantial, or otherwise, that McCarthy was killed at the place that he was found. There is no evidence that the accused was ever on that toll road. There is no evidence that anyone had to drive through 'another toll.' (Emphasis in original.) 40 Absent any evidence that the body was moved or transported, it was appropriate for a jury to infer that McCarthy was killed where he was found, particularly when the shell casings were found near the body and a trail of blood led from the roadside to a shallow grave in which the body was buried. As discussed above, there was circumstantial evidence that Hughes and McCarthy drove on the bypass highway. There was also evidence that the bypass was a toll road with at least one tollbooth, and that it is common practice in Mexico for police or military officers to be stationed at tollbooths. Hence, there was some basis in the evidence for the government's explanation of why kidnappers would be unlikely to abduct someone on the bypass highway. 41 To the extent, however, that the government's statement emphasized the existence of a second toll booth through which the bandits would have had to pass after the abduction, there was an insufficient evidentiary basis for that assertion. Indeed, FBI Special Agent Gilbert Contreras testified that he did not think that there was a second toll booth in place at the time of the killing. We readily conclude, nonetheless, that this misstatement, in the context of the substantial circumstantial evidence supporting the jury's verdict, did not prejudice Hughes, and therefore, did not constitute plain error. See United States v. Rodriguez-Cardona, 924 F.2d 1148, 1153-54 (1st Cir. 1991) (no plain error where improper remarks in government's closing statement did not effect the outcome of the trial given the strength of the government's case against the defendant).