Opinion ID: 1372493
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Evidence of the Government's Allegedly Improper Conduct

Text: Ozuna points to evidence that he claims demonstrates that the government fabricated evidence to obtain a conviction. These include Agent Lumpkin's interactions with the Rios sisters, an allegedly fabricated DEA-6 form memorializing Lumpkin's conversation with Jessica Rios, and testimony about an allegedly orchestrated identification of Ozuna by Macias. [6] The district court held that all of this evidence was not material to Ozuna's guilt or innocence or was only tangentially related to the case at hand and excluded it. We conclude that this was not an abuse of discretion. None of Ozuna's proffered evidence was relevant to his conduct on July 28, 2003, nor the evidence the government presented at trial. Ozuna simply made vague allegations of improper government conduct without ever connecting that conduct to his apprehension or the search of his trailer. He did not make any connection whatsoever between the allegedly improper actions and the agents who were directly involved in the search. Thus, nothing about the evidence had any tendency to make more or less likely any fact of consequence to Ozuna's guilt. See Fed.R.Evid. 401. Instead, presenting this evidence would likely have confused the jury with tangentially related facts. Excluding the evidence was therefore not an abuse of discretion. Ozuna correctly notes that even the Rules of Evidence cannot be used to deprive a defendant of his due process right to present a complete defense. See Holmes v. South Carolina, 547 U.S. 319, 324-27, 126 S.Ct. 1727, 164 L.Ed.2d 503 (2006); United States v. Harris, 942 F.2d 1125, 1130-31 (7th Cir.1991). We have held that a defendant is entitled to have the jury consider any theory of the defense that is supported by the law and that has some foundation in the evidence.  United States v. Wiman, 77 F.3d 981, 985 (7th Cir.1996) (emphasis added) (quotations omitted). The problem with Ozuna's argument is that the theory that his conviction resulted from fabricated evidence has no foundation. As noted above, the excluded evidence had no bearing on what occurred on July 28, 2003. Had the government presented the allegedly fabricated evidence in its case-in-chief, our analysis may have been different. For example, if the government had used Macias's identification against Ozuna, certainly a claim that his identification was manufactured or orchestrated by the government would be relevant. Similarly, the Rios sisters' testimony was proper in the first trial because Lumpkin had testified about the events after Ozuna's flight from prosecution. However, the government confined its case in this trial to the facts surrounding the search of his tractor-trailer. Ozuna has failed to connect any of his proffered evidence to the government's actions at that time or the agents involved in the search. Thus, the district court did not abuse its discretion in excluding the evidence.