Opinion ID: 202348
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Reference to flight and aliases as evidence of consciousness of guilt

Text: 28 During closing arguments, the prosecution argued that the defendant had fled, under an alias, because he had been involved in the Rhode Island robbery. The defendant argues that the prosecutor improperly invoked this argument because he knew that the inference of consciousness-of-guilt in the robbery case was undermined by evidence not available to the jury, namely, a pending murder charge. Although the jury was not aware of this fact, Timi and Nickoyan Wallace were charged with the murder of their brother in Massachusetts in March 2000, several months before the robbery. According to the defendant, the murder charge was arguably the real cause of his flight and use of aliases. The defendant argues that the prosecutor's remarks were therefore misleading. See United States v. Udechukwu, 11 F.3d 1101, 1106 (1st Cir.1993) (noting that it is improper for a prosecutor to imply reliance on a fact that the prosecutor knows to be untrue); see also United States v. Blueford, 312 F.3d 962, 968 (9th Cir.2002) ([I]t is decidedly improper for the government to propound inferences that it knows to be false, or has very strong reason to doubt.). 29 We have previously noted that [f]light evidence is controversial and must be handled with care. United States v. Benedetti, 433 F.3d 111, 116 (1st Cir.2005); see also United States v. Hernandez-Bermudez, 857 F.2d 50, 54 (1st Cir.1988) (We urge ... that courts exercise caution in admitting this type of evidence.... [A]t least in many cases, [flight] evidence is only marginally probative as to the ultimate issue of guilt or innocence. (internal quotation marks and citations omitted)). The specific facts of this case, where a pending prior felony charge could explain the defendant's actions, illustrate the need for caution in the use of consciousness-of-guilt evidence. 30 However, we have rejected, in United States v. Boyle, 675 F.2d 430 (1st Cir. 1982), the argument that evidence of the use of an alias may never support an inference of consciousness-of-guilt when another charge is pending. See id. at 432-33. In that case, the defendant argued that the court erred in admitting evidence of his use of an alias in light of outstanding warrants for other crimes that he was seeking to evade prior to the robbery for which he was currently at trial. Id. at 432. In considering his argument, we rejected a broad rule that would bar alias evidence whenever a defendant commits more than one crime, noting that [s]uch a rule would ignore the substantial possibility that the defendant is using the alias to evade detection for all his crimes, including the one charged. Id. at 433. Focusing on the specific facts in Boyle, we concluded that the district court did not err in admitting the alias evidence in the robbery trial, noting that the defendant had used his alias within days of the alleged robbery and that it was reasonable to infer that the defendant was seeking to conceal his true identity from police investigating this fresh crime. Id. at 432. 31 Examining the specific facts here, we also find no error. The record supports the prosecution's theory that Wallace's flight and use of aliases were relevant consciousness-of-guilt evidence as to both the robbery and the murder charges. While Wallace may have fled Massachusetts and used an alias prior to the robbery to evade the murder charge, the record evidence also indicates that Wallace fled Rhode Island under an alias after the robbery and that he remained in flight and continued to live under an alias after he received a call from his brother when the police were arresting him for the robbery. 32 At the very least, the prosecutor's reference to the flight and use of an alias do not constitute plain error. Any overstatements by the prosecution in its closing were mitigated by the district court's careful instructions that flight did not necessarily reflect a guilty conscience and that the jury should consider that there may be reasons for Timi Wallace's actions that are fully consistent with innocence. Furthermore, given the crushing weight of the other evidence against the defendant in this case (including eyewitness identification and the recovery of five of the stolen guns and the weapon allegedly used in the robbery in his apartment), we cannot conclude that any error here affected the defendant's substantial rights. See United States v. Morales-Cartagena, 987 F.2d 849, 854 (1st Cir.1993) (concluding that prosecutor's misstatements in closing argument did not constitute plain error because they were, in relation to the body of evidence received during trial, relatively insignificant). 33