Opinion ID: 677062
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Admission of Statement Into Evidence

Text: 14 Testa, Martinez and Paz next contend that the district court abused its discretion by admitting into evidence a statement that Martinez had made during plea negotiations with the government. In the statement, which was admitted only as to codefendant Mario Gomez, Martinez asserted that Gomez had never driven to Minnesota with cocaine. Although the appellants' challenges to the admission of this statement differ somewhat, none of the claims has merit.
15 Martinez contends that the admission of the statement into evidence was erroneous as to him for several reasons. First, he contends that the admission of the statement violated his Confrontation Clause rights, citing Bruton v. United States, 391 U.S. 123, 126, 88 S.Ct. 1620, 1622, 20 L.Ed.2d 476 (1968). There could be no Confrontation Clause violation, however, because the declarant of the statement was Martinez himself. Second, Martinez contends that admission of the statement violated Rule 410 of the Federal Rules of Evidence (also known as Rule 11(e)(6) of the Rules of Criminal Procedure). The Rule provides that statements made in the course of plea negotiations with a government attorney are inadmissible against defendants who participated in those negotiations. Because Gomez did not participate in Martinez's plea discussions, the Rule does not proscribe the statement's admission as to Gomez. 16 Third, Martinez argues that the admission of his statement regarding Gomez was improper because it will, in the future, chill plea negotiations between defendants and the government. As noted above, however, the statement at issue in this case was not admitted as to Martinez, but only as to Gomez. Martinez has given us no reason to believe that the integrity and efficacy of plea negotiations will suffer because of the possibility that statements made during those negotiations will be admitted as to other coconspirators. 17 Martinez next relies on a Second Circuit case, United States v. Serna, 799 F.2d 842 (2d Cir.1986), cert. denied, 481 U.S. 1013, 107 S.Ct. 1887, 95 L.Ed.2d 494 (1987), to argue that he was generally prejudiced by the admission of his statement. In Serna, at the joint trial of coconspirators Serna and Cinnante, Cinnante sought to introduce a statement made by Serna at Serna's plea negotiations, in which Cinnante had not participated. The statement was that Cinnante was the wrong man. The Second Circuit upheld the district court's exclusion of this statement even though it was sought to be admitted only as to Cinnante and not as to Serna, the declarant. 799 F.2d at 849. The Court held that if Cinnante had been allowed to introduce the statement into evidence there is a strong likelihood that the jury would have considered it as evidence against Serna. A limiting instruction would have been ineffective to protect Serna from the devastating impact of the statement that was tantamount to a confession. Id. (emphasis added). 18 The holding of Serna is inapposite here because, unlike the declarant of the statement at issue there, Martinez did not contest his complicity in the cocaine conspiracy. Thus, even if Martinez's statement about Gomez were properly characterized as tantamount to a confession, it was not prejudicial to Martinez. Indeed, Martinez conceded to the jury during closing argument that he had been involved in the drug operation, and sought to contest only the charge of continuing criminal enterprise (CCE), focusing specifically on refuting the element of the CCE charge that he had been an organizer or supervisor. Accordingly, Martinez's reliance on the Serna case is misplaced. 19 Finally, Martinez argues that the admission of his statement about Gomez was prejudicial to his defense to the CCE charge, because the statement demonstrated that Martinez knew who was involved in the conspiracy and, therefore, that he was a supervisor or organizer. We are not persuaded that admission of the statement caused such prejudice to Martinez, however, because we do not believe that one who knows who is in the conspiracy is necessarily a supervisor of that conspiracy. In any case, the district court gave the jury a proper limiting instruction, which we have no reason to believe was ignored. See United States v. Soria, 965 F.2d 436, 441 (7th Cir.1992); United States v. L'Allier, 838 F.2d 234, 242 (7th Cir.1988); cf. Bruton, 391 U.S. at 132-33, 88 S.Ct. at 1625-26 (limited circumstance in which instruction to jury is deemed ineffective). Martinez's claim of prejudice thus fails.
20 Testa and Paz contend that the admission of Martinez's statement about Gomez was prejudicial to them because, by exculpating Gomez, it implicitly inculpated them. This argument is unpersuasive because it relies on the unsupported premise that, in a joint trial, evidence exculpating one codefendant inculpates the others by its failure to exculpate them. Indeed, as the government argues on appeal, trying coconspirators jointly would be nearly impossible if we were to adopt the implicit inculpation theory advanced by Testa and Paz, because all evidence that tended to exculpate fewer than all codefendants would be inadmissible. In any case, the court instructed the jury to consider Martinez's statement only as to Gomez, and Testa and Paz have given us no reason to believe that the jury could not follow this instruction. 1 See Soria, 965 F.2d at 441; L'Allier, 838 F.2d at 242. Testa's and Paz's contention therefore fails. 21 Accordingly, we conclude that the district court did not abuse its discretion in admitting the evidence of Martinez's statement about Gomez.