Opinion ID: 539182
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Claims of Antagonistic Defenses

Text: 137 When the challenge to the denial of severance is premised on a claim that two defenses were antagonistic, a defendant satisfies his burden of showing substantial prejudice only if it can be said that  'the jury, in order to believe the core of testimony offered on behalf of [one] defendant, must necessarily disbelieve the testimony offered on behalf of his co-defendant.'  United States v. Potamitis, 739 F.2d at 790 (quoting United States v. Carpentier, 689 F.2d 21, 27-28 (2d Cir.1982), cert. denied, 459 U.S. 1108, 103 S.Ct. 735, 74 L.Ed.2d 957 (1983)). The mere fact that codefendants seek to place the blame on each other is not the sort of antagonism that requires a severance. United States v. Casamento, 887 F.2d 1141, 1154 (2d Cir.1989) (fingerpointing not sufficient), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 110 S.Ct. 1138, 107 L.Ed.2d 1043 (1990). Nor is it sufficient that one defendant contends that another coerced him to engage in the unlawful conduct if the jury could believe both that contention and the codefendant's defense. See United States v. Swingler, 758 F.2d 477, 494-96 (10th Cir.1985) (severance not required where one codefendant claimed he was coerced by members of motorcycle gang to participate in narcotics conspiracy, and gang member codefendant disclaimed involvement in conspiracy). Given this framework, the contentions of Villegas, Berrio, and Bolivar must fail. 138 Villegas's claim is that because it was plain that he had purchased the farm, the defenses of Berrio and Gomez that they were coerced into working at the farm were antagonistic to the defense of Villegas. Villegas's defense was that he had sufficient wealth to purchase Johnnycake farm with his own funds and that the evidence was insufficient to show that the purchase was financed by narcotics dealers. Neither Berrio nor Gomez testified that he had been coerced by Villegas. Gomez testified that he had been coerced only by a man named Arturo. The mere fact that the name Arturo was also found in one of the notebooks discovered at the farm did not make Villegas's defense of innocence fatally inconsistent with that of Gomez. The jury could, as a matter of logic, have believed both that Villegas had purchased the farm with his own funds and that no one had been coerced by Villegas. 139 Bolivar's claim of antagonistic defenses is flimsy in the extreme. Its premise is that since Bolivar was found in the basement with Gomez, the jury would infer that it was Bolivar who coerced Gomez into working at the farm. Again, however, Gomez did not testify that he was threatened by Bolivar but only by Arturo. Bolivar presented no defense other than his argument that the evidence was insufficient to convict him. The jury could logically have accepted that position while finding that Gomez had been coerced by Arturo. 140 Finally, Berrio's claim is that his coercion defense was generally antagonistic to virtually all of the other defendants. In support of this contention, he points out that other defendants objected frequently to his examination of certain witnesses (see, e.g., Part II.F.2. below), presenting to the jury the appearance of significant conflict. This vague and general assertion is entirely insufficient to show the kind of substantial prejudice that warrants a new trial for denial of severance.