Opinion ID: 707621
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Brady violation and new trial motion

Text: 73 In an order dated October 13, 1994, the district court granted Morales a new trial on his drug conspiracy count based on the government's refusal, in violation of Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83, 83 S.Ct. 1194, 10 L.Ed.2d 215 (1963), and its progeny, to turn over grand jury testimony of Aizprua, the key witness on the drug-trafficking counts. On November 12, 1987, Aizprua testified before a federal grand jury investigating former Panamanian President Manuel Noriega. Before the grand jury Aizprua testified that he flew money and drug-processing chemicals into Panama for Noriega. The district court granted Morales motion for a new trial on his drug conspiracy conviction, finding the grand jury testimony both favorable and material because Morales was nowhere mentioned even in the few passages which referred to Aizprua's drug trafficking. The district court reasoned that because Aizprua mentioned many of the same names that he disclosed at trial when discussing his drug trafficking but failed to mention Mr. Morales until Mr. Morales himself was on trial, the evidence was exculpatory. [New Trial Order at 10]. The district court also placed substantial weight on the fact that Kosonoy, who had access to a redacted version of Aizprua's testimony, was subsequently acquitted. 4 74 At the same time, the court determined that because Aizprua's testimony was essentially unrelated to Morales' later money laundering for which substantial other evidence had been introduced, that disclosure of the grand jury material would not have made a different decision as to the money laundering counts 'reasonably probable.'  [New Trial Order at 9]. 75 Because the government has since dismissed the drug conspiracy charge, the only issue on appeal is the district court's determination that the government's failure to disclose the grand jury testimony did not necessitate a new trial on Morales' money laundering counts. The ultimate question is whether there is a reasonable probability that had the material been disclosed, the result of the proceeding would have been different such that confidence in the outcome is undermined. United States v. Lai, 944 F.2d 1434, 1440 (9th Cir.1991), cert. denied, 502 U.S. 1062, 112 S.Ct. 947, 117 L.Ed.2d 116 (1992); Kyles v. Whitley, --- U.S. ----, ----, 115 S.Ct. 1555, 1566, 131 L.Ed.2d 490 (1995). 76 After reviewing the trial record, as well as Aizprua's grand jury testimony and DEA debriefings, our confidence in the jury's verdict is in no way undermined. First, despite the district court's decision to grant Morales a new trial on the drug charge, Aizprua's grand jury testimony does not significantly undermine his testimony at trial. Second, even if Aizprua's testimony were completely obliterated, it would in no way undermine our confidence in the money-laundering verdicts. 77 In his grand jury testimony, Aizprua briefly described his drug trafficking including flights made for Cuco Rodriguez. He also described meeting Kosonoy during the same time period, but did not discuss his smuggling flights for Kosonoy's group from Colombia to Mexico, to which Morales' drug charges related. This omission is neither surprising nor suspicious, however, because those flights did not relate to Noriega, and Aizprua was neither questioned specifically about them nor asked to catalog his complete history of drug trafficking. 78 The defendants and the district court found Aizprua's failure to mention Morales most telling and exculpatory in the following exchange: 79 Q: Now, sir, did there come a time when Floyd Carlton Cacerez got you involved in flying narcotics? 80 A: Yes, Sir. 81 Q: And did you and Floyd Carlton Cacerez become involved with a gentleman by the name of Cabellero? 82 A: Yes, Sir. 83 Q: And anyone else in the narcotics business? 84 A: A gentleman by the name of Miguel Aleman. Some gentlemens from Colombia and Mexico by the name of Luis Sarsay, Leopoldo Rodriguez, both from Colombia, and William Muncado from Mexico, and John Jose Quintero, uncle of Carlo Quintero, and Dr. Fidel Konsonoy. 5 85 The six names listed by Aizprua do not include Daniel Morales. Nor, however, do they include a number of Aizprua's other drug-trafficking acquaintances. The list simply is not exhaustive. The questioner appears to be asking with whom, beyond Cabellero, Aizprua and Floyd Carlton Cacerez were involved? If so, the list may only include those who were also associates of Cacerez. In any event, Morales' omission from this partial list is probative of little. Perhaps because Morales was in the United States, did not own the drugs involved and was still employed by Downtown, Aizprua did not consider him a principal like Cuco Rodriguez or Fidel Kosonoy. 86 Moreover, in Aizprua's October 2, 1986, DEA debriefing--more than a year before his grand jury testimony and over five years before Morales' trial--Aizprua gave a detailed account of his drug trafficking and his dealings with Morales (to whom he refers dozens of times) that is completely consistent with his trial testimony. In light of this debriefing, any attempt by the defense to impeach Aizprua with his Noriega grand jury testimony would have been futile. The consistency of his trial testimony with his debriefing, given less than a month after his arrest, obliterates the defense's argument that Aizprua manufactured Morales' involvement at the behest of the government on the eve of trial. 6 87 Even if the grand jury testimony could somehow have decimated Aizprua's trial testimony, it would not undermine our confidence in the jury's verdicts on the money-laundering counts. Aizprua testified for three days at the very beginning of this four-month trial. His testimony related only to the drug charges and did not concern any of the transactions involved in the money laundering counts. In fact, Aizprua had been arrested years before any of those events. 7 88 The only possible crossover effect of Aizprua's testimony on Morales' money-laundering convictions would be to buttress the knowledge of the illegal source of funds element. If Morales were himself a drug trafficker, it would be more likely that he was aware that his customers were drug traffickers and were purchasing planes with drug money. The prosecution, however, never suggested this inference. In its closing argument, the prosecution carefully compartmentalized the drug-trafficking and the money-laundering evidence and never suggested that any of Aizprua's testimony was relevant to the latter charges. Moreover, as discussed above in Part I, there was more than sufficient direct evidence for the jury to conclude that Morales knew who and what he was dealing with. 8