Opinion ID: 3185485
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Hector Peña’s Appeal

Text: In a counseled brief, Hector Peña argues that the district court abused its discretion by denying his request to continue the trial date. Trial was originally set to begin on May 21, 2012. After the trial date was adjourned several times to June 10, 2013, at either the government’s request or on the joint request of the parties, the government requested a further adjournment so that the Peñas could be tried jointly with a newly added defendant, Vladimir Delacruz. Over the Peñas’ objection, the court adjourned the trial date to October 15, 2013, warning counsel, “I will not allow any further delays after the four months that I have now indicated I am prepared to consider.” Hector Peña App. 68–71. On August 21, 2013, Hector Peña’s appointed counsel requested that the trial date be further adjourned to a date in February 2014 because of a scheduling conflict that he had previously failed to bring to the court’s attention. The district court denied the adjournment and appointed new counsel to represent Hector Peña at trial, which went forward on October 15, 2013. Hector Peña now argues that the district court’s refusal to adjourn the trial date constituted an abuse of discretion and deprived him of the right to counsel of his choice. This argument lacks merit. A district court has “broad discretion … on matters of continuances,” Morris v. Slappy, 461 U.S. 1, 11 (1983), and we will reverse for abuse of that discretion only when the denial of the requested continuance “was an ‘arbitrary action that substantially impaired the defense,’” United States v. O’Connor, 650 F.3d 839, 854 (2d Cir. 2011) (quoting United States v. Beverly, 5 F.3d 633, 641 (2d Cir. 1993)). Here, the district court based its 3 decision on the interest of the defendants in a speedy trial, the demands on the court’s schedule and docket, and defense counsel’s failure to bring the conflict to the court’s attention in a timely manner. Given these considerations, the district court was well within its discretion to deny a continuance. Furthermore, as an indigent defendant, Hector Peña had no right to counsel of his choice. See United States v. Gonzalez-Lopez, 548 U.S. 140, 151 (2006) (“[T]he right to counsel of choice does not extend to defendants who require counsel to be appointed for them.”). Nor has he argued that the attorneys who represented him at trial rendered ineffective assistance. Accordingly, he has not carried his burden to demonstrate that the denial of a continuance “substantially impaired the defense.” O’Connor, 650 F.3d at 854 (quoting Beverly, 5 F.3d at 641). In a supplemental pro se brief, Hector Peña further argues, first, that the government failed to present sufficient evidence that he received anything of pecuniary value in exchange for committing the murders or that he used a facility of interstate commerce; second, that the district court abused its discretion by admitting testimony regarding and photographs of the condition of the victims’ bodies when they were discovered; and third, that the murder-for-hire statute is unconstitutional. These arguments also lack merit. “A defendant challenging the sufficiency of the evidence bears a heavy burden.” United States v. Kozeny, 667 F.3d 122, 139 (2d Cir. 2011). Although we review such a claim de novo, we must view the evidence in the light most favorable to the government, and we may “enter a judgment of acquittal only if the evidence that the defendant committed the crime alleged is nonexistent or so meager that no reasonable jury could find guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.” United States v. Temple, 447 F.3d 130, 136 (2d Cir. 2006) (quoting United States v. Guadagna, 183 F.3d 122, 130 (2d Cir. 1999)). 4 The federal murder-for-hire statute prohibits commission of murder “as consideration for the receipt of, or as consideration for a promise or agreement to pay, anything of pecuniary value,” which it defines as “anything of value in the form of money, a negotiable instrument, a commercial interest, or anything else the primary significance of which is economic advantage.” 18 U.S.C. § 1958; see also United States v. Frampton, 382 F.3d 213, 217 (2d Cir. 2004) (holding that the murder-for-hire statute criminalizes “only those instances in which one party agrees to commit a murder in exchange for another party’s provision (or future promise) of payment”). Here, the evidence amply demonstrated that Hector Peña was promised and actually received things of pecuniary value in exchange for the murders of Pedro Medina, Jose Suarez, and Juan Carmona. Regarding the Medina murder, one of the government’s cooperating witnesses, Ramon Flores, testified that he promised Hector Peña and a co-conspirator “$6,000 and whatever Pedro had on him,” Tr. 230, to carry out the murder, and in fact paid them almost $6,000 and gave them a Jaguar vehicle after it was complete. Regarding the Suarez and Carmona murders, Flores testified that Hector Peña, Jose Peña, and an accomplice received an up-front payment from Jose Acosta, the drug dealer who ordered the hit. Another cooperating witness, Bernardo Sabino, testified that he delivered an additional payment to the Peñas and their accomplices on Acosta’s behalf after they carried out the murders. Yet another cooperating witness, Jose Martes, testified that, before the murders, Hector Peña told him that the contract with Acosta was worth $30,000. This evidence was plainly sufficient to sustain the jury’s verdict with respect to the pecuniary gain element. See 18 U.S.C. § 1958(a). Hector Peña further argues that the government failed to meet its burden with respect to the jurisdictional element of the murder-for-hire statute, which requires the government to prove “travel in interstate or foreign commerce, or … use [of] the mail or any facility of interstate or 5 foreign commerce.” 18 U.S.C. § 1958(a). However, Flores testified that he used a pay phone to contact Hector Peña about the Medina murder on more than one occasion. Similarly, Sabino testified that he used a pay phone to notify Acosta when the murders were about to be carried out. The parties entered a stipulation that “all pay phones in New York City including those providing service from in or about 1994 through in or about 2002 have the capability of placing and receiving long distance phone calls, including out of state and international phone calls.” Accordingly, the evidence was sufficient to satisfy the statute’s jurisdictional element. See United States v. Perez, 414 F.3d 302, 305 (2d Cir. 2005). The second argument raised in Hector Peña’s pro se brief is that the district court abused its discretion by admitting testimony about the condition of Jose Suarez’s and Juan Carmona’s bodies at the time they were discovered and photographs of the victims’ wrists. At trial, Barbara Butcher, a forensic investigator from the New York City Medical Examiner’s Office, testified that the victims’ bodies were extensively charred in a way that suggested that they had been burned after death. She testified that one of the bodies had a plastic “flex cuff” on one wrist, and that the other had a pair of metal handcuffs looped around his wrist. Defense counsel did not object to the admission of this testimony. The court also admitted, without objection, crime scene photographs showing the victims’ extremities. However, the court denied the government’s request to admit photographs of Juan Carmona’s body for the purpose of rebutting the defense’s argument that he may have been alive at the time he and Jose Suarez were discovered inside the burning car. Hector Peña now argues that the testimony and photographs should have been excluded under Rule 403 of the Federal Rules of Evidence. Rule 403 provides that relevant evidence may be excluded at trial if “its probative value is substantially outweighed by a danger of … unfair prejudice[.]” Fed. R. Evid. 403. A district 6 court has “broad discretion” over the admission of evidence, and we will find that it abused that discretion “only when the court has ‘acted arbitrarily or irrationally.’” United States v. Nektalov, 461 F.3d 309, 318 (2d Cir. 2006) (quoting United States v. SKW Metals & Alloys, Inc., 195 F.3d 83, 88 (2d Cir. 1999)). Where, as here, an objection has not been raised below, we review only for plain error. United States v. Marcus, 560 U.S. 258, 262 (2010). Under that standard, the defendant must demonstrate that “(1) there is an ‘error’; (2) the error is ‘clear or obvious, rather than subject to reasonable dispute’; (3) the error ‘affected the appellant’s substantial rights, which in the ordinary case means’ it ‘affected the outcome of the district court proceedings’; and (4) ‘the error seriously affect[s] the fairness, integrity or public reputation of judicial proceedings.’” Id. (quoting Puckett v. United States, 556 U.S. 129, 135 (2009)). Hector Peña has failed to demonstrate that the district court’s evidentiary decisions constituted plain error. Both Butcher’s testimony regarding the condition of the bodies and the crime scene photographs showing restraints on the victims’ wrists were relevant to corroborate the cooperating witnesses’ descriptions of how the murders were carried out and to rebut the defense’s contention that their testimony was inconsistent with that of the witnesses who discovered the bodies. While this evidence may have been shocking, “[p]robative evidence is not inadmissible solely because it has a tendency to upset or disturb the trier of fact.” United States v. Salameh, 152 F.3d 88, 123 (2d Cir. 1998). In light of the substantial probative value of the challenged evidence, the district court did not abuse its discretion, much less commit plain error, by failing to exclude it. Finally, Hector Peña makes a cursory argument that the murder-for-hire statute is unconstitutional because it “overrule[s] the authority of the State of New York to police within it’s [sic] borders crimes by the use or with the use of the telephone.” Hector Peña Supp. Br. 10. 7 We have previously rejected a similar challenge to the murder-for-hire statute on the ground that the regulation of a facility of interstate commerce falls squarely within Congress’s Commerce Clause power. See United States v. McGriff, 287 Fed. App’x 916, 918 (2d Cir. 2008) (summary order) (“[A] showing that a regulated activity substantially affects interstate commerce is unnecessary when Congress regulates activity involving an instrumentality or facility of interstate commerce.” (citing United States v. Gil, 297 F.3d 93, 100 (2d Cir. 2002))). Hector Peña provides no basis to disturb that conclusion.