Opinion ID: 672854
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Claims by Jose Vegas

Text: 17 Jose Vegas puts forth four claims on this appeal: ineffective assistance of counsel, wrongful admission of highly prejudicial evidence, an improper jury instruction, and wrongful admission of evidence obtained from an allegedly nonconsensual, warrantless search of his apartment that violated the Fourth Amendment.
18 Vegas argues that his trial counsel was ineffective. Success on this claim requires a two-step showing. First, the defendant must demonstrate that counsel's performance fell below the prevailing professional norms with a showing sufficient to overcome a strong presumption that counsel's conduct falls within the wide range of reasonable professional assistance. Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 689, 104 S.Ct. 2052, 2065, 80 L.Ed.2d 674 (1984). If such a showing is made, the defendant must also demonstrate a reasonable probability that absent counsel's unprofessional performance, the outcome of the proceeding would have been different. Id. at 687-88, 693-94, 104 S.Ct. at 2064-65, 2067-68. We find that Vegas failed to show that his counsel's assistance was ineffective. 19 As is often the case when convicted defendants complain after-the-fact of their lawyers' trial performance, we find that the choices made by the attorney were matters of trial strategy; because counsel's strategy was a reasonable one, these choices do not show incompetence. See United States v. Nersesian, 824 F.2d 1294, 1321 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, 484 U.S. 958, 108 S.Ct. 357, 98 L.Ed.2d 382 (1987) (decisions which fall squarely within the ambit of trial strategy ... if reasonably made, will not constitute a basis for an ineffective assistance claim). Much of the objected-to performance is explained by counsel's strategic decision to pursue the defense that Vegas was entrapped by Carrero, rather than contest Vegas's involvement, a decision that appears sound in light of the tape-recorded evidence of Vegas's participation. The crux of Vegas's entrapment defense was that John Carrero, a friend of Vegas who, unbeknownst to Vegas, was also a DEA informer, pressured Vegas into posing as a drug dealer, so as to set up Vegas for arrest and prosecution. 20 Among Vegas's many complaints about his attorney's performance is his failure on cross-examination of Almonte, the government informer who was Vegas's buyer in the planned transaction, to impeach Almonte's credibility. The cross-examination of Almonte, however, was closely tailored to the entrapment defense. Under questioning by Vegas's counsel, Almonte admitted that John Carrero introduced him to Vegas and was present at their subsequent meetings. Vegas's counsel also drew out from Almonte the information that when Almonte posed as a drug dealer on behalf of the DEA, he talked like a drug dealer, exaggerated his role in proposed transactions, and tried to make himself more important than he was. These admissions allowed Vegas's counsel to attempt to explain away Vegas's taped statements about drug trafficking: He, like Almonte, boasted on the tapes, exaggerated on the tapes. He made himself more important than he really was. Nelson Almonte told you that's what they do. You play a role. That's exactly what Mr. Vegas did. He was only doing the bidding for the government informant, John Carrero. 21 There was, furthermore, no good reason to impeach Almonte. Vegas was not denying what Almonte testified to--that Vegas arranged to sell heroin to Almonte. His contention was that he had been set up in this undertaking by Carrero, who was acting on behalf of the Government. 22 Vegas's contention that his attorney should have brought out what he now terms exculpatory information--a portion of a tape recording in which Vegas said something to the effect that Carrero was in the middle of the drug transaction--is unavailing for two reasons. First, the cross-examination of Almonte showed that Carrero was present during the planning of the drug transaction. Second, the central question of the case, from Vegas's perspective, was not whether Carrero was involved--the evidence proved he was--but rather, whether Vegas was a ready and willing participant or the victim of an entrapment scheme. In keeping with the entrapment defense, counsel argued to the jury that Carrero took advantage of his friendship with Vegas to induce Vegas to participate in this transaction, and that there was no proof that the heroin came from anyone other than John Carrero. 23 In these and his numerous other complaints, Vegas has failed to show that his counsel did not perform up to professional norms. We therefore need not reach the question whether there is a reasonable probability that a different performance by counsel would have produced a different verdict. However, it seems unlikely that some other strategy could have overcome the tape-recorded evidence of Vegas's participation in the conspiracy to sell heroin.
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25 Vegas contends that certain evidence was wrongly admitted against him. He argues both that his counsel's failure to object to this evidence demonstrated ineffective assistance, and that the district court's decision to admit the evidence was reversible error. Because the evidence was properly admitted, we find no merit in either contention. 26 Vegas contends the following evidence was irrelevant to the case before the jury and was admitted only for the impermissible goal of showing he is a bad person: (1) ammunition found in his apartment; (2) an offer to obtain cocaine for informant Almonte; (3) a thirteen-year-old narcotics conviction. As to the ammunition, this Court has repeatedly approved the admission of firearms as evidence of narcotics conspiracies, because drug dealers commonly keep firearms on their premises as tools of the trade. United States v. Wiener, 534 F.2d 15, 18 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, 429 U.S. 820, 97 S.Ct. 66, 50 L.Ed.2d 80 (1976); see United States v. Fernandez, 829 F.2d 363, 367 (2d Cir.1987); United States v. Mourad, 729 F.2d 195, 201 (2d Cir.1984), cert. denied, 472 U.S. 1007, 105 S.Ct. 2700, 86 L.Ed.2d 717 (1985). This reasoning applies with extra force to the bullets in question because they were found in a bag together with a small digital scale that Vegas acknowledged was used to weigh heroin. See Wiener, 534 F.2d at 18 (emphasizing that gun, admitted as evidence of drug conspiracy, was in same bag as drug paraphernalia). 27 As to Vegas's offer to introduce Almonte to a supplier who had thirty kilograms of cocaine, this was properly admitted as evidence of Vegas's willingness to deal in drugs, rebutting his entrapment theory. The same is true of Vegas's 1980 conviction for participating in a cocaine conspiracy. Vegas attacks his trial counsel for failure to object to admission of the conviction. In fact it was Vegas's counsel, not the Government, who introduced it. This was not an act of incompetence on counsel's part but a strategic taking of the initiative. Recognizing that the conviction would be admissible on the Government's offer to show Vegas's willingness to deal in drugs, Vegas's counsel seized the opportunity to be first to mention it, so as to blunt its force. He argued in his opening statement that Vegas had his one taste of jail, [and] was only looking forward to remaining with his family and son. There was nothing incompetent about this strategic decision. See Nersesian, 824 F.2d at 1321. 28
29 Vegas argues that the evidence found in the government's warrantless search of his apartment was seized in violation of the Fourth Amendment, and protests the pretrial determination by Judge Kram that his wife, Milagros Rojas, consented to the search. Whether consent was given is a factual question, and its resolution by the district court is not to be disturbed unless clearly erroneous. United States v. Puglisi, 790 F.2d 240, 244 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, 479 U.S. 827, 107 S.Ct. 106, 93 L.Ed.2d 55 (1986). We perceive no error in Judge Kram's finding that Milagros Rojas voluntarily consented to this search, and thus reject Vegas's claim that the search and seizure violated his constitutional rights.
30 Vegas's final claim concerns the district court's response to a note sent by the jury during its deliberations. The question asked by the jury was, [I]n order for a conspiracy to exist, does it have to be with Vegas and specifically Guzman and/or Virella, or could it be with another individual known, such as the informer, Aponte, or unknown? After first clarifying that the reference to Aponte was intended to be Almonte, and giving counsel an opportunity to advise on the proper response, the court instructed the jury: 31 First let me get the indictment, which I think I sent into you. It says together with William Guzman and Michael Virella and others known and unknown to the Grand Jury. So that a conspiracy can be with an unknown party. You cannot find a conspiracy with a government agent. A government agent is Almonte. If you find that Almonte was a conspirator, then [you have] to find that there is no conspiracy. 32 So that the first thing that you have to find is you don't specifically have to find Guzman and Virella. You could find that an unknown party was a member of the conspiracy. But you certainly can't find that Almonte was a member of the conspiracy. Otherwise that means that you find that no conspiracy existed. All right? You can proceed. 33 Vegas contends he was prejudiced by the judge's failure to mention John Carrero as a government agent, and thus one with whom the defendant could not conspire. 34 The argument is frivolous. The court clearly instructed the jury that a criminal conspiracy could not be formed with a government agent, and John Carrero had been repeatedly identified to the jury as a government agent of the same type as Almonte. Vegas's summation, heard shortly before the jury began deliberations, was centered on Carrero's role as an informant, trying to work off drug charges against him. The trial judge focussed on Almonte, rather than Carrero, for the simple reason that the jury's question asked explicitly about Almonte. Vegas offers no reason, and we find none, to believe that the jury was misled by the court's instruction into believing that it could find Vegas guilty of a conspiracy with Carrero.