Opinion ID: 2779368
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Murder Testimony

Text: Two of the government's cooperating witnesses, L.O. and J.S., testified that Vázquez ordered the killings of three individuals--L.O.'s son El Arabe, Cheo Cabezon, and Mamart--who posed a threat to his drug points. The district court refused to admit additional testimony or evidence about these three murders or any evidence about two other murders. Vázquez argues that this testimony was inadmissible because its probative value is substantially outweighed by a danger of . . . unfair prejudice. Fed. R. Evid. 403. We review preserved evidentiary challenges for an abuse of discretion. Vizcarrondo-Casanova, 763 F.3d at 94. Vázquez did object at sidebar before J.S.'s testimony about the murders of El Arabe and Cheo that such testimony would be unfairly prejudicial. He failed to timely object, however, to L.O.'s earlier testimony about the three murders. We therefore review the admission of her testimony for plain error. Regardless of the standard of review, however, [o]nly rarely and in extraordinarily compelling circumstances will we, from the vista of a cold appellate record, reverse a district court's on-the-spot judgment concerning the relative weighing of probative value and unfair effect. Id. (alteration in original) (internal quotation marks omitted). -22- There are no such compelling circumstances here, under either abuse of discretion or plain error review. The indictment charged that it was part of the manner and means of the conspiracy that some of the co-conspirators would use violence, force and intimidation against members of their own drug trafficking organization and rivals in order to maintain control of the drug trafficking operations. Both witnesses testified that Vázquez ordered the murders because Vázquez viewed the victims as threats to his control over the drug points. The district court correctly determined that this testimony was highly probative to show the manner in which the drug conspiracy operated and the way its members furthered its goals, as charged in the indictment. See United States v. Rivera Calderón, 578 F.3d 78, 96 (1st Cir. 2009). More importantly, the testimony showed that Vázquez led the conspiracy by enforcing its rules and protecting it from internal and external threats. See id. Nor did any unfair prejudice from this testimony substantially outweigh its probative value. The murder evidence was limited to testimony from the first two witnesses in a nine-day trial and was not overly graphic.10 There was no testimony from 10 The most graphic testimony came from L.O. In describing her son's death, she said, I pick up my son. He tells me to stand him up, that he was bleeding out too much in the upper part of the leg through a vein. With regard to Mamart's death, she testified, Well, you could feel a whole bunch of shooting. You could just hear a whole mess of shooting. And we went downstairs where everybody was screaming. Mamart was already on the ground and he -23- ballistics experts, pathologists, or crime scene investigators. Cf. id. at 98-99 (such testimony was not unfairly prejudicial in drug conspiracy case). The only photographs the jury saw were of El Arabe's body (cleaned, apparently in a morgue, and used for identification purposes) and the bloody stairwell where he was shot. Moreover, after the government elicited testimony from L.O. about her son's death, the district court took steps to screen for unfair prejudice by requiring the prosecutor to first make a proffer of any further murder testimony. There was no abuse of discretion or plain error in admitting this testimony.