Opinion ID: 3010410
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Fourteen-Kilo Deal.

Text: When the government first sought to introduce the fourteen-kilo cocaine deal, it offered it as part and parcel of the drug conspiracy count of the indictment. According to the government, the original fourteen-kilo deal was part of the charged drug conspiracy because all of the players were identical to the players in the thirty-kilo deal: Montalvo and Pacheco were the sellers; Avendano was the middleman; and Ochoa was the buyer. Under the government's theory, because the first fourteen-kilo deal was thwarted when the courier, Lopez, was arrested by police, Montalvo was eager to up the ante on the next deal. The district court, however, expressed unwillingness to consider the fourteen-kilo deal as part of the same conspiracy as the subsequent thirty-kilo deal because the indictment only charged a conspiracy to distribute thirty kilos of cocaine. Instead, the district court urged the government to introduce the fourteen-kilo deal as 404(b) evidence. Consequently, the government introduced the fourteenkilo deal, offering the following reasons to explain why it qualified under Rule 404(b): [I]t provides the background and an explanation of the relationship between Mr. Montalvo, Mr. Pacheco, and Mr. Lopez . . . . There's an overlap in the 14 kilogram transaction because that overlaps to Mr. Ochoa, the guy who stole the 30 kilos in this case, and Avendano, who was intended middleman in the 14 and the 30. It also shows a method of operation. It also shows the planning and preparation in terms of having a car prepared to conceal these drugs. It's sort of a test run, so to speak, Your Honor, to take it for a distance from A to B, which is very short and then follow it up with 17 a matter of days and take it interstate from Houston towards New York. J.App. at 93-94. Presumably adopting the government's analysis, the district court admitted the prior drug deal: I don't have any difficulty with that whatsoever. The probative value of that is not substantially outweighed by the danger of any kind of unfair prejudice. I've ruled on that. Absolutely clear. Classic 404(b). J.App. at 94. We can infer that the district court adopted the government's proffered reason for admitting the fourteenkilo deal as 404(b) evidence. See United States v. Sampson, 980 F.2d 883, 888 (3d Cir. 1992) (stating that a district court's summary conclusion to admit 404(b) evidence may be sufficient if the government thoroughly explains its proffered reason for offering it). We agree that the government has sufficiently shown that the fourteen-kilo deal was a link in a chain of events that led to the charged conduct and not merely evidence that the defendants were more likely than not to have committed the charged conduct. Thus, we conclude that the district court properly determined that the fourteen-kilo cocaine deal qualified as other crimes evidence under Rule 404(b). Unfortunately, it is more difficult to decipher the reasoning of the district court with regard to the balancing analysis required by Rule 403.10 The district court merely stated a conclusion that the probative value of the evidence outweighed its prejudicial effect. Although the district court may have in fact engaged in Rule 403 balancing, it did not articulate on the record a rational explanation. See _________________________________________________________________ 10. Rule 403 provides: Although relevant, evidence may be excluded if its probative value is substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice, confusion of the issues, or misleading the jury, or by considerations of undue delay, waste of time, or needless presentation of cumulative evidence. Fed. R. Evid. 403. 18 Government of Virgin Islands v. Harris, 938 F.2d 401, 420 (1991). Thus, we need not defer to the district court and can conduct the requisite balancing analysis ourselves. Himelwright, 42 F.3d at 781. In our view, while the fourteen-kilo deal may have had some prejudicial effect on Montalvo and Pacheco, the evidence of the deal was substantially relevant to the government's case against the defendants to outweigh any risk of prejudice. Indeed, the fourteen-kilo deal went to the heart of the government's theory of the case: The government contended that the thirty-kilo deal, which led to the kidnapping, was set up to offset the loss caused by the thwarted fourteen-kilo deal. In addition, the district court gave explicit limiting instructions to the jury immediately after Lopez's testimony, which described the fourteen-kilo deal.11 This limiting instruction mitigated any potential prejudice against Montalvo and Pacheco. See Sriyuth, 98 F.3d at 748 (recognizing that unfair prejudice can be minimized by a limiting instruction). In other words, the limiting instruction sufficed to enable the jury to compartmentalize the evidence and consider it only for its proper purpose. Id. (citing United States v. Driggs, 823 F.2d 52, 54 (3d Cir. 1987)). Thus, in our view, the evidence of the fourteen-kilo deal was highly probative to show method of operation and preparation, while the prejudicial effect was minimal. Accordingly, the fourteen-kilo deal was properly admitted as other crimes evidence under Rule 404(b). _________________________________________________________________ 11. Specifically, the court instructed the jury to: Use this evidence to decide whether or not defendant Montalvo and defendant Pacheco had knowledge of the drug conspiracy charged in the indictment and intended to participate in. Should you choose to believe the evidence of these other cocaine transactions you've heard this afternoon, I caution you, you may only use it for these limited purposes. You may not use it to prove that defendant Montalvo and defendant Pacheco are bad persons or that they were predisposed to do bad things. . . . J.App. at 281-82. 19