Opinion ID: 1372493
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Exclusion of Ozuna's Proffered Evidence

Text: As another basis for his appeal, Ozuna claims that the court's decision to exclude several pieces of evidence undermined his ability to present his theory of defense. Ozuna maintains that most of this evidence was relevant to show that the government would go to any lengths, including fabricating evidence, to apprehend and convict him. Ozuna also argues that Agent Lumpkin's testimony at a prior suppression hearing was relevant to Ozuna's knowledge that the trailer contained cocaine. [5] The court suppressed all of this evidence, either because it was irrelevant or because its probative value was out-weighed by one of the concerns listed in Rule 403. The district court has broad discretion to control the admission of evidence. United States v. Khan, 508 F.3d 413, 417 (7th Cir.2007). Evidence is relevant and therefore admissible if it has `any tendency to make the existence of any fact that is of consequence to the determination of the action more probable or less probable than it would be without the evidence.' United States v. Van Allen, 524 F.3d 814, 825 (7th Cir.2008) (quoting Fed.R.Evid. 401). Under Rule 403, however, even relevant evidence may be excluded if its probative value is substantially outweighed by, for example, the danger of unfair prejudice. Fed.R.Evid. 403. Thus, a district court may exclude collateral or irrelevant evidence where its tendency to mislead and confuse the jury substantially outweighs its probative value. United States v. Jackson, 540 F.3d 578, 588 (7th Cir.2008). We review a district court's evidentiary determinations for an abuse of discretion and reverse only when no reasonable person could take the view adopted by the trial court. Khan, 508 F.3d at 417 (quotations omitted). With this framework in mind, we now turn to Ozuna's arguments.
Ozuna points to evidence that he claims demonstrates that the government fabricated evidence to obtain a conviction. These include Agent Lumpkin's interactions with the Rios sisters, an allegedly fabricated DEA-6 form memorializing Lumpkin's conversation with Jessica Rios, and testimony about an allegedly orchestrated identification of Ozuna by Macias. [6] The district court held that all of this evidence was not material to Ozuna's guilt or innocence or was only tangentially related to the case at hand and excluded it. We conclude that this was not an abuse of discretion. None of Ozuna's proffered evidence was relevant to his conduct on July 28, 2003, nor the evidence the government presented at trial. Ozuna simply made vague allegations of improper government conduct without ever connecting that conduct to his apprehension or the search of his trailer. He did not make any connection whatsoever between the allegedly improper actions and the agents who were directly involved in the search. Thus, nothing about the evidence had any tendency to make more or less likely any fact of consequence to Ozuna's guilt. See Fed.R.Evid. 401. Instead, presenting this evidence would likely have confused the jury with tangentially related facts. Excluding the evidence was therefore not an abuse of discretion. Ozuna correctly notes that even the Rules of Evidence cannot be used to deprive a defendant of his due process right to present a complete defense. See Holmes v. South Carolina, 547 U.S. 319, 324-27, 126 S.Ct. 1727, 164 L.Ed.2d 503 (2006); United States v. Harris, 942 F.2d 1125, 1130-31 (7th Cir.1991). We have held that a defendant is entitled to have the jury consider any theory of the defense that is supported by the law and that has some foundation in the evidence.  United States v. Wiman, 77 F.3d 981, 985 (7th Cir.1996) (emphasis added) (quotations omitted). The problem with Ozuna's argument is that the theory that his conviction resulted from fabricated evidence has no foundation. As noted above, the excluded evidence had no bearing on what occurred on July 28, 2003. Had the government presented the allegedly fabricated evidence in its case-in-chief, our analysis may have been different. For example, if the government had used Macias's identification against Ozuna, certainly a claim that his identification was manufactured or orchestrated by the government would be relevant. Similarly, the Rios sisters' testimony was proper in the first trial because Lumpkin had testified about the events after Ozuna's flight from prosecution. However, the government confined its case in this trial to the facts surrounding the search of his tractor-trailer. Ozuna has failed to connect any of his proffered evidence to the government's actions at that time or the agents involved in the search. Thus, the district court did not abuse its discretion in excluding the evidence.
During a suppression hearing on April 24, 2006, the district court questioned Agent Lumpkin about Ozuna's release. The purpose of this inquiry was to determine whether Aguilar, who had orchestrated the drug sale, would have been suspicious that Ozuna was cooperating with law enforcement because he was released after the cocaine was seized. Lumpkin stated that sometimes when trucks travel from Mexico to the United States, their drivers are unaware of what the warehouse had put into their trailers when loading produce. He further commented: A tractor-trailer holds 60 to 70,000 pounds, and in four small boxes of ... what they say could be limes, they have commingled in there 50 or 80 or a couple hundred kilos of coke; you may not know. I mean, through my training and experience of working on the border, sometimes theythese guys don't know. And they followed all the rules, they checked their produce and checked it out and they have got the lock on the back and they're doing their job and sometimes it's not working for them. Thus, Lumpkin noted, it would be reasonable for Aguilar to think that the agents had believed Ozuna when he said he didn't know the cocaine was in the truck. Ozuna sought to admit this testimony at his trial. The district court refused. The judge noted that the fact that a truck driver might not know about the presence of controlled substances is self-evident and that expert testimony was not needed. He also commented that the circumstances regarding the situation Lumpkin described and Ozuna's situation were different. Ozuna had no paperwork for the limes, so they had no legitimate destination; their only purpose was to conceal the cocaine. Ozuna claims that this was an obvious abuse of discretion because [t]he admission of this testimony would make Mr. Ozuna's claim that he did not know about the narcotics in the truck seem more likely to the jury. We disagree. The district court did not abuse its discretion in determining that Lumpkin's testimony was not helpful to the jury. Lumpkin was not addressing whether it was possible that Ozuna actually knew about the cocaine. Instead, the purpose of describing this scenario was to determine whether Aguilar would have suspected Ozuna's cooperation with law enforcement because he was released. He concluded that Aguilar may have believed Ozuna's story because sometimes truck drivers are unaware their trucks contain cocaine when they are legitimately transporting produce. Admitting this testimony would have allowed the jury to take Lumpkin's remarks out of context. It was therefore not an abuse of discretion to exclude them. Furthermore, even if this was an error, it was harmless. An error is harmless when it does not affect the outcome of the trial, in other words, where we are convinced that the jury would have convicted even absent the error. United States v. Ortiz, 474 F.3d 976, 982 (7th Cir.2007), cert. denied, ___ U.S. ___, 128 S.Ct. 51, 169 L.Ed.2d 44 (2007). This testimony was one hypothetical postulation about some truck drivers in scenarios factually different from Ozuna's. It had little probative value into Ozuna's specific circumstance. The jury was informed by Ozuna's arguments and common sense that some truck drivers could be unaware that their trucks contain cocaine. We are convinced that the jury would have convicted Ozuna even if it had been allowed to consider Lumpkin's testimony.