Opinion ID: 222602
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Evidence of Penaloza's Connections to Gutierrez

Text: We review a district court's evidentiary rulings for abuse of discretion. Romanelli v. Suliene, 615 F.3d 847, 854 (7th Cir.2010). Penaloza first challenges the admission of evidence relating to the DEA's investigation of Gutierrez. The district court allowed the government to elicit this testimony to give the jury some context for Agent Elias's contacts with Penaloza. This evidence was not hearsay, as Penaloza contends; it was not offered for the truth of the matter asserted but rather for the purpose of explaining why the agent took the investigative steps that he did. See United States v. Mancillas, 580 F.2d 1301, 1309 (7th Cir.1978); see also, e.g., United States v. Powers, 500 F.3d 500, 508 (6th Cir.2007); United States v. Castellini, 392 F.3d 35, 52 (1st Cir.2004); United States v. Wilson, 107 F.3d 774, 781 (10th Cir.1997); United States v. Collins, 996 F.2d 950, 953 (8th Cir.1993). Had the government presented Penaloza's taped phone calls without first providing some background about the DEA investigation of Gutierrez, there would have been confusing and unexplained gaps in the story. How did Elias obtain Penaloza's phone number and why did he call it? Who was Elivardo and what was the significance of the reference to 70 kilograms of cocaine? Elias's limited testimony about his related prior dealings with Gutierrez gave the jury the contextual information necessary to understand the significance of these references in the taped phone conversations. Background information of this sort is not hearsay, but it may be inadmissible under Rule 403 of the Federal Rules of Evidence if the danger of unfair prejudice substantially outweighs its probative value. United States v. Bradshaw, 719 F.2d 907, 920 (7th Cir.1983) (citing Mancillas, 580 F.2d at 1310). Penaloza argues that admitting this background information in her trial was unfairly prejudicial because it cast her as part of an international narcotics conspiracy and went into more detail than necessary. Penaloza overstates the prejudicial effect of the background evidence actually admitted at trial. Agent Elias did not testify at length or in any significant detail about the Gutierrez investigation. This part of his testimony began with his negotiations with Gutierrez for the Spanish cocaine delivery and ended with his first call to Penaloza's phone number; it spans just over four pages of a 55-page direct-examination transcript. His testimony about Penaloza's involvement was limited to the facts of the charged cocaine transaction; he did not try to paint her as more broadly involved with Gutierrez than this singular transaction itself would suggest. The district court did not abuse its discretion in admitting this limited background information about the DEA's investigation of Gutierrez. Moreover, any error (if there was error) was harmless. See, e.g., United States v. Cooper, 591 F.3d 582, 590 (7th Cir.2010) (an error is harmful only if in the mind of an average juror the prosecution's case would have been significantly less persuasive had the improper evidence been excluded). Id. Here, the government introduced nine tape-recorded conversations against Penaloza that captured her conversations regarding whether her car was properly set up as a drug-courier vehicle. These conversation contained code wordskeys, family, and clavo for drugs and hidden compartments. When Penaloza met Elias in the parking lot, she asked him whether everything was well-packed and the appearance good and everything. There were surveillance photographs of this meeting. Penaloza permitted Elias to drive her car to another location to load the duffel bags. And upon his return, the recording captured a zipping sound, consistent with Elias's testimony that he showed Penaloza the packages of sham cocaine inside the bags. As if more were needed, Agent Brazao testified that Penaloza confessed to knowing that the bags contained drugs. In light of this overwhelming evidence, any error in admitting the limited background evidence of the Gutierrez investigation was harmless. Penaloza also suggests that the government's introduction of this background evidence circumvented the district court's rejection of the government's Santiago proffer. The district court held that the government could not admit statements that Gutierrez made to or about Penaloza under Rule 801(d)(2)(E) because the government had not proven by a preponderance of the evidence that Gutierrez and Penaloza were coconspirators. It is true that there was some overlap between the Santiago proffer and the government's summary of its anticipated background evidence about the Gutierrez investigation. But the district court distinguished between these categories of evidence; while rejecting the Santiago proffer and excluding admission of Gutierrez's statements, the court permitted Agent Elias to place some limited background information about the Gutierrez investigation before the jury. Thus, the government did not circumvent anything. Penaloza also objects to the admission of the statements she made to Gutierrez on the phone after she received the duffel bags from Elias. She argues that these statements could not be background evidence because they were made after her transaction with Elias. As such, she claims that they fell within the scope of the rejected Santiago proffer. Again, Penaloza misconstrues the district court's ruling. The court barred the admission of Gutierrez's statements under Rule 801(d)(2)(E), but explicitly reserved judgment on the possibility that some of the evidence pertaining to Gutierrez may, in whole or in part, be otherwise admissible. After Penaloza inspected the sham cocaine Elias had placed in her car, Elias handed her the phone, told her Elivardo was on the line, and asked her to [t]ell him I took good care of you so he won't bother me. Penaloza took the phone and said, Carlos was very proper, OK? He took care of me. He was very worried about me. These were her words, not Gutierrez's, and they were admissible as her own statements under Rule 801(d)(2)(A). Moreover, they were not offered to prove the truth of the matter assertedthat Carlos treated her wellbut rather to show that Penaloza understood him to be a narcotics transporter who wanted her to confirm to his boss he had completed the delivery smoothly. This was not an end-run around the court's rejection of the Santiago proffer. Finally, the admission of Penaloza's statements on the phone as the transaction was completed was not unfairly prejudicial under Rule 403. Penaloza contends that the jury might have been misled into believing that she was part of Gutierrez's narcotics network. Again, Gutierrez's side of the conversation was not admitted, and Penaloza's statements are ambiguous about how well she knew Gutierrez. The probative value of this brief phone conversation was to show that she complied with Elias's request to confirm that the delivery had been successfully completed. There was nothing unfairly prejudicial about the admission of this evidence.