Opinion ID: 2994289
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Admission at Trial of Nwafor’s INS

Text: File Dikeocha objects to the admission at trial of a document from Vincent Nwafor’s INS file. The document contained a statement from Vincent Nwafor reciting that he had a brother named Geoffrey Nwafor; Dikeocha had told the INS that he had a cousin by the same name. Thus, Dikeocha argues that if the jury believed that Vincent Nwafor had a brother named Geoffrey Nwafor, and the defendant had a cousin named Geoffrey Nwafor, then Vincent and Dikeocha were in all probability cousins (unless there were two separate individuals with the same rather unusual name of Geoffrey Nwafor, both with relatives who sought entry into the United States from Nigeria). Dikeocha claims that the document from the INS file is inadmissible hearsay and also is unduly prejudicial because it served to establish his identity as Ebeny and his link to Vincent Nwafor for the jury. He argues that there was evidence offered at trial that one of the individuals who had sold drugs to Sergeant Evans was a cousin of Nwafor’s and that the INS record tended to establish that he in fact was Vincent’s cousin. In short, Dikeocha argues that the document from Vincent Nwafor’s INS file was essential to establish that the Ebeny who had sold drugs to Sgt. Evans was, indeed, Ebenezer Dikeocha. As we stated in United States v. Aldaco, 201 F.3d 979, 984 (7th Cir. 2000) (internal quotations and citations omitted): We review a district court’s decision to admit evidence for an abuse of discretion, affording great deference to the trial court’s determination of the admissibility of evidence because of the trial judge’s first-hand exposure to the witnesses and the evidence as a whole, and because of the judge’s familiarity with the case and ability to gauge the impact of the evidence in the context of the entire proceeding. However, even if the admission of the information from Nwafor’s INS file was an abuse of discretion, this court would not reverse if the admission of the evidence was harmless error. See United States v. Hardin, 209 F.3d 652, 664 (7th Cir. 2000) (citation omitted). Evidentiary errors are deemed harmless, and thus not grounds for reversing a jury’s verdict, unless they had ’a substantial and injurious effect or influence on the jury’s verdict.’ United States v. Jarrett, 133 F.3d 519, 529 (7th Cir. 1998) (citations omitted). We are of the opinion that the reception in evidence of Vincent Nwafor’s INS file linking him to the defendant through the common relative Geoffrey Nwafor did not have a substantial or injurious effect on the jury’s ultimate decision that the Ebenezer Dikeocha who was on trial was the same person as Ebeny who had sold drugs to the undercover Sergeant, Regina Evans. A review of the record clearly reveals that there was substantial other evidence demonstrating that the defendant was, in fact, Ebeny. First and foremost, Sergeant Regina Evans, who had previously participated in an undercover face-to-face heroin transaction with Ebeny, made an in-court identification of Ebenezer Dikeocha as the same man from whom she had bought heroin in a parking lot on March 23, 1990. Sergeant Evans testified that the drug transaction with Ebeny was extremely memorable because it was the largest drug buy of her career, some $10,000 worth of heroin. This in-court identification from the officer alone would provide sufficient grounds for a jury to conclude that the defendant, Ebenezer Dikeocha, was Ebeny, but the record reflects that there was a wealth of additional evidence in support of this conclusion: 1) Ebeny acknowledged in a tape-recorded conversa tion with Sergeant Evans in March of 1990 that he was Vincent Nwafor’s cousin, and Ebenezer Dikeocha’s INS application listed an individual with the same unusual surname, Nwafor, as being his cousin; 2) the drug dealer who sold Sergeant Evans heroin in 1990 used the name Ebeny, and the government offered testimony from an INS agent that the defendant told the INS in 1997 that his name was Ebeny Dikeocha; 3) boxes seized during the search of Sumpter’s baggage in 1990 at O’Hare airport were labeled Ebenezer Dikeocha, Ebeny, and Ebenezer Dikeocha Ahijo; and 4) the cell phone used in some of the drug transactions with Sergeant Evans in 1990 was registered to an individual residing at Ebenezer Dikeocha’s home address. Thus even without the information contained in Vincent Nwafor’s INS file, the record reflects that there was more than sufficient evidence from which a reasonable jury could have concluded that the defendant Ebenezer Dikeocha was one- in-the-same as Ebeny, the heroin dealer. Therefore, even assuming that the trial judge’s decision to admit Nwafor’s INS document was improper, we hold that it was harmless error.