Opinion ID: 780418
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Videotaped Mitigating Evidence

Text: 161 Finally, Mr. Sinisterra argues that the District Court erred in its handling of videotaped testimony of his family members that he presented as mitigating evidence in the penalty phase. Specifically, Mr. Sinisterra alleges that the limiting instruction that the Court gave to the jury before it heard the video evidence was improper. He also argues that his Eighth Amendment right to have the jury consider all relevant mitigating evidence was violated because the United States did not issue visas for his family members to travel from Colombia to testify on his behalf, and that because of this alleged violation he was entitled to a directed verdict for life imprisonment at the close of the penalty phase. We reject these arguments. 162 Before defense counsel presented the videotape testimony, the Court instructed the jury that the defendant had attempted to secure the presence of the videotaped witnesses but could not do so, that the government had not been given the tapes until April 28th (the tapes were introduced on May 1st), and that the jury could consider the government's inability to cross-examine the witnesses in deciding what weight, if any, to give to the videotaped interviews. Tr. 2713. This instruction was permissible. The government was entitled to cross-examine defendant's witnesses, and its inability to do so with videotape testimony is a factor going to the evidence's reliability. Our independent reading of the instruction does not persuade us that the District Court's instruction placed blame on defendants or their counsel for the limits of the videotape evidence. Instead, we believe that the Court was correctly explaining to the jury the circumstances and limitations of this evidence so that they could exercise discretion in weighing the evidence. There was no abuse of discretion in the District Court's handling of this matter. 163 The United States government did not issue visas to Mr. Sinisterra's relatives or grant them humanitarian parole to enter this country to testify as witnesses on his behalf. No party to this lawsuit explains why permission to enter the country was denied. It is not contended that the government was acting to obstruct the defendants' case, or that the relatives were eligible by law for visas. Tr. 2670. Regardless of the reason for the denials, defendants cannot show that prejudice resulted from their inability to introduce live testimony by their family members. The videotaped testimony of family members, while perhaps not so effective in some ways as live testimony, was sufficient to allow Mr. Sinisterra to inform the jury of his family background. The video testimony also had certain advantages over live testimony; defendants were able to edit the tapes, and the tapes showed visually the poverty of defendants' village and family background. Therefore, Mr. Sinisterra's Eighth Amendment right was not abridged by his having to use video testimony, and he was not entitled to a directed verdict of life imprisonment on this matter.