Court Opinion

ID: 9472649
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 04:06:35.949253+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:43:03.524053
License: Public Domain

GARZA, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent. Under the evidence adduced by the government in this case, the defendants, Aurora Canales and Elia Garcia, could not possibly have been guilty of vote buying or conspiring or offering to buy votes in violation of 42 U.S.C. § 1973i(c) and 18 U.S.C. § 371.
Our inquiry as to why the defendants took Lillian Alaniz and her son Jose and daughter Nancy to vote absentee has to begin with whether or not the request for “Aurora” (Aurora Canales one of the defendants) to come take Lillian Alaniz to vote absentee came from Lillian Alaniz herself or not. The majority in their footnote 6 allude to the testimony of Adriana Hinojosa. Mrs. Hinojosa testified that she, at the time of the event, was a school teacher in the Harlingen, Texas Independent School District but that her permanent home was in San Diego, Texas. She had come home during the Easter holidays and was in San Diego on Good Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday and Tuesday of the Easter holidays, that she was staying at the home of her sister Mrs. Irma Uresti and had volunteered to work in the campaign of County Judge Gilberto Uresti. She testified that on the morning of April 13 she received a call from a woman that identified herself as Lillian Alaniz to have “Aurora” to take her to go vote. She produced a memorandum she had made of the call at the time. She assumed that “Aurora” referred to the defendant, Aurora Canales, as she was the only “Aurora” whom Adriana knew was working in the campaign. In footnote 6
the majority says Mrs. Alaniz did not recall speaking to her on the telephone the day she voted and that she also testified she did not remember calling anyone to be picked up to vote. It is true that many times she said she didn’t remember when it would have been so easy for her to say “I did not do it.” During her cross-examination, the following questions and answers were asked and given:
Q. Do you remember on the day that you voted, on that very same day, calling Irma Uresti’s home and say, “send somebody to pick me up and take me to vote”?
A. In the absentee?
Q. Yeah, in the absentee.
A. Maybe I did.
R. 201. Both defendants Aurora Canales and Elia Garcia testified that they received the information about the call that Lillian Alaniz made. Under the testimony I cannot perceive of any reasonable juror not concluding that Mrs. Alaniz did initiate the request for the defendants to come to take her to vote and that that was the reason that the defendants went to the home of Lillian Alaniz.
Our next inquiry should be as to what transpired when the defendants arrived at the home of Mrs. Alaniz pursuant to her request. Mrs. Alaniz testified that she asked the defendants if they were giving any money and they told her that they were not. I believe it is very clear from the testimony of Mrs. Lillian Alaniz and the two defendants that both defendants told Lillian Alaniz that they were not paying for any votes. The only two witnesses who testified differently were her son Jose and her daughter Nancy, whose testimony in this regard is quoted in the majority opinion. They both essentially testified that they were offered money for their votes. Judge Kazen himself did not believe their testimony because he granted motions of acquittal as to substantive counts charging the defendants with paying or offering to pay Jose and Nancy Alaniz money for their votes. Mrs. Alaniz testified that after the *436defendants said they were not paying for votes she told them that she needed $30 to make a payment and that the defendants said they would try and help her out but that they would have to check with Gilbert Uresti first. Another daughter of Mrs. Alaniz, Betty Briones, who was present, testified that after her mother said she needed $30 for a payment, Mrs. Canales said that she had to talk to Mr. Uresti about that but she wouldn’t promise anything. R. 340.
It is amply clear that after the conversation at the Alaniz home that Mrs. Alaniz, her daughter Nancy, and son Jose went to vote absentee. That they did not receive any money before they voted is clear and beyond any doubt.
Our next inquiry should be as to whether or not the $30 check from the Uresti campaign fund, which showed that it was for campaign work, was payment for any offer to pay for their votes before they voted absentee, or whether it was money paid by campaign funds for campaign work as the check stub showed.
At the time of the direct examination by the prosecutor of Lillian Alaniz, she was asked:
Q. Were you paid $30 in exchange for your vote?
A. Yes, sir.
R. 240. I have no idea why defense counsel did not object to this question since it was the ultimate issue before the jury. The question for them to decide was whether she was paid for her vote or for working in the campaign. The court below should have seen this and should not have allowed the question or the answer to be before the jury. The record shows on many other occasions the court intervened so as to not allow improper questions to be asked by both the prosecution and the defense and why nothing was done by anyone with regards to the above question and answer is beyond me.
Our next inquiry should be whether there was any basis for the check of $30 given out of the Uresti campaign fund having been given for campaign work as alleged by the check stub or in payment for voting.
Mrs. Alaniz testified that she did call for Uresti campaign material. The evidence is unclear as to whether she called the day she voted or the day after. The record shows that it was either the day she voted or the day after she voted that Mrs. Alaniz called for the campaign material. The campaign material was delivered to her by Teresa Briones and it had to be before the $30 check was delivered to Mrs. Alaniz by whomever it was delivered. Mrs. Lillian Alaniz said that the check was delivered to her by Aurora Canales. On cross-examination of Mrs. Lillian Alaniz the following questions and answers were brought out:
Q. No other money was given to you except that $30 check?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. After Ms Canales left, did Teresa Briones or Santos Garza ever come back to see you?
A. No.
R. 229. This testimony shows that she had already received the campaign material she had requested before the $30 check for campaign work was delivered to her.
The majority opinion makes a big to-do about whether working on the campaign was discussed by the two defendants and the Alanizes before they went to vote, as the two defendants testified. The majority says that none of the Alanizes testified that they discussed campaign work before they went to vote absentee. Jose Alaniz, on cross-examination, testified:
A. Yes, well, my mom called a friend of hers and she told her if she could give her some posters and some stickers to hand out.
Q. Did you agree to hand out some of these stickers and posters?
A. No. We just threw them away.
Q. Did anybody ask you to give these posters out in the neighborhood?
A. Yes. they told us to give them away to our friends in the neighborhood or any place.
Q. Who told you that?
*437A. I can’t remember the ones who brought the posters.
Q. And you agreed to pass them out in the neighborhood?
A. Yes, but I didn’t pass them.
Q. But you told them that you were going to pass them?
A. Yes.
Q. And why did you not pass them.
A. Because my father told me that if I would pass them out that I would get in trouble.
Q. And what did you do with the material?
A. Well, we just put it away. Then we gave away some ... about only two posters and stickers.
Q. All right. And who did you give away — stickers or sticks?
The Court: Stickers.
A. (Witness resuming) Stickers.
Q. All right. And who gave away those posters?
A. I gave it away to a friend of mine.
Q. Now, was this during the day, or close to the day that you went to vote?
A. It wasn’t that same day. I think it was the other day, after we voted absentee.
Q. After you voted absentee somebody came over and left the material?
A. Well, my mother called them if they could bring some posters and some stickers.
R. 292-293. I think the evidence is clear that when Lillian Alaniz said she needed $30 for a payment the two defendants in this ease said they were going to try to help her out but would not promise anything. They testified that they went to the campaign headquarters and told the people there about their conversation with Lillian Alaniz, that she needed $30 and that she was willing to work in the campaign. There is no question that Lillian Alaniz called for campaign material and the only reason that it was not distributed around the housing project where they live was that Lillian Alaniz’s husband did not want them to do so. The evidence is consistent with what the defendants testified that they had discussed and the testimony of why a $30 check for campaign work was issued from Uresti campaign funds.
When you hire people to work in your campaign you expect them to vote for your candidate.
In this day of political action committees spending money in all directions trying to get their candidates elected, I am afraid that the statute involved in this case could be used in accusing people who put out campaign funds for paying for the votes of those they hire.
In this case, the government testified that the Department of Justice has a policy of not prosecuting those that sell their votes for pay even though the statute makes such action a crime.
At oral argument in this case, I expressed my concerns to the counsel for the government of my fears that those who expend campaign funds might be accused of buying votes just because they hire someone to work in the campaign. I told the Department of Justice attorneys that I would send anyone to the penitentiary whom they showed me had paid money for a person to go vote for their candidate, but that under the facts of this case I did not believe that the government had proved that these two defendants paid or offered to pay anyone for their vote. I still believe that the record fails to prove the facts necessary to convict these two defendants and I would reverse this case and order the entry of a verdict of acquittal. If the Government can have a policy that they will not prosecute those receiving pay for their votes, they should have a policy not to prosecute when campaign funds are used to hire campaign workers.