Court Opinion

ID: 9763495
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 02:47:07.217852+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:29:44.472619
License: Public Domain

MOORE, J.,
concurring in the result.
I agree that Ledesma’s statements to the police were properly admitted. He satisfied both the requirement that his waiver of his Miranda rights was made voluntarily in the sense that it was the product of a “free and deliberate choice rather than intimidation, coercion, or deception,” and made knowingly and intelligently “with a full awareness of both the nature of the right being abandoned and the consequences of the decision to abandon it.” See Moran v. Burbine, 475 U.S. 412, 421, 106 S.Ct. 1135, 89 L.Ed.2d 410 (1986) (“Only if the ‘totality of the circumstances surrounding the interrogation’ reveal both an uncoerced choice and the requisite level of comprehension may a court properly conclude that the Miranda rights have been waived.”) (citations omitted).
I also very reluctantly join in the affir-mance of this conviction even though I believe that the trial judge seriously erred by failing to restrain the overreaching of the prosecution. I would find that the trial judge abused his discretion in admitting prior bad acts of defendant for the express purpose of showing his propensity to commit the crimes for which he was charged, that is, the court allowed the jury to consider these uncharged crimes as direct evidence of Ledesma’s guilt of the three charged offenses. I believe the judge also abused his discretion in allowing the prosecutor to “sandbag” the defendant by withholding expert witness testimony under the guise that it was “rebuttal” evidence. The so-called expert testimony was clearly a part of the prosecution’s direct case. By allowing the government to put on the expert after Ledesma had put on all his evidence and rested his case, the trial court countenanced trial by ambush and permitted the government to circumvent the pretrial disclosure of expert testimony required by Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 16.11 I nevertheless am compelled to concur in the result because I do not believe these errors deprived the defendant of a fair trial in light of the other strong evidence of his guilt, namely, his confession and the corroborating testimony of the victim in support of the three charged offenses.

. “The practice and procedure of the Territorial Court shall be governed by the Rules of the Territorial Court and, to the extent not inconsistent therewith, by ... the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure and the Federal Rules of Evidence.” TERR. CT. R. 7.