Court Opinion

ID: 9480460
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 07:48:41.73773+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:47:42.337523
License: Public Domain

BRIGHT, Senior Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
Hector Enrique Reyes-Vasquez appeals his conviction and ten-year prison sentence for possession of cocaine with the intent to distribute, arguing that he is entitled to a new trial because the trial court improperly excluded testimony demonstrating that he lacked the intent to distribute cocaine. The majority holds that Reyes-Vasquez’s failure to raise this issue before the trial court bars appellate review. The record demonstrates, however, that Reyes-Vasquez raised the issue before the trial court, both actually as well as inferentially. Accordingly, no bar should exist to appellate review of this issue. In any event, the trial court’s erroneous ruling in effect prevented Reyes-Vasquez from presenting his only defense, and we can review the trial court’s ruling as plain error.
The district court granted the Government’s pretrial motion to prohibit Reyes-Vasquez from testifying about his role in an alleged CIA operation designed to catch Colombian terrorists. The court ruled that under U.S. v. Rosenthal, 793 F.2d 1214 (11th Cir.), modified on other grounds, 801 F.2d 378 (11th Cir.1986), cert. denied, 480 U.S. 919, 107 S.Ct. 1377, 94 L.Ed.2d 692 (1987), Reyes-Vasquez’s mistaken belief that the CIA authorized him to deal in cocaine did not present a legally cognizable defense. On appeal Reyes-Vasquez raises a separate issue. He contends that his testimony should have been admitted for an entirely different purpose — to demonstrate that he did not intend to distribute the cocaine, but instead intended only to use it to lure Colombian terrorists into his home as part of a CIA operation. According to the majority, Reyes-Vasquez did not raise this argument below and the trial court did not prohibit testimony to this effect. A review of the record demonstrates otherwise.
The Government’s motion in limine to preclude any reference to the CIA brought the trial court’s attention to the issue of *1502lack of specific intent. In its motion the Government stated: “It is important to note that the defendant is not contending ... that he did not have the intent to distribute the controlled substance as charged in the indictment.” Motion In Li-mine at 3. This statement strongly suggests that the Government recognized that Reyes-Vasquez’s version of the facts supported a lack of specific intent defense. Reyes-Vasquez responded that “[c]on-trary to page 3 of the Government’s motion, the issue of the accused’s lack of criminal intent to distribute the controlled substance as charged in the indictment is the sole issue of the accused’s trial de-fense_” Notice of Supplemental Authorities Regarding Opposition to Government’s Motion In Limine at 1 (emphasis in original).
In addition to these specific references to the lack of specific intent, defense counsel raised the issue inferentially. In a long rambling statement at a pretrial hearing, defense counsel indicated that Reyes-Vasquez sought to testify that at the time of his arrest CIA agents stationed outside his house were about to enter and apprehend Amato, Portel and Correa, who were suspected as Colombian terrorists, but that the agents abandoned the operation when they realized that a DEA operation was in progress.1 Transcript, Vol. 1, at 3-17, 34-43. While defense counsel primarily discussed Reyes-Vasquez’s mistaken belief that he had been authorized by the CIA to engage in this undercover operation, the obvious import of the alleged factual scenario was that Reyes-Vasquez could not have intended to distribute the cocaine if the CIA was supposed to break up the transaction before the buyer (Amato) walked away with the cocaine. Indeed, as noted above, the record suggests that the Government recognized that a lack of specific intent defense could apply to this set of facts. Moreover, defense counsel’s response to the court’s ruling demonstrates that he understood the ruling to be a flat prohibition on testimony concerning the alleged CIA operation: “I have no defense now, given Your Honor’s rulings.”2 Transcript, Vol. 1, at 46.
While Reyes-Vasquez’s testimony was not relevant as it related to a defense of mistaken belief of official authorization, Reyes-Vasquez was nevertheless entitled to testify to facts which, if believed, would have negated the existence of the specific intent to distribute cocaine. See United States v. Juan, 776 F.2d 256, 258 (11th Cir.1985). However unlikely Reyes-Vasquez’s proffered testimony may seem, it was emphatically the province of the jury, not the trial court or the appellate court, to decide whether to believe Reyes-Vasquez.
The majority’s opinion harks back to the olden days of the law in this country, as reflected in musty and now unopened volumes of appellate reports, where the litigant would lose on appeal, no matter the justice of the claim, simply because the lawyer failed to dot every “i” and cross every “t.” Federal courts are busy tribunals, but not so busy that in the absence of a razor-sharp, specific objection the defendant will lose his otherwise valid appeal. It seems to me that Reyes-Vasquez’s counsel painted with a sufficiently broad brush to notify the Government and the trial court that Reyes-Vasquez’s testimony would support a defense of lack of specific intent to distribute the cocaine.
Even assuming arguendo that Reyes-Vasquez did not raise the lack of intent defense at trial, this court should review the trial court’s ruling for plain error. Fed.R.Crim.P. 52(b). “Plain error is error which, when examined in the context of the entire case, is so obvious that failure to *1503notice it would seriously affect the fairness, integrity, and public reputation of the judicial proceedings.” United States v. Butler, 792 F.2d 1528, 1535 (11th Cir.) (citing United States v. Russell, 703 F.2d 1243, 1248 (11th Cir.1983)), cert. denied, 479 U.S. 933, 107 S.Ct. 407, 93 L.Ed.2d 359 (1986). It is hornbook law that a “mistake of fact or law is a defense when it negatives the existence of a mental state essential to the crime charged.” W. LaFave & A. Scott, Jr., 1 Substantive Criminal Law § 5.1, at 575 (1986) (footnote omitted). On these facts, the trial court should have recognized that Reyes-Vasquez’s defense raised lack of the specific intent to distribute the cocaine.
Needless to say, the trial court’s failure to recognize an obvious and essential legal defense in a one-issue case goes directly to the fairness and integrity of the proceedings. This court should review the merits of the appeal and correct the trial court’s error. Otherwise, Reyes-Vasquez goes to jail under a ten-year sentence after a one-sided trial where the judge barred him from exercising his fundamental and constitutional right to testify on his own behalf.
I dissent.

. The trial court accepted this statement of facts as an offer of proof. Transcript, Vol. 1, at 17; Vol. 2, at 73-74.

. Counsel’s understanding of the ruling was reasonable, given that the Government’s motion in limine sought
to preclude the defendant from presenting or eliciting any testimony or evidence at trial in support of his claim of association with the Central Intelligence Agency or that in engaging in the activity for which he has been indicted he acted with the authorization of, or at the behest or direction of the CIA or any person employed by or action [sic] for the Central Intelligence Agency, in that such evidence is immaterial, irrelevant, and fails to constitute a legally cognizable defense.
Motion In Limine at 4.