United States v. Rodríguez-Santos
| Decision Date | 29 December 2022 |
| Docket Number | 20-1035 |
| Parties | UNITED STATES of America, Appellee, v. Jorge L. RODRÍGUEZ-SANTOS, Defendant, Appellant. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — First Circuit |
Jose R. Gaztambide-Añeses for appellant.
Jonathan L. Gottfried, Assistant United States Attorney, with whom W. Stephen Muldrow, United States Attorney, Mariana E. Bauzá-Almonte, Assistant United States Attorney, Chief, Appellate Division, and Robert P. Coleman III, Assistant United States Attorney, were on brief, for appellee.
Before Gelpí, Lipez, and Thompson, Circuit Judges.
Jorge Rodríguez-Santos was convicted of aiding and abetting (1) a carjacking resulting in death (Count One), (2) kidnapping resulting in death (Count Two), and (3) the use of a gun during a crime of violence resulting in murder (Count Three). He appeals his conviction, arguing that the evidence was insufficient on all counts and that the district court erred by failing to provide a duress instruction to the jury. He also contends that his conviction for aiding and abetting the use of a gun during a crime of violence must be vacated in light of the Supreme Court's decision in United States v. Davis, ––– U.S. ––––, 139 S. Ct. 2319, 204 L.Ed.2d 757 (2019). Finally, he challenges two aspects of his sentence. We affirm.
Because this appeal concerns, in large part, a sufficiency of the evidence challenge, "we recount the facts in the light most favorable to the verdict."
United States v. Paz-Alvarez, 799 F.3d 12, 18 (1st Cir. 2015). They are shocking.
At approximately 5:00 PM on October 10, 2015, Maria Luisa Mayol-Rivera, driving a white Mitsubishi Lancer, pulled up outside the home of Melissa Cartagena-Vives and Ricardo Pagan-Rodríguez in Ponce, Puerto Rico. Cartagena-Vives and Pagan-Rodriguez were working on a car when Mayol-Rivera arrived. When she approached the car, Cartagena-Vives saw that Mayol-Rivera was upset, her mouth was split, her face was covered in blood, and she was drunk.
Seeing Mayol-Rivera's distress, Cartagena-Vives offered to call the police, but Mayol-Rivera declined. Instead, as Cartagena-Vives described, Mayol-Rivera requested "help to catch the guys [who had] taken her phone from her and ... beat her up." Enidza Marie Rodriguez-Figueroa, another witness who had been outside with Cartagena-Vives, testified that Mayol-Rivera was scared and had stated that the "guys" -- presumably those who had beaten her -- "were going to burn her inside the vehicle."
After attempting to aid Mayol-Rivera for several minutes, Cartagena-Vives received a call on her cell phone. She recognized the voice of Luis Miguel Jiminez-Medina ("Luis Miguel"), whom she also saw standing on a nearby hill, holding a weapon.1 Luis Miguel threatened her and warned her to get Mayol-Rivera out of the area because she was a federal agent. After Cartagena-Vives hung up, she saw him fire a single shot -- at what target is unclear -- before leaving the hill.
Not long after, a blue Dodge truck arrived outside of Cartagena-Vives's home carrying three men: Luis Miguel, Tito Bodon, and Rodríguez-Santos, the defendant. Bodon was driving, Rodríguez-Santos was in the front passenger seat, and Luis Miguel was seated in the back. Rodríguez-Santos ordered Luis Miguel to "[g]et out and move" when they arrived. Luis Miguel and Rodríguez-Santos then got out of the truck. Mayol-Rivera started screaming that these were the men who had beaten her and threw a bottle of liquor at their truck. Rodríguez-Santos approached Mayol-Rivera, who was standing by her car, grabbed her, and dragged her toward her car by her hair, pulling so hard that he "moved her face back." He then hit her, slammed her face against her car mirror, and ordered her to get in the car. She was screaming at him to let go of her. He then gave her to Luis Miguel, urging him to "move it" and get into the backseat with Mayol-Rivera. Luis Miguel then also hit her, "grabbed hold of her[,] and put her inside her car in the back." After getting Mayol-Rivera into the back seat, Luis Miguel got into her car with a tank of gasoline. Both vehicles then left the scene -- Rodríguez-Santos drove Mayol-Rivera's car away, with Luis Miguel and Mayol-Rivera in the back seat.
That evening, at approximately 10:00 PM, the Puerto Rico Police Department received an anonymous call reporting a person and a vehicle on fire in Rio Chiquito. A homicide investigator went to the scene and discovered a burned Mitsubishi Lancer and, across the road, a burned body. From the vehicle's license plate number, the police were able to trace the car to Adriana Pou-Porrata. Pou-Porrata explained that she had lent the car to Mayol-Rivera, who had been staying at her house. A forensic dental examination later confirmed that the body found on the side of the road was Mayol-Rivera.
Investigators found gasoline on Mayol-Rivera's clothing, five 9mm bullet casings under her body, and nine .40-caliber bullet casings in an area nearby. The autopsy confirmed that Mayol-Rivera died as the result of three gunshots to the head, which occurred before her body was burned. She also appeared to have sustained a gunshot to her left arm, and also exhibited first, second, third, and fourth-degree burns covering her entire body.
The morning after Mayol-Rivera's murder, Rodríguez-Santos dropped off his truck with a local mechanic, Antonio Rosado-Colón. He asked Rosado-Colón to fix a hole in the door of his truck and told him the hole had been caused by rebar, a steel rod. Rodríguez-Santos returned that afternoon to pay for the repairs and pick up the truck.
The police subsequently used security camera footage and Google maps to trace the route of Mayol-Rivera's car, the Mitsubishi Lancer, to the crime scene. They identified a blue Dodge truck driving with the Lancer to the scene and traced the truck to Rodríguez-Santos. Security footage also showed the blue Dodge truck returning along the same road twenty minutes later, without the Lancer. Investigators went to Rodríguez-Santos's home, where he allowed them to take his truck for analysis. That analysis revealed a perforation caused by a bullet in one of the door panels.
A federal grand jury indicted Rodríguez-Santos on three counts: aiding and abetting a carjacking resulting in death, 18 U.S.C. § 2119, aiding and abetting a kidnapping resulting in death, 18 U.S.C. § 1201(a)(1), and aiding and abetting the use of a firearm during a crime of violence resulting in murder, 18 U.S.C. § 924(c)(1)(a), (j)(1).
At the five-day trial, Rodríguez-Santos testified that he participated in the events leading to Mayol-Rivera's murder only under duress. Specifically, he offered the following account. On the evening of October 10th, he was getting into his truck in the La Coqui ward after buying a drink when he was accosted by Tito Bodon and a masked man (whom he later identified as Luis Miguel). The men took control of Rodríguez-Santos's truck at gunpoint. A third man, identified only as "Chewi," approached the truck and entered on the passenger side. The three men then put a bag over Rodríguez-Santos's head and drove away with his truck, with him as a passenger.
When the truck eventually stopped, Luis Miguel got out, grabbed Mayol-Rivera, and put her in a car (ostensibly her Mitsubishi Lancer). Both vehicles then drove away but stopped again when Chewi got out to retrieve a red gas tank from a different vehicle before they continued on. Finally, the vehicles stopped and Bodon ordered Rodríguez-Santos to get out and kneel on the truck's running board. Rodríguez-Santos saw the men pour gasoline over the white car and set it on fire. Bodon shot Mayol-Rivera, and Chewi poured gasoline on her body. However, the men decided not to kill Rodríguez-Santos. Instead, they drove him back to the La Coqui ward in his truck. Before getting out of his truck, the men told Rodríguez-Santos they would kill him if he ratted them out and also threatened his mother. The next morning, Bodon and Luis Miguel showed up outside Rodríguez-Santos's home and took him to get the bullet hole in his truck repaired.
The jury did not credit Rodríguez-Santos's story, and he was convicted on all counts. Defense counsel filed a Rule 29 motion, arguing that the evidence was insufficient on each count, which the district court denied. The district court then sentenced Rodríguez-Santos to concurrent terms of life imprisonment for the aiding and abetting in carjacking and kidnapping counts, and a life sentence for the firearm count, to be served consecutively to the other terms.2 The district court also applied a sentencing enhancement for obstruction of justice because "Mr. Rodríguez deliberately gave false testimony during trial." This appeal followed.
Rodríguez-Santos argues that the evidence presented at trial was insufficient to warrant a conviction on any count. Because his appeal follows a guilty verdict, we "assess preserved sufficiency claims de novo ... reviewing the evidence, and making all inferences and credibility choices, in the government's favor -- reversing only if the defendant shows that no rational factfinder could have found him guilty." United States v. Rodríguez-Torres, 939 F.3d 16, 23 (1st Cir. 2019).
Count One charged Rodríguez-Santos with aiding and abetting a carjacking resulting in death in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2119. The elements of this offense are the "(1) taking or attempted taking from the person or presence of another; (2) a motor vehicle transported, shipped, or received in interstate or foreign commerce; (3) through the use of force, violence, or by intimidation; (4) with the intent to cause death or serious bodily harm; (5) that results in death." United States v. Castro-Davis, 612 F.3d 53, 61 (1st Cir. 2010).
Rodríguez-Santos primarily focuses his argument on the intent element, arguing that the record does not support a finding that he had the intent to seriously injure or kill Mayol-Rivera when aiding the...
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