U.S. v. Rivera-Gomez

• Decision Date: 13 September 1995
• Docket Number: RIVERA-GOME,D,No. 95-1094,95-1094
• Citation: 67 F.3d 993
• Parties: 43 Fed. R. Evid. Serv. 38 UNITED STATES of America, Appellee, v. Luis Raulefendant, Appellant. . Heard
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — First Circuit

Page 993

67 F.3d 993

43 Fed. R. Evid. Serv. 38

UNITED STATES of America, Appellee, v. Luis Raul RIVERA-GOMEZ, Defendant, Appellant.

No. 95-1094.

United States Court of Appeals, First Circuit.

Heard Sept. 13, 1995.

Decided Oct. 12, 1995.

Carlos A. Vazquez-Alvarez, Assistant Federal Public Defender, with whom Benicio Sanchez Rivera, Federal Public Defender, was on brief, for appellant.

Jose A. Quiles-Espinosa, Senior Litigation Counsel, with whom Guillermo Gil, United States Attorney, and Edwin O. Vazquez, Assistant United States Attorney, were on brief, for the United States.

Before SELYA and STAHL, Circuit Judges, and GORTON, ^* District Judge.

SELYA, Circuit Judge.

A jury convicted defendant-appellant Luis Raul Rivera-Gomez on three counts of carjacking, 18 U.S.C. Sec. 2119, and three counts of aiding and abetting the use and carriage of firearms during and in relation to a crime of violence, 18 U.S.C. Secs. 2(a), 924(c). In terms of prison time, the trial judge imposed concurrent 180-month incarcerative sentences for the first two carjacking counts, a sentence of life imprisonment for the third carjacking, and concurrent sentences of five years, to run consecutively to the other sentences, for the firearms counts. This appeal challenges an evidentiary ruling, a case management ruling, and the constitutionality of the life sentence.

I. BACKGROUND

The evidence adduced at trial involved three separate carjacking incidents. We sketch the facts as the jury warrantably could have found them, resolving all evidentiary conflicts in the government's favor and adopting all reasonable inferences therefrom that support the verdict.

The first carjacking occurred on December 3, 1993. The victim, Cesar Correa Rivera (Correa), had driven a friend home. While they were parked outside her abode, a vehicle nudged Correa's car. Not knowing the vehicle or trusting its occupants, Correa tried to flee. After a brief chase, the rogue vehicle blocked Correa's path and two armed men alighted. One of the men, later identified as Jose Roman Hernandez (Roman), struck Correa on the head twice with his revolver and ordered him to relinquish his valuables. Meanwhile, the second man, later identified as Rivera-Gomez, threatened Correa's companion with a gun. Appellant eventually ordered the victims to kneel and stare at the ground. Roman then departed in the carjackers' original vehicle, leaving appellant to drive Correa's automobile.

Four days later, the same two marauders assaulted an elderly retired couple, Rufino Garcia Maldonado (Garcia) and his wife, Clara. The assault occurred when Clara left the couple's car to open the gate leading into their driveway. One man threatened her with a weapon and forced her to the ground, while the second man pointed a gun at Garcia's head, ordered him out of the car (a red Suzuki), and relieved him of his wallet. The robber then struck Garcia on the head, and he and his comrade drove off in the Suzuki.

A short time later, the Garcias' Suzuki, with appellant at the wheel, pulled alongside a Mazda RX-7 operated by Reynaldo Luciano Rivera (Luciano). Roman, then a passenger in the Suzuki, pointed a gun at Luciano and ordered him to freeze. Instead of submitting to this minatory demand, Luciano stepped on the accelerator. At the same time, his companion, Dalia Hidalgo Garcia (Hidalgo), leapt to the ground. The predators fired in the direction of the escaping car, and, when it stopped, Roman shot Luciano in the head at point-blank range. Apparently realizing that they had killed the young man, Roman and Rivera-Gomez fled the scene without expropriating the Mazda.

Soon thereafter, a homicide detective spotted a red Suzuki in the vicinity and, having received a report of the latest incident, circled to pursue it. After a Hollywood-style chase involving several police vehicles, the Suzuki crashed. Appellant exited through the driver's door, and Roman exited from the passenger's side. The authorities quickly apprehended them.

On January 5, 1994, a federal grand jury charged the two men with three counts of carjacking and three counts of aiding and abetting each other in the use of firearms during and in relation to crimes of violence. Count 3 of the indictment featured an allegation concerning Luciano's death. Though Roman entered a plea, appellant maintained his innocence. Following a three-day trial, a jury found appellant guilty on all six counts. This appeal ensued.

II. DISCUSSION

Appellant advances three assignments of error. First, he maintains that the district court erred in admitting evidence of Luciano's death. Second, he argues that the court should have declared a mistrial when a prosecution witness stated in the jury's presence that Roman had pleaded guilty. Finally, he suggests that his life sentence punishes him for an offense with which he was never charged (Luciano's murder), and, thus, transgresses the Constitution. We address these reputed errors sequentially.

A. Admission of Evidence of Victim's Death.

Appellant, who unsuccessfully moved in limine to forestall the prosecution from showing that Luciano was killed in the course of the third incident, asseverates that the victim's death was irrelevant to the question of guilt on the charge of attempted carjacking, and that no evidence concerning the death should have been admitted. Our study of this asseveration begins with the language of the carjacking statute, which provided on the date of appellant's offense:

Whoever, possessing a firearm ... takes a motor vehicle that has been transported, shipped, or received in interstate or foreign commerce from the person or presence of another by force and violence or by intimidation, or attempts to do so, shall -

(1) be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 15 years, or both,

(2) if serious bodily injury ... results, be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 25 years, or both, and

(3) if death results, be fined under this title or imprisoned for any number of years up to life, or both.

18 U.S.C. Sec. 2119 (Supp. V 1993).

Appellant asserts that the district court mistakenly thought that the victim's death constituted an element of the offense, and allowed the evidence on that basis. This was error, he maintains, because subsection (3), the "death results" provision, is not an element of the offense, but, rather, is simply a sentencing enhancement mechanism. Thus, he concludes, the victim's death had no bearing upon the determination of guilt for the underlying offense, and should not have been brought to the jury's attention.

As an inauguratory matter, we disavow appellant's assertion that the district court held the "death results" provision to be a separate element of the offense of carjacking. As we parse the version of the statute under which Rivera-Gomez was convicted, the crime of carjacking had four elements, viz., (1) taking (or attempting to take) from the person or presence of another, (2) by force, violence, or intimidation, (3) a motor vehicle previously transported, shipped, or received in interstate or foreign commerce, (4) while using or carrying a firearm. ¹ See United States v. Johnson, 32 F.3d 82, 85 (4th Cir.), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 115 S.Ct. 650, 130 L.Ed.2d 554 (1994); United States v. Harris, 25 F.3d 1275, 1279 (5th Cir.) cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 115 S.Ct. 458, 130 L.Ed.2d 366 (1994); United States v. Singleton, 16 F.3d 1419, 1422 (5th Cir.1994).

The district court appears to have understood this structure, and the record suggests that the court did not consider the death of a victim to be a further (independent) element of the carjacking offense. Judge Laffitte stated at the pretrial hearing on the motion in limine that the death of the victim was an offense element "not as such," but only as "part and parcel" of the "force and violence" element of the carjacking charge. In the same vein, the judge's jury instructions outlined the four essential elements of carjacking described above, saying nothing about "death results" as an independent element applicable to count 3.

In our view, then, the court's admission of the evidence derived not from a misapprehension that the death constituted an independent offense element, but, rather, from a belief that evidence of Luciano's death helped to prove the essential "force and violence" element. The question that remains is whether the court blundered in allowing the government to present the challenged evidence as a means of proving that the carjackers employed force and violence in carrying out the third incident. We think not.

It is difficult to conceive of a situation in which the death of a victim will not be relevant to the use of force and violence during the commission of an attempted carjacking. See Fed.R.Evid. 401 (defining "relevant evidence"); United States v. Rodriguez 871 F.Supp. 545, 549 (D.P.R.1994) (approving admission of evidence of "the victim's death as well as the manner and means by which it was accomplished" as relevant and "highly persuasive" of "force and violence" in a carjacking prosecution). This case is certainly not the exception that proves the rule. Nevertheless, relevancy does not tell the total tale. Evidence, though relevant, may be excluded "if its probative value is substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice, confusion of the issues, or misleading the jury." Fed.R.Evid. 403. We turn, therefore, to the balance of probative worth and unfair prejudice.

In this instance, appellant insists that, even if evidence concerning the killing was probative of guilt under the force and violence element of the offense, it was not actually necessary to the prosecution's case--the government had other evidence, such as the circumstances of the carjackers' initial encounter with the victim, that would have made the point--and the likelihood was great that grisly details would stir the baser passions of the jurors and cloud their minds...