United States v. Baptiste
| Decision Date | 11 March 2020 |
| Docket Number | Criminal Action No. 17-cr-10305-ADB |
| Parties | UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, v. JOSEPH BAPTISTE and ROGER RICHARD BONCY, Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — District of Massachusetts |
BURROUGHS, D.J.
On October 30, 2018, a grand jury returned a superseding indictment against Joseph Baptiste and Roger Richard Boncy charging them with conspiring to violate the Travel Act and the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act ("FCPA"), conspiring to commit money laundering, and violating the Travel Act based on their efforts to bribe Haitian officials to promote a port development project in Môle Saint Nicolas, Haiti. [ECF No. 74]. After an eight-day trial, on June 20, 2019, a jury convicted Defendants Baptiste and Boncy (collectively, "Defendants") of conspiring to violate the FCPA, 15 U.S.C. § 78dd-2, and the Travel Act, 18 U.S.C. § 1952. [ECF No. 199]. The jury also convicted Defendant Baptiste of a substantive violation of the Travel Act and conspiring to commit money laundering in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1956(h). [Id.].
Currently pending before the Court is Defendant Baptiste's motion for a new trial on the basis of ineffective assistance of counsel. [ECF No. 234]. Also pending before the Court are Defendants' motions for judgment of acquittal, which were initially made following the close of the Government's evidence and were renewed following trial. [ECF Nos. 232, 242]. For the following reasons, Defendant Baptiste's motion for a new trial, [ECF No. 234], is GRANTED and Defendant Boncy's motion for acquittal or, in the alternative, a new trial, [ECF No. 242], is GRANTED in part and DENIED in part. Defendant Baptiste's motion for acquittal, [ECF No. 232], is DENIED.
A. Procedural Background
On August 26, 2019, Defendant Baptiste filed motions for acquittal and a new trial, [ECF Nos. 232, 234], and Defendant Boncy filed a motion for acquittal or, in the alternative, a new trial, [ECF No. 242]. Defendant Baptiste's motion was supported by a five-page affidavit signed by Jason Hinton, [ECF No. 239-1 ("Hinton Affidavit")], who attended much of the trial and assisted trial counsel Donald LaRoche with aspects of the trial. On September 30, 2019, the Government filed its opposition to Defendant Baptiste's motion for acquittal and Defendant Boncy's motion. [ECF Nos. 248, 249]. On October 2, 2019, the Government filed its opposition to Defendant Baptiste's motion for a new trial. [ECF No. 251]. Defendant Boncy filed a reply brief on October 25, 2019. [ECF No. 254].
On November 6, 2019, the Court noticed an evidentiary hearing for November 13, 2019 on Defendant Baptiste's motion for a new trial. [ECF No. 258]. The Court continued the evidentiary hearing due to a scheduling conflict for LaRoche, who was expected to testify, and to have time to resolve discovery disputes between the parties. [ECF No. 259 ¶¶ 4, 6; ECF Nos. 258, 260]. On November 13, 2019, the Court held a status conference to discuss potential waiver of attorney-client privilege in connection with Defendant Baptiste's motion and the upcoming evidentiary hearing. [ECF No. 262]. The Government later filed a motion for clarification of the Court's November 13, 2019 rulings at the status conference, [ECF No. 266], and DefendantBaptiste opposed the motion, [ECF No. 269]. On December 16, 2019, the Court held a hearing on the privilege issue and stated that it would not find that Baptiste had entirely waived attorney-client privilege based solely on his raising an ineffective assistance of counsel claim. [12/16/19 Tr. at 4:12-18]. Instead, the Court determined that it would review and make determinations about waiver based on responses from witnesses at the evidentiary hearing. [Id. at 38:9-14, 39:8-13].
The evidentiary hearing was held over the course of two days, January 14, 2020 and February 5, 2020. [ECF Nos. 278, 285]. Trial counsel LaRoche testified on January 14, 2020. [ECF No. 278]. Husband and wife Jason and Arielle Hinton, who are friends of Defendant Baptiste and attorneys practicing in the State of Maryland, testified on February 5, 2020. [ECF No. 285]. All parties had an opportunity to fully cross-examine witnesses.
To prevail on a motion for judgment of acquittal under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 29, a defendant must "show that the evidence presented at trial, even when viewed in the light most favorable to the government, did not suffice to prove the elements of the offenses beyond a reasonable doubt." United States v. Acevedo, 882 F.3d 251, 257 (1st Cir. 2018) (citing United States v. Gabriele, 63 F.3d 61, 67 (1st Cir. 1995)). The Court does not "weigh the evidence or make any credibility judgments, as those are left to the jury." United States v. Merlino, 592 F.3d 22, 29 (1st Cir. 2010) (citing United States v. Ayala-Garcia, 574 F.3d 5, 11 (1st Cir. 2009)). Instead, the Court "resolve[s] all credibility disputes in the verdict's favor," id. (quoting United States v. Olbres, 61 F.3d 967, 970 (1st Cir. 1995)), and "examine[s] the evidence—direct and circumstantial—as well as all plausible inferences drawn therefrom, in thelight most favorable to the verdict," United States v. Meléndez-González, 892 F.3d 9, 17 (1st Cir. 2018) (internal quotations omitted).
On a motion for a new trial under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 33, "the court may vacate any judgment and grant a new trial if the interest of justice so requires." Fed. R. Crim. P. 33(a). "[T]he remedy of a new trial is sparingly used, and then only where there would be a miscarriage of justice and where the evidence preponderates heavily against the verdict." Merlino, 592 F.3d at 32 (quoting United States v. Wilkerson, 251 F.3d 273, 278 (1st Cir. 2001)). "The trial court may set aside a verdict and order a new trial if, in its opinion, the verdict is against the clear weight of the evidence, is based upon evidence that is false, or resulted from some trial error and amounts to a clear miscarriage of justice." Payton v. Abbott Labs, 780 F.2d 147, 152 (1st Cir. 1985). "[A] district court has greater latitude in considering a motion for a new trial than it does in considering a motion for acquittal . . . ." Merlino, 592 F.3d at 33.
The Sixth Amendment guarantee of a "right to counsel is a fundamental right of criminal defendants; it assures the fairness, and thus the legitimacy, of our adversary process." Kimmelman v. Morrison, 477 U.S. 365, 374 (1986). "[T]he right to counsel is the right to the effective assistance of counsel." Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 686 (1984) (quoting McMann v. Richardson, 397 U.S. 759, 771, n.14 (1970)). "The essence of an ineffective-assistance claim is that counsel's unprofessional errors so upset the adversarial balance between defense and prosecution that the trial was rendered unfair and the verdict rendered suspect." Kimmelman, 477 U.S. at 374.
When a defendant challenges his conviction on the basis of ineffective assistance of counsel, courts Hinton v. Alabama, 571 U.S. 263, 272 (2014) (internal quotation marks omitted) (quoting Padilla v. Kentucky, 559 U.S. 356, 366 (2010)). "A court may consider either prong first in the interest of efficiency." United States v. Sihai Cheng, 392 F. Supp. 3d 141, 153 (D. Mass. 2019) (citing Ortiz-Graulau v. United States, 756 F.3d 12, 17 (1st Cir. 2014)). "[F]ailure to satisfy one prong . . . obviates the need for a court to consider the remaining prong." Tevlin v. Spencer, 621 F.3d 59, 66 (1st Cir. 2010).
Defendant Baptiste seeks a new trial on the basis of ineffective assistance of counsel, citing nine errors made by trial counsel LaRoche: (1) failing to conduct an adequate investigation; (2) failing to review critical discovery; (3) failing to consult with potential experts; (4) misunderstanding the Court's pre-trial rulings concerning prosecution's evidence; (5) conducting self-defeating cross-examination or no cross-examination; (6) failing to object to improper lay opinion testimony; (7) failing to move for severance; (8) failing to request appropriate jury instructions; and (9) failing to present any coherent defense. [ECF No. 239]. The grounds supporting these allegations were detailed in the Hinton Affidavit. See [Hinton Affidavit]. The Government opposes the motion, arguing that LaRoche's performance was objectively reasonable and that, even if it was not, Defendant Baptiste cannot show a reasonableprobability that the result of the trial would have been different absent LaRoche's errors. [ECF No. 251].
"To establish that counsel's performance was deficient, a defendant must show that it fell below an objective standard of reasonableness under the circumstances." Sleeper v. Spencer, 510 F.3d 32, 38 (1st Cir. 2007) (citing Strickland, 466 U.S. at 687-88). This prong "is necessarily linked to the practice and expectations of the legal community: The proper measure of attorney performance remains simply reasonableness under prevailing professional norms." Hinton, 571 U.S. at 273 (internal quotation marks omitted) (quoting Padilla, 559 U.S. at 366). When reviewing an ineffective assistance of counsel claim, "a court must indulge a strong presumption that counsel's conduct falls within the wide range of reasonable professional assistance . . . ." Strickland, 466 U.S. at 689. "[A] reviewing court must not lean too heavily on hindsight: a lawyer's acts and omissions must be judged on the basis of what he knew, or should have known, at the time his...
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