United States v. García-Sierra
| Decision Date | 07 April 2021 |
| Docket Number | No. 16-2503,16-2503 |
| Citation | 994 F.3d 17 |
| Parties | UNITED STATES of America, Appellee, v. Adolfo León GARCÍA-SIERRA, Defendant, Appellant. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — First Circuit |
Linda A. Backiel for Appellant.
Kaitlin E. Paulson, Attorney, Appellate Section, Criminal Division, U.S. Department of Justice, Redwood Shores, CA, with whom John P. Cronan, Acting Assistant Attorney General, New York, New York County, NY, Rosa Emilia Rodríguez-Vélez, United States Attorney, and Mariana E. Bauza Almonte, Assistant United States Attorney, New York, New York County, NY, were on brief, for Appellee.
Before Howard, Chief Judge, Kayatta, Circuit Judge, and Torresen, District Judge.*
Adolfo León García-Sierra ("García") was convicted by a jury of conspiring to commit drug trafficking offenses and was sentenced to a term of imprisonment of 224 months and 8 days. He appeals both from his convictions and from his sentence, arguing that the erroneous admission of certain evidence tainted the verdicts and that his sentence is unreasonable. After determining that there was trial error but that it was harmless, we affirm the convictions. We do, however, remand for resentencing.
The indictment alleged a drug importation operation involving the shipment of large amounts of cocaine from South America to Puerto Rico between August 2012 and June 2014. García was charged with conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute a controlled substance in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 846 and conspiracy to import narcotics into the United States in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 963.
By way of background to García's legal challenges, we briefly sketch the central evidence presented during García's trial -- employing a "balanced-presentation" approach as we did in United States v. Rodríguez-Soler, 773 F.3d 289, 290 (1st Cir. 2014) -- as well as the sentence he received thereafter. We leave further elaboration of the facts to our discussion of each of García's claims.
The first witness at trial was Julio Ruiz, a member of the Coast Guard stationed in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Ruiz testified that in December 2012, he responded to a report made by a shipping vessel that had observed a small boat adrift about fifteen miles offshore with two persons aboard, calling for help. Ruiz located the small boat and rescued its two occupants, one of whom was García. Ruiz testified that this search-and-rescue stood out to him because the persons on board lacked documents, and the stories they told "seemed odd." They had explained that they had been on a larger ship that had sunk very quickly and that they had escaped from the sinking vessel onto the small boat on which they were found. This story seemed odd to Ruiz because the Coast Guard had received no report of a large ship in distress, because large ships do not sink quickly, and because when they do sink, they leave an oil sheen on the water, of which there was no trace. After completing the rescue, the Coast Guard transferred the two persons to the Customs and Border Protection agency.
This curious story was followed by the testimony of FBI Agent Juan De Jesús. De Jesús testified that around November 2012 he had been investigating an organization which, according to an unnamed source, was in the business of smuggling cocaine from South America to Puerto Rico by sea. In December of that year, De Jesús "was advised that two persons matching the modus operandi of the organization had been rescued out at sea." De Jesús eventually interviewed each of these two persons, one of whom was García. De Jesús testified that during his interview with García, García explained to him that, prior to their rescue by the Coast Guard, he and his companion had been on a shipping vessel en route to the Dominican Republic for the purpose of transporting gasoil to Venezuela.
De Jesús testified that García's shipwreck companion provided him with a similar but slightly different story: that he and García had been on a shipping vessel en route to the Dominican Republic for the purpose of transporting large amounts of cash. De Jesús proceeded to describe how García's companion eventually agreed to serve as an informant and began supplying De Jesús with ongoing updates about cocaine trafficking activity between South America and the Caribbean. De Jesús testified how the informant's assistance ultimately enabled law enforcement to seize a large shipment of cocaine upon its arrival in Puerto Rico's Guayanilla Bay in October 2013.
The testimony by Agent De Jesús was followed by testimony from seven different witnesses all concerning the details of the law enforcement operation that resulted in the seizure of the cocaine shipment in Guayanilla Bay in October 2013. This evidence is both voluminous and uncontested on appeal. It suffices for our purposes to note that the government amply demonstrated that its agents seized over 200 kilograms of bundled cocaine after members of the surveilled organization had transferred the bundles from a ship to a small stash house on shore.
Next to testify was García's shipwreck companion turned government informant. He testified that he began working as a boat captain for a cocaine trafficking organization in 2012. He described the organization's basic trafficking method: using small boats to carry bundled cocaine bricks out to a larger cargo ship waiting some twenty miles offshore, and then doing the same in reverse once the larger ship approached the target destination.
The witness described several specific trafficking voyages in which he took part. He identified García as having accompanied him on one trip in late 2012. García's role was to inspect the cocaine upon arrival to ensure the cargo made it through the journey intact. According to the witness's account, he and García used a small boat to transport the cocaine from the Venezuelan coast to a large cargo ship waiting offshore. They sailed on the larger ship until they neared the Puerto Rican coast, at which time they offloaded the cocaine onto a small boat and set off in the small boat for shore. Shortly thereafter, the small boat began to take on water. The pair threw the cocaine overboard and managed to stay afloat on the sinking vessel. They eventually caught the attention of a fishing vessel, which reported their plight to the Coast Guard, leading to the duo's rescue. The witness testified that he was subsequently questioned by Agent De Jesús and eventually agreed to serve as an informant.
Finally, the witness testified that García was involved with the shipment to Guayanilla Bay in October 2013. According to the witness, although García did not accompany him on the actual voyage, García helped to organize and load the cocaine at the point of origin. When the shipment arrived in Puerto Rico, the witness informed Agent De Jesús of its location, enabling its seizure by law enforcement.
The final pieces of evidence presented by the government brought the jury back in time to a smuggling incident from May 2011, before the start of the conspiracy for which García was on trial. The government had moved in limine indicating its intent to introduce this evidence for the purpose of proving García's knowledge and intent. The May 2011 activity was part of the basis of separate conspiracy charges against García which were pending resolution in other proceedings. García argued that the evidence was inadmissible. The district court did not rule on its admissibility in advance of trial but ultimately permitted the government to present the evidence to the jury.
The government employed three witnesses to do so. Two officers testified about their dramatic interception of a large shipment of cocaine which had arrived in Puerto Rico in May 2011. The third witness, a government informant (different from the one who had been rescued with García in 2012),1 testified that in May 2011 he and García were involved with a large shipment of cocaine to Puerto Rico. This witness also authenticated a recording of a phone call that he described as a conversation between himself and García about the sale of six kilograms of cocaine.
The jury convicted García, and a Presentence Investigation Report (PSR) was prepared, recommending a sentence within the range of 235 to 293 months of imprisonment. The district court imposed a sentence of approximately 224 months, reflecting a sentence at the lowest end of the recommended range with a reduction for the time that García had spent incarcerated in Colombia prior to his extradition to the United States.
García appealed, challenging the introduction of "overview" testimony from several of the government's witnesses, the admission of evidence regarding the cocaine seizure in May 2011, and the reasonableness of his sentence.
We tackle the evidentiary challenges first. We conclude that the trial court erred in permitting the government to solicit "overview" testimony from Agent De Jesús and in allowing it to present evidence relating to the May 2011 cocaine seizure. But we find both errors harmless and affirm García's convictions.
Where an appellant objected to a district court's evidentiary ruling at trial, we review the district court's decision for abuse of discretion. United States v. Watson, 695 F.3d 159, 162 (1st Cir. 2012). If our review shows that the trial court acted outside the bounds of its discretion, then we vacate the conviction unless the error was harmless. United States v. Brown, 669 F.3d 10, 24 (1st Cir. 2012) ; Fed. R. Crim. P. 52(a).
Where the appellant did not voice the same objection at trial, we review only for plain error. Watson, 695 F.3d at 162. If we find that the trial court plainly erred -- in other words, erred in a way which is "clear or obvious" -- then we vacate the conviction if ...
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