United States v. Guerrero-Narváez
| Decision Date | 16 March 2022 |
| Docket Number | No. 19-2209,19-2209 |
| Parties | UNITED STATES of America, Appellant, v. Eddie GUERRERO-NARVÁEZ and Keyvan Cartagena-Suarez, Defendants, Appellees. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — First Circuit |
John M. Pellettieri, with whom W. Stephen Muldrow, United States Attorney, Mariana E. Bauzá-Almonte and David T. Hanek, Assistant United States Attorneys, Brian A. Benczkowski, Assistant Attorney General, David P. Burns, Acting Assistant Attorney General, Robert A. Zink, Acting Deputy Assistant Attorney General, and Kirby A. Heller, Criminal Division, Appellate Section, U.S. Department of Justice, were on brief, for appellant.
Alejandra Bird López, Research and Writing Specialist, with whom Eric Alexander Vos, Federal Public Defender, and Franco L. Pérez-Redondo, Assistant Federal Public Defender, were on brief, for appellee Eddie Guerrero-Narváez.
Wilfredo Ríos Méndez for appellee Keyvan Cartagena-Suarez.
Before Thompson and Lipez, Circuit Judges, and Laplante,* District Judge.
A jury convicted Eddie Guerrero-Narváez and Keyvan Cartagena-Suarez of aiding and abetting each other in the commission of a carjacking in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 2 and 2119. Guerrero-Narváez and Cartagena-Suarez then filed separate post-verdict motions for judgment of acquittal. Guerrero-Narváez argued that the government's evidence was insufficient to support the jury's conclusion that he possessed the requisite specific intent to violate the federal carjacking statute. The district court agreed, granting Guerrero-Narváez's motion and explaining that no reasonable trier of fact could find from the evidence presented at trial that Guerrero-Narváez possessed the intent to seriously harm or kill, if necessary, at the time he took the car. See 18 U.S.C. § 2119. With Guerrero-Narváez acquitted, the court granted Cartagena-Suarez's motion, too.1 The government appeals from the district court's orders granting the motions for acquittal. We affirm.
We recount the facts in the light most favorable to the verdict. United States v. Mubayyid, 658 F.3d 35, 41 (1st Cir. 2011). On January 3, 2018, Keysha Silva-Rivera parked her silver BMW SUV adjacent to a gas pump at a Puma gas station in Carolina, Puerto Rico.2 Silva-Rivera's two children were in the backseat. As Silva-Rivera began to exit her vehicle, Guerrero-Narváez approached her. Guerrero-Narváez, who is five feet, nine inches tall and weighs over two-hundred pounds, is significantly larger than Silva-Rivera, who is just under five feet tall. Guerrero-Narváez was dressed in a red T-shirt and red shorts, and Silva-Rivera testified that she thought he was going to "offer [her] to serve gas." Silva-Rivera remained partially within the vehicle -- with one foot inside and one foot on the ground -- while Guerrero-Narváez spoke to her for about twenty seconds from a distance of two to three feet.
Silva-Rivera testified that Guerrero-Narváez told her that he "was sent" to "take the vehicle from [her]." She "thought it was a prank" at first and asked if the taking "had something to do with the owner of the vehicle." Guerrero-Narváez said that "if [she] cooperate[d], he [was not] going to harm either [her] or [her] children." Silva-Rivera testified that Guerrero-Narváez touched his shirt in a "sort of intimidating" manner as he spoke to her. Silva-Rivera understood the gesture to indicate that Guerrero-Narváez was armed, although Guerrero-Narváez never showed her a gun or any weapon.
Silva-Rivera asked Guerrero-Narváez if he would allow her children to get out of the car, and he agreed to do so. Silva-Rivera stepped out of the car and Guerrero-Narváez stepped back, leaving enough space for Silva-Rivera to move past him unimpeded. Guerrero-Narváez remained standing by the driver's door as Silva-Rivera walked to the back door on that side of the car. Silva-Rivera opened the door to let her two children exit the SUV, and the three of them walked to the back of the car. Silva-Rivera opened the trunk. After a few seconds, Guerrero-Narváez also walked to the back of the car and stood at the left edge of the trunk with his hand resting on the now-uplifted hatch. Guerrero-Narváez and Silva-Rivera conversed periodically throughout this time.
As Silva-Rivera removed items from the trunk of the car, Guerrero-Narváez neither rushed nor threatened her. At one point, Guerrero-Narváez reached into the trunk and handed Silva-Rivera an umbrella. He then assisted her with retrieving another item. After she removed items from the trunk, Silva-Rivera walked along the non-driver side of the car to the front door to "check that [she] didn't leave anything." Silva-Rivera's two children remained standing at the back of the car, next to Guerrero-Narváez. While Silva-Rivera was rummaging in the front passenger compartment, Guerrero-Narváez returned to the front of the car and climbed into the driver's seat. He asked Silva-Rivera "how to push the seat back." Silva-Rivera finished rummaging in the car after Guerrero-Narváez got into the vehicle. Silva-Rivera walked to the back of the car and attempted to close the hatch, but Guerrero-Narváez began to drive away before she could close it. Silva-Rivera and her children remained standing near the gas pump while Guerrero-Narváez, driving the silver SUV, exited the gas station.
After Guerrero-Narváez left, Silva-Rivera -- still standing near the gas pump with her children -- called her husband. She then called her mechanic, who was the prior owner of the BMW, and asked him to look out for the stolen vehicle. About five minutes after Guerrero-Narváez drove off in the car, Silva-Rivera and her children entered the store of the gas station. She called the police about twenty minutes after Guerrero-Narváez took the car,3 telling the 911 operator that "an individual held me up with the children and took my SUV." She reported that the individual "stood at the door" and said "You have to get out with the children." The 911 operator asked if the individual had a weapon, to which Silva-Rivera replied:
No. No. No. He had -- he said it was supposedly an order that they gave him. But they tell me here at the gas station that he's been going around for a while already, asking people for money. That they supposedly gave him an order that he has to take the SUV. That's what he told me. I stayed calm. I didn't want to argue .... Because I have two minors in the backseat.
Silva-Rivera did not see Cartagena-Suarez during the incident, but surveillance camera footage shows Cartagena-Suarez and Guerrero-Narváez loitering at the gas station over an hour before the carjacking and interacting in the minutes preceding the incident. When Silva-Rivera called her mechanic after Guerrero-Narváez drove away in her car, she described the appearance of the man who stole the car. The mechanic subsequently observed the BMW drive by with its hatch open and two men inside, including a man who matched Silva-Rivera's description of the car thief and a second "short and thin" man in the passenger seat. Silva-Rivera learned of the second man prior to calling 911, and she informed the dispatcher that her car was being driven by two men. Later that evening, the mechanic observed the short and thin man driving the stolen BMW. Cartagena-Suarez's driver's license was found inside the vehicle when it was recovered.
A superseding indictment charged both appellants with "aiding and abetting each other" in the commission of a carjacking in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2119. At the close of the government's case at trial,4 appellees each moved for a judgment of acquittal under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 29. The court took the motions under advisement, and the jury subsequently convicted appellees of aiding and abetting a carjacking in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 2 and 2119. Appellees renewed their Rule 29 motions, which the court denied. After appellees submitted written motions for judgment of acquittal, however, the court granted Guerrero-Narváez's motion. The court then issued an order finding Cartagena-Suarez's motion "moot" in light of the relief granted to Guerrero-Narváez but granting Cartagena-Suarez's motion "[n]otwithstanding." The court entered a judgment of acquittal for both Guerrero-Narváez and Cartagena-Suarez.
In a thoughtful opinion, the district court explained that the evidence at trial was insufficient to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Guerrero-Narváez possessed the specific intent required by the statute. United States v. Guerrero-Narvaez, 415 F. Supp. 3d 281, 288-94 (D.P.R. 2019). The government had argued in response to Guerrero-Narváez and Cartagena-Suarez's motions that, in the absence of a weapon or evidence of force,5 Guerrero-Narváez's specific intent could be inferred from five facts "proven" at trial: Guerrero-Narváez's size relative to Silva-Rivera's; the fact that Guerrero-Narváez -- not the smaller Cartagena-Suarez -- committed the taking of the vehicle; Guerrero-Narváez's arrival on foot; Guerrero-Narváez's constant "following" of Silva-Rivera during the taking; and the nature of Guerrero-Narváez's threat. After reviewing the gas station surveillance camera footage, Silva-Rivera's trial testimony, and an audiotape of Silva-Rivera's 911 call, the district court analyzed each of the factors cited by the government and concluded that they did "not comport with any case in which § 2119's intent element has been satisfied." Guerrero-Narvaez, 415 F. Supp. 3d at 293. We summarize the court's analysis.
The court rejected the government's argument that the fact that "Guerrero[-Narváez] is a large individual, in fact much larger than Silva[-Rivera], ... by itself ([ ]or in conjunction with the other factors the government proposes) indicate[s] that he intended to seriously harm or kill her." Id. at 291.
The district court likewise found that "a reasonable factfinder cannot conclude...
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