United States v. Loera
| Decision Date | 03 July 2019 |
| Docket Number | 09-cr-0466 (BMC) |
| Parties | UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, v. JOAQUIN ARCHIVALDO GUZMAN LOERA, Defendant. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Eastern District of New York |
Following a three-month trial, a jury found defendant guilty of 10 counts related to his widespread drug trafficking activity as a leader of the Sinaloa Cartel. Defendant has moved pursuant to Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 33 for a new trial upon an evidentiary hearing based on allegations of juror misconduct. For the reasons below, his motion for both an evidentiary hearing and a new trial is denied.
Defendant, Joaquín Archivaldo Guzmán Loera, also known as "El Chapo," was extradited to the United States in January 2017 in connection with various outstanding criminal indictments pending against him. He ultimately went to trial in this district in November 2018 on 10 counts charged in the fourth superseding indictment in this case.
Defendant's notoriety as a leader of the Sinaloa Cartel was omnipresent before and during trial. This required careful planning and execution at every stage, from voir dire to verdict, to ensure that defendant received a fair trial, as efficiently as possible. An overview of those trial proceedings is necessary to put into context defendant's new trial motion.
After the parties reviewed 923 36-paged juror questionnaires, I conducted three and a half days of voir dire, during which I carefully screened the prospective jurors' questionnaires, asked the prospective jurors general questions and targeted questions piqued by their questionnaire responses, and allowed the parties to ask follow-up questions where warranted. Each prospective juror was screened individually in a partially closed courtroom to create an environment in which the juror would feel comfortable speaking openly and honestly. Both the questionnaires and in-person questions that the parties or I asked the prospective jurors during voir dire inquired about their knowledge of defendant and his then-alleged crimes, and, if applicable, their ability to put that knowledge aside and keep an open mind. The parties selected a jury comprised of 12 empaneled jurors and six alternates, at least some of whom had heard of or knew something about defendant, but all of whom attested to their ability to render a verdict solely on the evidence introduced in court during trial. By my order, the jurors were (and remain) anonymous and were partially sequestered for the duration of their service.
During the three months of trial, the jury heard testimony from over 50 witnesses, including 14 cooperating witnesses and dozens of law enforcement witnesses. The witnesses testified about defendant's extensive drug trafficking activities, including of cocaine, marijuana, methamphetamine, and heroin, and including his use of planes, trains, helicopters, boats, semi-submersibles, automobiles, and foot tunnels, to accomplish his international work. The witnesses also testified about defendant's many acts of violence, including that defendant personally killed or tortured his victims and that defendant ordered his sicarios, or hitmen, to murder or torture others, in furtherance of his vast drug empire, as well as about the violent wars in which defendant and his sicarios participated against the enemies of the Sinaloa Cartel. The jury also read defendant's text messages and heard recordings about his drug trafficking activities (including recordings of defendant himself) and saw in court examples of the types of weapons and machinery defendant used and with which he outfitted his sicarios to protect hisvast and lucrative drug interests. The jury also saw in court drugs that were seized from some of defendant's narcotics operations.
Members of the press attended and reported on the details of trial every day, and an overflow courtroom with video feed was set up, in part, because there were so many journalists that they would have taken every seat in the courtroom where the trial was being held. There was also significant and virtually real-time coverage of my written orders. The juror questionnaires alerted each potential juror to the fact that they would have to avoid all media coverage about this case, and the parties and I followed up on this point during voir dire. I instructed the jury at length in my preliminary instructions after the jury was empaneled that there would be a lot of press coverage about the trial, and the jurors would have to avoid it. I also admonished the jury daily - and sometimes twice daily - to stay away from any media or news coverage of this case, whether in print or on television or the internet. And in my final jury charge, I instructed the members of the jury that they must base their verdict solely on the evidence presented in court and that they could not consider anything outside the courtroom in reaching their decision, reaffirming this critical point that I discussed with the jurors during voir dire.
Two news articles that were published during trial required me to engage in the process that the Second Circuit outlined in United States v. Gaggi, 811 F.2d 47 (2d Cir. 1987), to determine whether and to what extent the jury encountered potentially prejudicial news.1 The first article revealed the private affairs of one of defendant's lawyers. I canvassed the jury to seewhether anyone had read or seen the article. None of the jurors had seen the article at issue or knew to what I was referring, so I found - with the agreement of the parties - that the jury was and remained impartial and that this news coverage warranted no further action.
The second article concerned allegations contained in one of the Government's previously sealed motions in limine that cooperating witness Alexander Cifuentes Villa made to the Government that he and defendant drugged and sexually abused underage women, which I had excluded from evidence. Pursuant to my order requiring the parties to review and propose unsealing docket entries and approving the parties' proposed schedule for that process, the Government publicly filed a lesser-redacted version of the motion in limine at issue, which unsealed to the public for the first time these allegations of sexual abuse.
There was substantial media coverage about these allegations in the few days after they were unsealed. But because the Government filed this document late on the Friday after the parties had finished their closing arguments, there was also significant coverage of the trial in general that weekend. The jury was scheduled to be charged and begin its deliberations on Monday.
On Monday morning, after speaking with the parties and hearing their arguments on the best course of action to address the media coverage that weekend, I adhered to the procedure outlined in Gaggi and canvassed the jury as a whole to determine whether any of them had been exposed to any news coverage over the weekend. I reassured the members of the jury several times that they would not be in trouble if they had encountered anything. Two jurors indicated that they had seen something about the case.2
Consistent with Gaggi, I spoke with each juror individually, away from the rest of the jury, with a representative from each party present. The first juror saw the headline of a newspaper article that also had defendant's picture. The juror read that the headline said "El Chapo" and "vitamins."3 The juror also saw another headline that said the jury would start its deliberations that day. But the juror looked away from the article when the juror realized that the headlines were discussing this case, and thus did not see anything else. The second juror opened a Reddit application, saw "El Chapo," and closed the application right away so the page would refresh itself. The juror did not know what the post was about and did not see anything else about the case.
After speaking with these two jurors, neither defendant nor the Government moved to strike either of them. Indeed, defense counsel acknowledged on the record that there was no basis for a motion to strike. I agreed, found that the jury was and remained impartial, and found that there had been no prejudicial exposure to news coverage. I therefore proceeded to instruct the jury on the law, after which the jury began its deliberations.
The jury deliberated for six days. During deliberations, the jury sent 10 substantive notes to the Court, including asking for the full testimony of five cooperating witnesses and three law enforcement officers, and requesting playback of one audio recording about defendant's methamphetamine trafficking. On February 12, 2019, the jury returned a verdict of guilty on all ten counts.
Specifically, the jury found defendant guilty of one count of operating a continuing criminal enterprise ("CCE"), in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 848(a); one count of participating in an international cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine, and marijuana manufacturing and distributionconspiracy, in violation of 21 U.S.C. §§ 959(a), 963; one count of participating in a cocaine importation conspiracy, in violation of 21 U.S.C. §§ 959(a), 963; one count of participating in a cocaine distribution conspiracy, in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 846; three counts of international distribution of cocaine in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 959(a); one count of illegal use of firearms in connection with a drug trafficking crime, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 924(c); and one count of participating in a conspiracy to launder narcotics proceeds, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1956(a).
As for the CCE charge, Count One, the jury found that the Government proved beyond a reasonable doubt that defendant committed 25 of the 27 charged felony violations of federal law, including 24 of the 26 charged violations of federal narcotics laws, and the violation that charged conspiracy to commit murder in furtherance of defendant's drug trafficking activities. The jury also found that...
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