United States v. Raymundí-Hernández
| Decision Date | 29 December 2020 |
| Docket Number | 20-1405,18-1076,Nos. 16-2490,20-1385,Nos. 17-1081,20-1402,Nos. 17-1092,Nos. 17-1314,20-1438,18-1528,s. 16-2490,s. 17-1081,s. 17-1092,s. 17-1314 |
| Citation | 984 F.3d 127 |
| Parties | UNITED STATES of America, Appellee, v. Carlos RAYMUNDÍ-HERNÁNDEZ, Defendant, Appellant. United States of America, Appellee, v. Rocky Martínez-Negrón, a/k/a Rocky, Defendant, Appellant. United States of America, Appellee, v. Edgar J. Collazo-Rivera, Defendant, Appellant. United States of America, Appellee, v. Jovanni Varestín-Cruz, Defendant, Appellant. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — First Circuit |
Katherine C. Essington, Providence, RI, for appellant Raymundí-Hernández.
Manuel E. Moraza-Ortiz, San Juan, PR, for appellant Martínez-Negrón.
José R. Olmo-Rodríguez, for appellant Collazo-Rivera.
Samantha K. Drake, Assistant Federal Public Defender, with whom Eric Alexander Vos, Federal Public Defender, and Vivianne M. Marrero, Assistant Federal Public Defender, Supervisor, Appeals Section, were on brief, for appellant Varestín-Cruz.
Ross B. Goldman, Criminal Division, Appellate Section, U.S. Department of Justice, with whom Brian A. Benczkowski, Assistant Attorney General, Matthew S. Miner, Deputy Assistant Attorney General, Rosa Emilia Rodríguez-Vélez, United States Attorney, and Mariana E. Bauzá-Almonte, Assistant United States Attorney, Chief, Appellate Section, were on brief, for appellee.
Before Thompson and Kayatta,* Circuit Judges.
Defendants-Appellants Carlos Raymundí-Hernández ("Raymundí"), Rocky Martínez-Negrón ("Martínez"), Edgar Collazo-Rivera ("Collazo"), and Jovanni Varestín-Cruz ("Varestín") were convicted by a jury after an eleven-day trial for their roles in an expansive drug-trafficking conspiracy. On appeal, they assert (sometimes collectively, and sometimes individually) that they were deprived of a fair trial for a multitude of reasons. Their primary unified challenge is that they should be entitled to a new trial because, at various instances throughout the trial, the district court judge interjected during witness testimony in such a manner that signaled an anti-defense bias to the jury and caused the defendants serious prejudice. Martínez and Collazo also dispute the sufficiency of the evidence presented to the jury to support their convictions. And defendants continue a long-running argument about Brady violations.
After careful review, we find the evidence sufficient to support the convictions, but the trial unfair due to repeated, one-sided intercessions by the trial judge. We therefore vacate the convictions and remand for a new trial.
This case stems from the government's efforts to dismantle an extensive conspiracy to distribute cocaine and heroin in Puerto Rico and other parts of the United States between 2005 and 2010. The targeted drug trafficking organization (the "organization") was allegedly comprised of several subsets, each with its own leader. José Figueroa-Agosto (a/k/a "Junior Cápsula") and Elvin Torres-Estrada ("Torres-Estrada") were two of the prominent kingpins, each with his own faction. Other high-ranking actors included Junior Cápsula's brother, Jorge Luis Figueroa-Agosto ("Figueroa-Agosto"), José Marrero-Martell ("Marrero-Martell"), Diego Pérez-Colón ("Pérez-Colón"), and Ismael Luna-Archeval ("Luna-Archeval").
The organization enlisted more than two dozen individuals into its enterprise. The activities of the organization included transporting drugs and money between the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico (mostly by boat), storing the drugs and money in Puerto Rico, distributing the drugs in Puerto Rico, shipping the drugs to the continental United States, instituting price controls on the sale of the drugs, laundering the proceeds from drug sales, and providing armed security throughout these operational phases.
In November 2010, the government indicted Junior Cápsula, Marrero-Martell, Pérez-Colón, Figueroa-Agosto, and over a dozen others on drug conspiracy charges in a separate criminal case. See generally United States v. Figueroa-Agosto, No. 10-cr-00435, 2010 WL 5606958 (D.P.R. Nov. 15, 2010). The ensuing cooperation of these four named men with law enforcement was instrumental to the government's investigation and dismantling of the remaining branches of the organization and the prosecution of Raymundí, Varestín, Collazo, and Martínez in particular.
On February 9, 2011, a federal grand jury indicted four more of the organization's leadership, including Torres-Estrada, Samuel Negrón-Hernández ("Negrón-Hernández"), Ángel Ayala-Vázquez, and Rafael Santiago-Martínez, on one count of conspiracy to import cocaine and heroin from the Dominican Republic, in violation of 21 U.S.C. §§ 952(a), 963. Subsequently, on September 18, 2013, a federal grand jury indicted twenty-seven other individuals alleged to have participated in the criminal organization, including the defendants in this case, through a superseding indictment that charged them with conspiracy to import at least five kilograms of cocaine and one kilogram of heroin, in violation of 21 U.S.C. §§ 952(a), 963 (Count 1), and conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute the same controlled substances, in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 846 (Count 2). The superseding indictment also charged Collazo with conspiracy to commit both money laundering and international money laundering, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1956(a) & (h) (Counts 3 and 4), and included several forfeiture allegations. The defendants in this appeal were the only ones who entered pleas of not guilty and took their cases to trial.
The defendants stood trial for eleven days, from July 8 to July 22, 2016.
The lion's share of the incriminating evidence that the government put to the jury came from three cooperating witnesses: Marrero-Martell, Pérez-Colón, and Figueroa-Agosto. Some of their testimony was corroborated by other witnesses, including law enforcement officers. For the purpose of our review, we briefly introduce these witnesses and the pertinent portions of their testimony.
Marrero-Martell was one of the original members of the drug trafficking organization and a high-ranking member of Junior Cápsula's contingent (at times, his second-in-command).
Marrero-Martell's testimony implicated Collazo, Raymundí, and Varestín. He testified that Collazo transported drug money to the Dominican Republic on behalf of the organization in his private vessels on at least two occasions in 2009, and that Torres-Estrada had a Porsche, which, according to other testimony, had been purchased for him by Collazo with laundered money. Marrero-Martell also testified that Raymundí was actively involved in collecting, unloading, storing, and distributing drugs for the organization. He placed Raymundí at meetings at the home of one of Torres-Estrada's men, which Varestín also attended on one occasion. Marrero-Martell testified that both Varestín and Raymundí provided security for Torres-Estrada and that he always saw them carrying weapons. According to Marrero-Martell, Varestín and Raymundí were remunerated for providing security, sometimes with drugs.
The organization allegedly had on its payroll a police officer in the Dominican Republic named Colonel Amado González ("Colonel González"). Marrero-Martell testified that in December 2009 he traveled to the Dominican Republic as part of a group (which he claimed included Varestín) sent by Junior Cápsula and Torres-Estrada to murder Colonel González to ensure that he could not identify them if he cooperated with law enforcement.1
The defense implemented several strategies to impeach Marrero-Martell. They first developed the extent of his cooperation with the government and the benefits he received in return. To receive a tangible sentencing benefit, and after signing a proffer letter, Marrero-Martell participated in over fifty meetings with law enforcement personnel and he testified in several trials and grand jury proceedings in drug trafficking cases. Pursuant to his plea and cooperation agreements, in exchange for his assistance, the government recommended a significantly lower sentence (105 months' imprisonment) than Marrero-Martell would have faced given the actual quantity of drugs he was charged with trafficking (his guideline sentencing range was 210 to 262 months' imprisonment). On August 29, 2014, he was sentenced to 72 months' imprisonment.
Varestín also sought to impugn Marrero-Martell's credibility by drawing out potential ulterior motives for the testimony Marrero-Martell provided. One such theory was that the drug trafficking organization was divided into competing factions, namely between Junior Cápsula (with whom Marrero-Martell was aligned) and Torres-Estrada (with whom Varestín and Raymundí were aligned). Notably, Torres-Estrada had allegedly tried to kill Marrero-Martell. Marrero-Martell testified that at various points between his incarceration in 2010 and his release in February 2014, he was jailed in the same facility and/or unit as Junior Cápsula and Pérez-Colón. Marrero-Martell also testified that they communicated by cell phone when jailed in separate units of the same facility. This fit into the defense's larger narrative that Marrero-Martell and the other cooperating witnesses had coordinated their testimony to deliver a blow to Torres-Estrada's faction, although Marrero-Martell denied ever being asked to lie or offered money to testify against Torres-Estrada's organization.
Pérez-Colón participated in the organization's drug trafficking activities and assumed a managerial role in the transportation, distribution, and accounting side of its operations from 2005 to 2010. According to his testimony, he was part of Junior Cápsula's faction. Pérez-Colón's testimony implicated all four defendants. He testified that he worked with Varestín and knew him well. He also placed Varestín on the December 2009 trip to kill Colonel González. Pérez-Colón described Varestín and Raymundí as...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
United States v. Maldonado-Peña
...or made inappropriate commentary about any defendant or vouched for a witness's credibility. See United States v. Raymundí-Hernández, 984 F.3d 127, 152-57 (1st Cir. 2020) (reversing convictions because the trial judge's comments during trial and sua sponte cross-examination-like questioning......
-
United States v. Ramos-Baez
...suppressed the evidence either willfully or inadvertently, Raymundí-Hernández, 984 F.3d at 159-60; and, finally, that prejudice ensued, id. prejudice analysis reduces to whether, in the absence of the suppressed evidence, the defendant "received a fair trial, understood as a trial resulting......
-
United States v. Chin
...were shams allowed a juror to further reasonably infer that Chin intended to assist in that practice. Cf. United States v. Raymundí-Hernández, 984 F.3d 127, 140 (1st Cir. 2020) (inferring that a defendant had intent to participate in a conspiracy based on his knowledge and continued partici......
-
United States v. Maldonado-Peña
...or made inappropriate commentary about any defendant or vouched for a witness's credibility. See United States v. Raymundí-Hernández, 984 F.3d 127, 152-57 (1st Cir. 2020) (reversing convictions because the trial judge's comments during trial and sua sponte cross-examination-like questioning......
-
Misconduct
...case in hand; that charge was virtually an instruction that flight was conclusive proof of guilt.” United States v. Raymundi-Hernandez , 984 F.3d 127 (1st Cir. 2020). In a drug conspiracy prosecution, the trial judge’s comment that defense witness’s testimony that cooperating witness had of......
-
Trials
...in judicial or quasi-judicial capacities disqualified by interest in controversy to be decided); see, e.g. , U.S. v. Raymundí-Hernández, 984 F.3d 127, 152-57 (1st Cir. 2020) (due process violation because judge created appearance of bias by signaling to jury disbelief of witnesses and inte......