United States v. Orencio Ruelas ( 2019 )

NOT FOR PUBLICATION FILED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS DEC 23 2019
MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK
U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, No. 17-10451
Plaintiff-Appellee, D.C. No.
2:14-cr-00865-DJH-5
v.
ORENCIO RUELAS, AKA Cerillo, AKA MEMORANDUM*
Cri-Cri, AKA Grillo,
Defendant-Appellant.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, No. 17-10465
Plaintiff-Appellee, D.C. No.
2:14-cr-00865-DJH-11
v.
DONALD HAMILTON, AKA Donald
Oliver Hamilton,
Defendant-Appellant.
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the District of Arizona
Diane J. Humetewa, District Judge, Presiding
Argued and Submitted December 5, 2019
San Francisco, California
*
This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent
except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3.
Before: GOULD and CALLAHAN, Circuit Judges, and BOUGH,** District Judge.
In these consolidated appeals, appellants, Orencio Ruelas (“Ruelas”) and
Donald Hamilton (“Hamilton”), challenge their respective convictions and
sentences arising from a jury trial in which they were jointly tried for their
participation in a drug trafficking conspiracy. Ruelas was convicted of conspiracy
to distribute methamphetamine (21 U.S.C. § 846) and unlawful use of a
communications facility (21 U.S.C. § 843(b)) and sentenced to 235 months of
incarceration. Hamilton was convicted of conspiracy to distribute controlled
substances (21 U.S.C. § 846), conspiracy to commit money laundering (18 U.S.C.
§ 1956(h)), unlawful use of a communications facility (21 U.S.C. § 843(b)),
promotional money laundering (18 U.S.C. § 1956(a)(1)(A)(i)), and concealment
money laundering (18 U.S.C. § 1956(a)(1)(B)(i)), and sentenced to 97 months of
incarceration. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291. We affirm Ruelas’
judgment of conviction, but remand his sentence on Count 1 (conspiracy to
distribute methamphetamine) for resentencing on an open record. We affirm
Hamilton’s judgment of conviction and sentence.1
**
The Honorable Stephen R. Bough, United States District Judge for the
Western District of Missouri, sitting by designation.
1
Because the parties are familiar with the facts and issues in these appeals,
we do not recount them in detail.
2
1. Both Ruelas and Hamilton argue that the district court abused its
discretion by precluding the defense from impeaching a government witness about
his admission that he murdered his own father. We disagree. Federal Rule of
Evidence 608 “allows a witness to be cross-examined, in the discretion of the
court, regarding specific instances of misconduct which do not lead to conviction,
if the misconduct is probative of the witness’ character for truthfulness or
untruthfulness.” United States v. Geston, 299 F.3d 1130, 1137 (9th Cir. 2002)
(footnote omitted). Specific bad act evidence is admissible under Rule 608(b) “for
the purpose of attacking or supporting the witness’ credibility” if it is probative of
the “witness’ character for truthfulness or untruthfulness” or “challenge[s] a
witness’s credibility.” United States v. Gay, 967 F.2d 322, 327-28 (9th Cir. 1992).
The district court ruled that defense counsel would not be allowed to cross-
examine a government witness about his admission to murdering his father because
the court did not find it probative of the witness’ truthfulness or relevant to the
charges. Ruelas and Hamilton raise various arguments on appeal as to why the
patricide admission was relevant to the witness’ credibility, but many of them were
not raised before the district court (and were thereby waived) and none is
persuasive to show that the district court’s ruling was an abuse of discretion.
Even if the district court erred in precluding cross-examination into the
patricide admission, the error was harmless. The district court allowed the defense
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extensive opportunity to cross-examine and impeach the witness based on his other
bad acts (including his alleged murders of cartel members), and also provided the
jury with appropriate instructions regarding its consideration of the impeachment
evidence. Moreover, the evidence supporting the jury’s verdict against both
defendants was strong. Thus, we affirm the district court’s decision to preclude
this impeachment evidence under Federal Rule of Evidence 608.
2. Hamilton argues that the district court abused its discretion by not fully
investigating a juror question concerning an observation of alleged prosecutorial
coaching of a government witness. At trial however, Hamilton’s counsel assured
the district court that its inquiry into the matter was sufficient, declined the
opportunity to make a further record on the matter, and did not raise any further
objection or request any additional investigation of the issue throughout the rest of
the trial. Thus, we find that Hamilton waived his claim and decline to review it.
See United States v. Perez, 116 F.3d 840, 845 (9th Cir. 1997) (“If the defendant
has both invited the error, and relinquished a known right, then the error is waived
and therefore unreviewable.”).
Even if we were to reach Hamilton’s claim however, it would still fail under
plain error review. In response to the allegation of witness coaching by the
prosecutor, the district court requested input from all counsel, questioned both the
juror and the defense investigator who reported the alleged observations, provided
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parties with the opportunity to conduct their own inquiry of the witnesses on the
record, and ultimately instructed the juror that he was free to share his observations
with his fellow jurors during deliberations. Hamilton has not shown that the
district court’s failure to make further inquiry, or to take any other action than it
already had, was plainly erroneous and affected his substantial rights.
3. We also reject Hamilton’s claim that the district court abused its
discretion by failing to exclude FedEx records that were untimely disclosed by the
government. The failure to comply with discovery obligations may result in
exclusion of the undisclosed evidence. See Fed. R. Crim. P. 16(d)(2)(C); see also
United States v. Scholl, 166 F.3d 964, 972 (9th Cir. 1999); United States v.
Aceves–Rosales, 832 F.2d 1155, 1156-57 (9th Cir. 1987). “Exclusion is an
appropriate remedy for a discovery rule violation only where ‘the omission was
willful and motivated by a desire to obtain a tactical advantage.’” United States v.
Finley, 301 F.3d 1000, 1018 (9th Cir. 2002) (quoting Taylor v. Illinois, 484 U.S.
400, 415 (1988)).
Although Hamilton’s trial attorney initially objected to the admission of the
records, he later expressly withdrew his objection when the government moved to
admit them. This constitutes a waiver of the claim. Assuming the error were not
waived however, the district court did not abuse its discretion by (1) finding no
discovery violation, given that the government disclosed the records the day after
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receiving them; and (2) declining to order the remedy of exclusion, because there
was no indication that the government’s late discovery was “willful or motivated
by a desire to obtain a tactical advantage.” Id. Thus, we affirm the district court’s
admission of the FedEx records.
4. We conclude that the district court did not abuse its discretion by denying
the defendants’ motion to sever Hamilton’s and Ruelas’ trials. A district court
abuses its discretion in denying a severance motion only when “a joint trial was so
manifestly prejudicial as to require the trial judge to exercise his discretion in but
one way, by ordering a separate trial.” United States v. Jenkins, 633 F.3d 788, 807
(9th Cir. 2011) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). “Inquiry into the
prejudicial effect of a joint trial involves consideration of several factors,” see
United States v. Fernandez, 388 F.3d 1199, 1241 (9th Cir. 2004), modified,
425 F.3d 1248 (9th Cir. 2005), the “most important” of which are “whether the
jury can compartmentalize the evidence against each defendant and the judge’s
diligence in providing evidentiary instructions to the jury.” United States v.
Sullivan, 522 F.3d 967, 981-82 (9th Cir. 2008).
The government’s evidence at trial demonstrated that there was one
overarching drug conspiracy in which both Ruelas and Hamilton were involved.
Its case against both defendants relied on much of the same overlapping
evidence—namely, the testimony of several co-conspirators with whom Ruelas
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and Hamilton worked. The district court instructed the jury to consider the
evidence against each defendant individually and to separately evaluate each
defendant’s guilt, and there was no indication that the jury was unable to do so.
Hamilton’s argument that the defendants had mutually exclusive or antagonistic
approaches toward one co-conspirator’s testimony is not sufficiently persuasive to
require severance in this case. See United States v. Mayfield, 189 F.3d 895, 899
(9th Cir. 1999) (“‘Mere inconsistency in defense positions is insufficient’ to
warrant severance.” (citations omitted)). Accordingly, we affirm the district
court’s denial of Hamilton’s motion to sever.
5. Ruelas contends that the district court abused its discretion under Federal
Rule of Evidence 404(b) by admitting evidence of his prior arrest. We disagree.
Evidence of a defendant’s prior conviction, wrong, or other act is inadmissible to
prove the defendant’s bad character or propensity to commit the charged offenses.
See Fed. R. Evid. 404(b)(1). However, evidence of a prior act is admissible for
nonpropensity purposes, “such as proving motive, opportunity, intent, preparation,
plan, knowledge, identity, absence of mistake, or lack of accident.” Fed. R. Evid.
404(b)(2). Such evidence is admissible if it satisfies a four-part test: “(1) the
evidence tends to prove a material point; (2) the other act is not too remote in time;
(3) the evidence is sufficient to support a finding that defendant committed the
other act; and (4) (in certain cases) the act is similar to the offense charged.”
7
United States v. Lloyd, 807 F.3d 1128, 1157-58 (9th Cir. 2015) (internal quotation
marks and citation omitted). If the four-part test is satisfied, the evidence is
admissible unless “its probative value is substantially outweighed by a danger
of . . . unfair prejudice.” Fed. R. Evid. 403.
At trial, the government sought to introduce evidence that Ruelas was
previously arrested during an unrelated cocaine trafficking sting, in which he was
found in a hotel room with $75,000 in cash. The government’s theory of
admissibility was that Ruelas had learned from this prior arrest that money and
drugs should not be in the same place, which was probative of his knowledge of
his involvement in the charged conspiracy. Ruelas responds that the lesson he
purportedly learned from his prior arrest was not a contested issue at trial, and the
government was otherwise unable to show a logical, propensity-free connection
between his prior arrest and a material point in the case. See United States v.
Rodriguez, 880 F.3d 1151, 1167 (9th Cir. 2018) (“[W]here the defendant’s
knowledge is contested, we have ‘emphasized that the government must prove a
logical connection between the knowledge gained as a result of the commission of
the prior act and the knowledge at issue in the charged act.’ This logical
connection must be ‘supported by some propensity-free chain of reasoning.’”
(citation omitted)).
We conclude that the district court’s ruling to admit the Rule 404(b)
8
evidence was not an abuse of discretion. The government’s theory that Ruelas
learned from his prior arrest to avoid being caught with money and drugs in the
same location would be one reasonable explanation for the statements he made to
his codefendants, which would tend to rebut Ruelas’ defense that he was unaware
of the conspiracy. The district court also conducted a proper balancing analysis
under Federal Rule of Evidence 403 prior to its ruling on admission. Furthermore,
the district court set limitations on the government’s presentation of the Rule
404(b) evidence and provided appropriate limiting instructions to the jury, and as
stated earlier, the evidence against both defendants was strong. Thus, even if the
district court erred in admitting the prior act evidence, we find that the error was
harmless. Consequently, we affirm the district court’s ruling to admit the prior act
evidence under Rule 404(b).
6. Finally, we accept the government’s concession to the district court’s
sentencing error for Ruelas on Count 1, and remand for resentencing on an open
record. Ruelas argues, and the government agrees, that the district court erred in
calculating Ruelas’ sentence on Count 1 based on an amount of 12 pounds of
methamphetamine, when the evidence at trial shows that Ruelas was involved with
only 6.5 pounds of methamphetamine. Based on this error, we do not reach the
question of whether the district court’s purity finding was clearly erroneous and
remand for resentencing on an open record, consistent with our default rule. See
9
United States v. Matthews, 278 F.3d 880, 885 (9th Cir. 2002) (“[A]s a general
matter, if a district court errs in sentencing, we will remand for resentencing on an
open record—that is, without limitation on the evidence that the district court may
consider.”).
Ruelas’ judgment of conviction is AFFIRMED, and Ruelas’ sentence on
Count 1 is VACATED AND REMANDED for resentencing.
Hamilton’s judgment of conviction and sentence are AFFIRMED.
10