United States v. Rigal Baptiste , 596 F. App'x 880 ( 2015 )

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[DO NOT PUBLISH]
IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT
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No. 13-15774
Non-Argument Calendar
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D.C. Docket No. 1:05-cr-20586-KMM-2
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff-Appellee,
versus
RIGAL BAPTISTE,
Defendant-Appellant.
________________________
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Southern District of Florida
________________________
(January 9, 2015)
Before TJOFLAT, WILSON and JILL PRYOR, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM:
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On July 3, 2005, Linda Nicolas arrived at the Miami International Airport on
a flight from Haiti with a kilo of cocaine concealed in her lower abdomen over
which she work a skin-tight pair of elastic biker shorts. She aroused the suspicion
of Customs officers and, on inspection, the cocaine was discovered. On
questioning by Special Agents of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement
(“ICE”), Nicolas admitted that she was attempting to smuggle cocaine into the
United States. She said that she was to have been met at the airport by a man who
would escort her and the smuggled cocaine to Bradenton, Florida.
Nicolas agreed to cooperate with the agents and gave them a description of
the man she was to meet. Under the agents’ supervision, Nicolas led them to the
location in the airport where the meeting was to take place, and they spotted a man
make eye contact with her and make subtle gestures to summon her. The agents
seized the man, Rigal Baptiste, the appellant, and detained him. Special Agents
McBride and Morales interviewed Baptiste, and he admitted making arrangements
for Nicolas to travel to Haiti to pick up a quantity of cocaine; he was to deliver the
cocaine to a Mark Jerome in Bradenton.
Baptiste and Nicolas were arrested, and on July 15, 2005, jointly indicted on
four counts for conspiracy to import cocaine, 1 conspiracy to distribute cocaine,2
1
21 U.S.C. § 963.
2
21 U.S.C. § 846.
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and possession of cocaine with intent to distribute.3 Nicolas pled guilty to all
counts on September 1, 2005. Appellant, who had entered pleas of not guilty and
been admitted to bail, absconded and became a fugitive. He was arrested on May
24, 2013 and on September 24, 2013, stood trial before a jury. 4 He was found
guilty as charged and, on December 13, 2013, given concurrent prison sentences of
120 months.
Baptiste appeals his convictions, seeking a new trial on three grounds: the
District Court (1) infringed the hearsay rule and his Confrontation Clause right by
allowing Special Agents McBride and Morales to testify to Nicolas’s description of
Baptiste’s involvement in the conspiracies to import and distribute the cocaine
found on her person; (2) allowed the prosecutor to elicit inculpatory statements
from the agents but excluded exculpatory statements; (3) allowed the Government
to shift the burden of proof via the rebuttal portion of the prosecutor’s closing
argument to the jury at the close of the evidence. We affirm.
I.
A trial court ruling on the admissibility of evidence is reviewed for abuse of
discretion. Judd v. Rodman, 105 F.3d 1339, 1341 (11th Cir. 1997). Whether a
3
21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1).
4
Baptiste was tried on a superseding information which replicated the four counts of the
initial indictment but omitted Nicolas as a codefendant. Baptiste was charged in a separate
indictment with failing to appear and pled guilty to the offense.
3
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ruling denies a constitutional right is reviewed de novo. United States v. Brown,
364 F.3d 1266, 1268 (11th Cir. 2004).
Hearsay “is a statement, other than one made by the declarant while
testifying at the trial . . ., offered in evidence to prove the truth of the matter
asserted.” Fed. R. Evid. 801(c). An out-of-court statement offered for a reason
other than its truth is not hearsay. Id. An out-of-court statement may be admitted
to explain why an officer conducted a particular investigation if “the probative
value of the [statement’s] non-hearsay purpose is not substantially outweighed by
the danger of unfair prejudice caused by the impermissible hearsay use of the
statement.” United States v. Baker, 432 F.3d 1189, 1209 n.17 (11th Cir. 2005); see
also United States v. Jiminez, 564 F.3d 1280, 1287–88 (11th Cir. 2009) (allowing
an out-of-court statement to explain an officer’s conduct).
The Sixth Amendment protects a criminal defendant’s right to confront the
witnesses against him. U.S. Const. amend VI. The Supreme Court explained in
Crawford v. Washington that the Sixth Amendment prohibits the introduction of
out-of-court testimonial statements unless the declarant is unavailable to testify and
the defendant had a prior opportunity to cross-examine the declarant. 541 U.S. 36,
68, 124 S. Ct. 1354, 1374, 158 L. Ed. 2d 177 (2004). However, the Confrontation
Clause “prohibits only statements that constitute impermissible hearsay,” and does
not bar “the use of testimonial statements for purposes other than establishing the
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truth of the matter asserted.” Jiminez, 564 F.3d at 1286–87 (quoting Crawford,
541 U.S. at 59 n.9, 124 S. Ct. at 1369).
We find no hearsay or Confrontation Clause violation here. The agents did
not testify as to the actual statements that Nicolas provided, but, rather, testified
that she made a statement describing her coconspirator and that, as a result, they
were able to identify Baptiste and verify that he was involved in the cocaine
smuggling operation. To the extent the contents of her statements were revealed or
necessarily implied, they were not hearsay because they were not admitted for the
truth of the matter asserted, but rather to explain the basis for the agents’
investigatory actions in identifying and locating Baptiste, approaching him, and
bringing him to a secure area for questioning. Jiminez, 564 F.3d at 1287–88. Any
prejudicial effect of this ruling was mitigated by Baptiste’s admission that he
organized the smuggling venture and the circumstantial evidence corroborating the
admission. This same analysis applies to Baptiste’s Confrontation Clause
argument, which likewise fails.
II.
Baptiste’s defense was that he had been “set up” by Nicolas, with whom he
had been romantically involved. Since Nicolas did not testify as a prosecution
witness and Baptiste did not take the stand or present any evidence in his own
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defense, Baptiste attempted to establish this defense through his cross-examination
of Special Agents McBride and Morales.
[Defense Counsel]: Do you remember talking to Rigel Baptiste about
whether there had been a sexual relationship with Linda Nicolas?
[McBride]: I don’t remember asking him. But it was -- it would not
have been an unusual question for me to ask him.
[Defense Counsel]: You don’t remember -- do you remember what he
said about that? Did he deny it at that time?
[McBride]: I -- honestly, I don’t remember off the -- from memory.
No, sir. I don’t remember.
Doc. 134, at 91.
After counsel asked McBride whether he remembered Baptiste saying, “is it
a crime to pick up my girlfriend at the airport on a flight coming in?” the
prosecutor objected: “First of all, it’s hearsay. Secondly, it’s [been] asked and
answered.” The court sustained the objection. Id. at 91–91.
Defense counsel asked similar questions of Special Agent Morales, but all
he could recall was that Baptiste stated that he had driven Nicolas to the airport and
was going to pick her up after she returned from Haiti. When counsel asked, “Did
he admit that he was kind of really hot in her [sic] in a sexual relationship?” the
prosecutor objected on hearsay grounds and the court sustained it. Doc. 135, at 81.
We find no abuse of discretion in the court’s rulings. First, both witnesses
said they had no recollection of the statements Baptiste’s purportedly made, as
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reflected in counsel’s questions, and that should have ended the inquiry. Second,
Baptiste’s argument—advanced for the first time in his brief to this court—that, for
sake of completeness, the statements Baptiste purportedly made, as indicated in
counsel’s questions, should have come in through Federal Rule of Evidence 106, is
meritless. Rule 106 states:
When a writing or recorded statement or part thereof is introduced by
a party, an adverse party may require the introduction at that time of
any other part or any other writing or recorded statement which ought
in fairness to be considered contemporaneously with it.
McBride and Morales were testifying from their reports of the investigation
and their interview of Baptiste. The reports contained no indication that Baptiste
uttered the sexual relationship statements suggested in the questions counsel posed.
In short, there is nothing in the record indicating that further questioning along the
lines counsel was pursuing would have “in fairness” rendered the agents’
testimony complete.
III.
Baptiste argues that the District Court, in overruling his objection to the
prosecutor’s rebuttal argument, in which he referred to the defense’s failure to call
an expert witness on interrogation, allowed “the prosecution to distort important
facts and shift the burden of proof.” Appellant’s Br., at 28. This reference was in
response to defense counsel’s own argument in closing that the Government should
have called an interrogation expert to testify in its case in chief. The court’s charge
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to the jury, which was delivered following closing argument, plainly informed the
jury that the Government had the burden of proving all the elements of the crimes
with which Baptiste had been charged. There is no reasonable probability that but
for the prosecutor's reference to the defense's failure to call an interrogation expert,
the outcome of the trial would have been different.
AFFIRMED.
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