March 29, 1994
[NOT FOR PUBLICATION]
United States Court of Appeals
For the First Circuit
No. 93-1663
UNITED STATES,
Appellee,
v.
JAIME CORRALES,
Defendant, Appellant.
APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF MASSACHUSETTS
[Hon. Joseph L. Tauro, U.S. District Judge]
Before
Torruella, Circuit Judge,
Aldrich, Senior Circuit Judge,
and Stahl, Circuit Judge.
Lenore Glaser for appellant.
R. Bradford Bailey, Assistant United States Attorney, with whom
A. John Pappalardo, United States Attorney, was on brief for appellee.
Per curiam. After a five-day jury trial,
defendant-appellant Jaime Corrales was convicted of
conspiracy to possess cocaine with intent to distribute in
violation of 21 U.S.C. 846, and possession of cocaine with
intent to distribute in violation of 21 U.S.C.
841(a)(1)(2). On appeal, defendant argues that the district
court erroneously limited the scope of his cross-examination
of the government's confidential informant and asks us to
vacate his conviction. We affirm.
I.
BACKGROUND
Before beginning work as a confidential informant
with the federal Drug Enforcement Administration ("DEA"),
Jaime Echevarria was arrested on two separate occasions: in
1990 for drug trafficking and in 1991 as part of a federal
drug conspiracy sting. Both times, the charges against
Echevarria were dismissed. In particular, the 1991 charges
were dismissed after a finding of no probable cause by a
United States Magistrate Judge.1 Echevarria's wife,
Beatrice Lopez, was also arrested in the 1991 sting. Her
indictment was not dismissed, however, and she subsequently
pleaded guilty to a charge of conspiracy to possess with
intent to distribute cocaine.
1. The record before us provides no further elaboration on
the grounds for dismissal.
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Some days after Echevarria's 1991 charges were
dismissed, he was approached by DEA agents offering financial
compensation and a promise to consider reducing Lopez's
sentence in exchange for Echevarria's work as a confidential
informant. Echevarria agreed. In his first assignment,
Echevarria posed as a drug buyer in Lowell, Massachusetts,
where he negotiated to buy ten kilograms of cocaine from
defendant and two others. As a result of Echevarria's
cooperation, defendant was arrested and brought to trial.
Echevarria was the government's principal witness
at trial. Prior to defendant's cross-examination of
Echevarria, the government, in accordance with the Jencks
Act2, provided defendant with a summary of Echevarria's
criminal history and all inducements. At this time, the
government also sought, through a motion in limine, to
prevent defendant from asking Echevarria about his prior
unprosecuted arrests. Before the trial court ruled on the
motion, defendant's attorney stated to the court that she
would not ask Echevarria about unprosecuted arrests provided
that the government's decision not to prosecute was not the
product of an agreement to cooperate. At this time, the
government reiterated the information contained in the Jencks
Act materials by assuring both defense counsel and the
2. See 18 U.S.C. 3500 et seq.; Jencks v. United States,
353 U.S. 657 (1957).
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district court that the dismissal of the 1991 charges against
Echevarria resulted from a lack of probable cause and not
from any such agreement.
Nonetheless, before cross-examining Echevarria,
Corrales requested (and was granted) a voir dire of the
witness. In response to counsel's questions, Echevarria
emphatically denied any collusion between the government and
himself regarding the 1991 dismissal. Echevarria further
stated that he had not been approached by DEA agents
concerning his possible cooperation until days after the
charges were dropped. At the conclusion of the voir dire,
the government again declared that the dismissal of the 1991
charges against Echevarria resulted from a finding of no
probable cause by a Magistrate Judge.
Following voir dire, defendant's counsel cross-
examined Echevarria about the circumstances leading to his
wife's indictment. After denying knowledge of specific
events, Echevarria explained that he was not aware of his
wife's actions because he was "innocent of [her crime]."
Counsel then attempted to impeach this proclamation of
innocence by questioning Echevarria in detail about the
substance of a phone call between Lopez and her cousin --
evidence which apparently served as the basis for
Echevarria's wife's indictment. The government objected and
the following bench conference ensued:
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[Defense Counsel]: I think I am entitled
to ask him about his activities around
drugs and his information and his
knowledge, and it is an exception to the
conviction; because, your Honor, I am not
introducing it for the purpose of bad
character, which is why only convictions
are allowed.
Court: You are trying to establish --
[Defense Counsel]: He himself was
involved.
Court: If you can establish he was
involved, that is something else again.
[Defense Counsel]: I believe I am
entitled to that, because, although he
was not convicted of a drug crime, it is
not being offered for purposes of proving
his bad character, which is what the
hearsay rule is for.
Court: What is the relevance then?
[Defense Counsel]: The relevance is it
shows a motive for him.
Court: His motive may be to protect his
wife. You can establish that, but on the
record he has already been dismissed from
any accusation, and that controls. You
don't have a good-faith basis for trying
to ask the question so he will scream
out, "I recall. I made a mistake."
There is no good-faith basis for that.
You are entitled, I think, to establish
the severity of the offense against the
wife and his interest in trying to
cooperate. That is legitimate.
Without further discussion, defense counsel resumed her
cross-examination of Echevarria. She neither attempted to
present to the court any evidence suggesting that the 1991
dismissal was tied to an agreement between Echevarria and the
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government, nor did she attempt to suggest that she possessed
evidence to show that Echevarria had been involved in the
1991 conspiracy. Instead, counsel concentrated on eliciting
the exact terms of Echevarria's agreement with the government
and wholly abandoned any attempt to ask about his alleged
involvement in his wife's crime. In response to defense
counsel's questions, Echevarria acknowledged that he had been
paid $10,800 in cash for his cooperation in the case and
further admitted that he hoped his cooperation would inure to
the benefit of his wife who had been convicted of a drug-
related crime and was awaiting sentencing.
II.
DISCUSSION
Defendant contends that the district court violated
his Sixth Amendment right to confrontation by limiting
defense counsel's cross-examination of Echevarria. More
specifically, defendant claims that the district court's
evidentiary ruling prevented his attorney from fully exposing
Echevarria's motive to testify, and from impeaching
Echevarria on the collateral issue of his involvement in his
wife's 1991 drug activities.
We begin by noting that a defendant's Sixth
Amendment right to cross-examine witnesses against him or her
is "fundamental and demanding of great respect," United
States v. Twomey, 806 F.2d 1136, 1139 (1st Cir. 1986). This
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right, however, is not without limits. "`On the contrary,
trial judges retain wide latitude insofar as the
Confrontation Clause is concerned to impose reasonable limits
on . . . cross-examination based on concerns about, among
other things, harassment, prejudice, confusion of the issues,
the witness' safety, or interrogation that is repetitive or
only marginally relevant.'" United States v. Carty, 993 F.2d
1005, 1009-10 (1st Cir. 1993) (quoting Delaware v. Van
Arsdall, 475 U.S. 673, 679 (1986)). On appeal, we review a
trial court's limitations upon cross-examination under an
abuse of discretion standard. See Twomey, 806 F.2d at 1140.
"In order to establish that the trial judge abused his
discretion in limiting cross-examination, the defendant must
show that the restriction imposed were clearly prejudicial."
Id. Defendant makes no such showing.
A review of the record reveals that Echevarria's
motives for testifying were fully disclosed. As noted above,
during cross-examination of Echevarria, defense counsel
unearthed the exact terms of the agreement between Echevarria
and the government. Thus, the jury was afforded sufficient
information to make a discriminating appraisal of
Echevarria's motives and bias. See id.; United States v.
McLaughlin, 957 F.2d 12, 17 (1st Cir. 1992). In the absence
of any evidence to suggest that there were additional
agreements made between Echevarria and the government, we
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disagree with defendant's assertion that he was denied an
opportunity to fully expose Echevarria's motivation to
testify.
Defendant's argument that the district court
improperly limited cross-examination regarding Echevarria's
involvement in the 1991 drug conspiracy is equally
unpersuasive. Trial judges may "limit impeachment evidence
on matters that are deemed collateral or irrelevant." United
States v. Walker, 930 F.2d 789, 791-92 (10th Cir. 1991); see
also United States v. Moore, 923 U.S. 910, 913 (1st Cir.
1991) (stating that the district court "has broad
discretionary authority to prohibit cross-examination where
that cross-examination would introduce into the case
collateral matters that could confuse the jury, that would
require later introduction of otherwise unnecessary,
additional, potentially clarifying evidence, or that might
prejudice one of the parties"). As the trial court aptly
noted, the only evidence remotely suggesting that Echevarria
had been involved in the 1991 conspiracy was his 1991
unprosecuted arrest. Yet, charges from this arrest were
dismissed for lack of probable cause. Moreover, defendant
failed below, and has failed on appeal, to proffer any
additional evidence of Echevarria's involvement in the 1991
conspiracy. Without such a proffer, the district court acted
well within its discretion to hold that defendant was bound
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by Echevarria's proclamation of "innocence," and could not
further question Echevarria about this collateral matter
without demonstrating a good faith basis for the inquiry.3
Finally, defendant appears to argue, albeit in a
perfunctory manner, that, under Fed. R. Evid. 608(b),
evidence of Echevarria's prior drug involvement should not
have been excluded because it was relevant to Echevarria's
character for truthfulness. We need not delay long on this
complaint. As we noted in Pinkham v. Maine Cent. R.R. Co.,
874 F.2d 875, 879 (1st Cir. 1989) (collecting cases),
evidence of a witness's drug involvement is generally not
admissible for character impeachment purposes. Accordingly,
we see no error here.
III.
CONCLUSION
For the foregoing reasons, the judgment below is
3. Defendant alternatively argues that, under Fed. R. Evid.
404(b), the evidence of prior drug involvement should not
have been excluded. Without reaching defendant's dubious and
unsupported assertion that Fed. R. Evid. 404(b) is relevant
to a discussion of impeachment of a government witness, we
note that "other act" evidence "must have some `special
relevance' to a material issue such as motive, opportunity,
intent, preparation, plan, or knowledge." Carty, 993 F.2d at
1011 (emphasis supplied). Admission of other act evidence
under Fed. R. Evid. 404(b) "is committed to the sound
discretion of the district court, and we review its ruling
only for abuse of discretion." Id. Not only has defendant
failed to demonstrate a good faith basis for questioning
Echevarria about prior drug involvement, he has not shown
that this nonexistent evidence bears some special relevance
to a material issue in the case.
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Affirmed.
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