UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Juan Ramon MATTA-BALLESTEROS, Defendant-Appellant

71 F.3d 754, 95 Daily Journal DAR 15853, 95 Cal. Daily Op. Serv. 9042, 43 Fed. R. Serv. 338, 1995 U.S. App. LEXIS 33475, 1995 WL 704693
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
DecidedDecember 1, 1995
Docket91-50336
StatusPublished
Cited by143 cases

This text of 71 F.3d 754 (UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Juan Ramon MATTA-BALLESTEROS, Defendant-Appellant) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Juan Ramon MATTA-BALLESTEROS, Defendant-Appellant, 71 F.3d 754, 95 Daily Journal DAR 15853, 95 Cal. Daily Op. Serv. 9042, 43 Fed. R. Serv. 338, 1995 U.S. App. LEXIS 33475, 1995 WL 704693 (9th Cir. 1995).

Opinions

Concurrence by Judge NOONAN.

POOLE, Circuit Judge:

Appellant Juan Ramon Matta-Ballesteros appeals his convictions following jury trial on the following charges: (1) committing a crime of violence in aid of racketeering in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1959; (2) conspiring to kidnap a federal agent engaged in his official duties in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1201(c); and (3) kidnapping a federal agent engaged in his official duties in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1201(a)(5). Matta-Ballesteros contends that the district court lacked jurisdiction over him and committed various reversible errors during his trial. We reject his arguments and affirm his convictions.

I

Rafael Caro-Quintero, Ernesto Fonseca-Carrillo, Miguel Angel Felix-Gallardo, Ruben Zuno-Arce, Manuel Ibarra, Miguel Aldana and Javier Barba-Hernandez, all Mexican nationals, jointly operated a marijuana and cocaine trafficking enterprisé centered in Guadalajara, Mexico.1 The enterprise operated marijuana ranches in various Mexican locations.

Matta-Ballesteros, a Honduran, became involved with the enterprise in 1982 or 1983, and attended meetings where drag trafficking plans were discussed and decided. Felix-Gallardo and Matta-Ballesteros imported large amounts of cocaine into the United States on a number of occasions. At one point during their cocaine trafficking, Matta-Ballesteros and Felix-Gallardo grossed over $5 million a week from this enterprise.

During 1984, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) made several significant seizures of marijuana and cocaine which resulted in substantial losses for the enterprise. At a gathering held after the baptism of Barba-Hernandez’ daughter in Guadalajara [761]*761in September 1984, members of the enterprise — with the exception of Matta-Balleste-ros — discussed these losses and suggested that the DEA agent they believed was responsible should be “picked up.”

At a meeting held prior to the wedding of Barba-Hemandez’ brother in Guadalajara in October 1984, members of the enterprise, including Matta-Ballesteros, met and discussed the DEA seizures as well as a police report file covering one of the major marijuana seizures at Zacatecas, Mexico. The DEA agent responsible for the seizures was again discussed. The enterprise held yet another meeting after the wedding, in which Zuno-Arce suggested that the DEA agent should be “picked up” when his identity was discovered.

By December 1984, Fonseca-Carrillo had identified the responsible DEA agent as Special Agent Enrique Camarena. Fonseca-Carrillo said that he would “take care of’ Camarena. In February 1985, Zuno-Arce, Fonseca-Carrillo, Caro-Quintero and Barba-Hernandez met in Guadalajara and once again discussed picking up the DEA agent, finding out how much he knew, and learning who was cooperating with him.

Camarena disappeared on February 7, 1985 after leaving the DEA office in Guadalajara. Out-of-court statements, audiotapes and physical evidence, including hair, carpet fibers, sheet fabric and rope strands, showed that Camarena had been taken to a house at 881 Lope del Vega in Guadalajara, where he was held, tortured, interrogated and finally killed.

Matta-Ballesteros was seen cheeking out of a hotel in Guadalajara on February 12, 1985, apparently after learning he was under surveillance. Hairs consistent with Matta-Ballesteros’s were found in the guest house and bedroom at Lope del Vega, suggesting his presence there sometime after the house had been recarpeted in January 1985.

On April 29, 1985, in Cartagena, Colombia, Matta-Ballesteros was detained by Colombian police on charges unrelated to Camarena’s kidnapping and murder. The Colombian police took him to B ogata where DEA agents interviewed him. He denied participating in Camarena’s murder but admitted having some knowledge of it, which he refused to share because he feared he would be killed if he did. The United States unsuccessfully sought Matta-Ballesteros’s extradition on an unrelated criminal complaint filed in the Southern District of New York and failed to follow through on extradition efforts with regard to a previously dismissed, but newly revived fourteen-year-old charge for escape from federal authorities. Matta-Ballesteros returned to Honduras.

Near dawn on April 5, 1988, Matta-Bal-lesteros was abducted from his home in Tegucigalpa, Honduras. Aided by Honduran Special Troops, or “Cobras,” four United States Marshals bound his hands, put a black hood over his head, thrust him on the floor of a ear operated by a United States Marshal, and drove him to a United States Air Force Base in Honduras. The Marshals then moved him to the United States, via the Dominican Republic. Within twenty-four hours of his armed abduction Matta-Bal-lesteros was a prisoner in the federal penitentiary at Marion, Illinois. The government does not dispute that he was forcibly abducted from his home in Honduras.

The government does dispute his account of how he was treated by his abductors. Matta-Ballesteros claims that while being transported bound and hooded to the United States Air Force Base he was beaten and burned with a stun gun at the direction of the Marshals. He claims that during his flight he was once again beaten and tortured by a stun gun applied to various parts of his body, including his feet and genitals.

Matta-Ballesteros unsuccessfully petitioned for a writ of habeas corpus. Mattar-Ballesteros v. Henman, 896 F.2d 255 (7th Cir.1990), cert. denied, 498 U.S. 878, 111 S.Ct. 209, 112 L.Ed.2d 169 (1990). Subsequently, he was convicted in the Northern District of Florida for various narcotics charges and escape. These convictions were upheld on appeal. United States v. Matta, 937 F.2d 567 (11th Cir.1991).

Following that conviction, Matta-Balleste-ros was brought before the Central District of California to face charges that he participated in the conspiracy to kidnap and Mil [762]*762Camarería. In the trial which we review, Matta-Ballesteros was charged, tried and convicted of the following: (1) committing, aiding and abetting or conspiring to commit a violent act in support of an enterprise engaged in racketeering, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1959; (2) conspiracy to kidnap a federal agent, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1201(c); and (3) participating in the kidnapping of a federal agent, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1201(a)(5). He was acquitted on charges of murdering a federal agent engaged in his official duties, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1111(a).

II

Matta-Ballesteros argues that because of his abduction from Honduras and his being beaten and interrogated during his trip to the United States, the district court was precluded from exercising jurisdiction over him.

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71 F.3d 754, 95 Daily Journal DAR 15853, 95 Cal. Daily Op. Serv. 9042, 43 Fed. R. Serv. 338, 1995 U.S. App. LEXIS 33475, 1995 WL 704693, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-of-america-plaintiff-appellee-v-juan-ramon-ca9-1995.