United States v. Brooks

64 F. App'x 641
Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit·Decided May 15, 2003·No. No. 01-10282·Published

Opinion

MEMORANDUM *

Steven Bernard Brooks (Brooks) appeals from his convictions and sentence for distributing crystal methamphetamine and conspiring to distribute cocaine and methamphetamine in violation of 21 U.S.C. §§ 841(a)(1) and 846. We have jurisdic[643] tion pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1291 and 18 U.S.C. § 3742(a), and we affirm.

Brooks challenges the district court’s decision to allow the government to ask witness Tracy Spencer whether he previously had told government agents that he knew Wong got his “ice” from Brooks. While Brooks concedes that Spencer’s statements were admissible in order to impeach Spencer’s credibility, see United States v. Bao, 189 F.3d 860, 865-66 (9th Cir.1999), he argues the district court committed plain error by failing sua sponte to give a limiting instruction. However, in light of the other evidence presented at trial, Brooks fails to meet his burden of showing that any such error “affect[ed] [his] substantial rights.” United States v. Armijo, 5 F.3d 1229, 1232 (9th Cir.1993). Here, as in Armijo, there was more than sufficient evidence, aside from Spencer’s prior written statements, from which the jury could conclude that Brooks was Wong’s supplier, including the recorded phone conversations between Wong and Brooks in which Brooks himself intimated to details of past and future drug sales to Wong. The government did not question Spencer for an inordinate amount of time regarding his prior statements or rely on the prior statements later in trial as substantive evidence of the crimes charged, and unlike United States v. Gomez-Gallardo, 915 F.2d 553 (9th Cir.1990), the government did not call Spencer for the primary purpose of impeaching him with otherwise inadmissible prior statements.

We also reject Brooks’s claim that the district court erred by excluding Henthom materials.1 The district court acted within its discretion given the marginal relevance of the accusations contained in the agents’ files, Brooks’s ample opportunity to cross-examine both agents concerning their credibility, and the fact that exclusion of the evidence did not leave the jury with insufficient evidence to gauge the credibility of either witness. See United States v. James, 139 F.3d 709, 713-14 (9th Cir.1998).

Brooks’s claim that the district court erroneously precluded testimony from witness Curtis Worsham is unsupported by the record. Although the court initially excluded a portion of Worsham’s testimony on hearsay grounds, it later ruled that Brooks could recall Worsham as a witness, an opportunity Brooks did not pursue.

Brooks also argues that the district court erred in excluding testimony from Silva Brooks that Wong allegedly threatened her, her husband, and her children. She was permitted to testify that Wong was upset; however, the reasons for Wong’s anger are inadmissible and Silva Brooks was properly precluded from testifying about them. See United States v. Fontenot, 14 F.3d 1364, 1371 (9th Cir.1994). Nor did the court abuse its discretion in ruling that Silva Brooks’s state of mind was irrelevant, as no link was established between the threat to which she would have testified and Steven Brooks’s actions. Moreover, even assuming error, viewed in context of the entire trial Brooks cannot show that it “more probably than not tainted the verdict,” id., or that exclusion of the evidence violated his due process rights because it was “crucial” to his defense of entrapment. United States v. Lopez-Alvarez, 970 F.2d 583, 588 (9th Cir.1992). Brooks presented his theory of entrapment through vigorous cross-examination of Wong, Gravely, and Agent Lawson, and through testimony from Chong, Sáfele, and Worsham.

The district court did not err in denying a new trial based on admission of [644] Brooks’s financial records, as such evidence was relevant to the conspiracy charge to show unexplained wealth and to the entrapment defense to show that he had money to pay his debt to Wong. See United States v. Miguel, 952 F.2d 285, 289 (9th Cir.1991); United States v. Bernal, 719 F.2d 1475, 1478 (9th Cir.1983).

Brooks next argues that the district court erred in denying his motion to suppress post-arrest statements on the ground of pre-arraignment delay. We review for clear error a district court’s finding that a pre-arraignment delay was reasonable. See United States v. Mendoza, 157 F.3d 730, 732 (9th Cir.1998). We have held that 18 U.S.C. § 3501(c) creates a six-hour “safe harbor” during which a confession will not be excluded solely because of delay. Id. at 731; United States v. Van Poyck, 77 F.3d 285, 288 (9th Cir.1996). A delay of less than six hours occurred between Brooks’s arrest and his September 1 statements bearing on Count 1. Accordingly, these statements are clearly admissible. See Van Poyck, 77 F.3d at 288. While Brooks’s confession going to the historical conspiracy count was not within the safe harbor, the district court did not clearly err in finding that the delay was not unreasonable, given Brooks’s waiver of both his Miranda rights and the right under Fed.R.Crim.P. 5(a) to be brought before a magistrate judge without unnecessary delay. See, e.g., United States v. Binder, 769 F.2d 595, 598-99 (9th Cir.1985) (“The waiver of legal rights following Miranda warnings also constitutes a waiver of those rights under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 5.”) (citing United States v. Indian Boy X, 565 F.2d 585, 591 (9th Cir.1977)).

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