United States v. Lujan

603 F.3d 850, 2010 U.S. App. LEXIS 8893, 2010 WL 1711494
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit
DecidedApril 29, 2010
Docket09-2046
StatusPublished
Cited by29 cases

This text of 603 F.3d 850 (United States v. Lujan) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
United States v. Lujan, 603 F.3d 850, 2010 U.S. App. LEXIS 8893, 2010 WL 1711494 (10th Cir. 2010).

Opinions

EBEL, Circuit Judge.

Defendant-Appellee Larry Lujan is charged with the capital crime of kidnapping resulting in the death of a victim, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1201(a)(1), for the kidnapping and subsequent murder of Dana Joe Grauke II in March 2005 (the “Grauke murder”). In its pursuit of the death penalty, and for purposes of the sentencing phase only, AppellanMJnited States sought to have evidence admitted that Lujan had previously committed a double homicide in New Mexico in December 1998 (the “Chamberino murders” or the “double homicide”). The United States asserted that this double homicide evidence would prove Lujan’s future dangerousness-a non-statutory aggravating factor for the death penalty. Lujan argued that this evidence cannot be admitted because it is unfairly prejudicial, particularly because Lujan has been charged by New Mexico with the Chamberino murders but not convicted of them. The district court agreed with Lujan and ordered the evidence excluded pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 3593(c) of the Federal Death Penalty Act of 1994. The United States filed an interlocutory appeal of this order. Under 18 U.S.C. § 3731, we have jurisdiction to hear an interlocutory appeal of a district court’s pretrial order excluding evidence from the sentencing phase. See also United States v. Pepin, 514 F.3d 193, 201-02 (2d Cir.2008) (exercising jurisdiction under 18 U.S.C. § 3731 to review on interlocutory appeal an order excluding from the penalty phase evidence proffered by the government). Exercising that jurisdiction, we reverse the district court’s order and remand for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

BACKGROUND

The details of the Grauke murder as alleged by the United States depict a gruesome scene in which Lujan (and his cohorts) severely beat Grauke over a significant period of time, sexually assaulted Grauke, and engaged in other acts to terrify and isolate Grauke. The handful of allegations necessary to understand this case begin when Lujan1 visited Grauke at his home to collect on a drug debt. Lujan physically assaulted Grauke and a friend and ransacked Grauke’s home. Lujan then forced Grauke into a truck and took him to a friend’s home, but before leaving, threatened to kill Grauke’s friend if he told anyone what had happened. At the friend’s house, Lujan continued to beat Grauke before forcing him into another car to visit ATMs and phone booths in an unsuccessful effort to obtain payment on the drug debt. Later, Lujan and his friend, Eugenio Medina, forced Grauke into the trunk of Medina’s car and drove to another friend’s house. At this point, Lujan removed Grauke from the trunk, blindfolded him, bound his hands, and placed him into the “luggage compartment” of a Jeep Cherokee. (Aplt.App. at 79, 80.) Lujan then proceeded to his friend Daniel Quintana’s home in New Mexico where he ate and drank inside while Grauke remained blindfolded and bound in the Jeep. Throughout this ordeal Lujan allegedly taunted Grauke, telling Grauke that he would “sell him like a bitch” or kill him and that “[t]his is what happens when you mess with me.” (Id. at 80.) Sometime after the events of this day, Grauke’s body was discovered with a butcher knife that [853]*853was subsequently connected to Lujan buried between Grauke’s feet.

The facts of the Chamberino murders as alleged by the United States are equally gruesome. As a result of a drug dispute between Lujan and Alfredo Gonzales, in early December 1998, Lujan went to Gonzales’s home in Chamberino, New Mexico, at which Juana Olmeda also resided. Lujan slit Alfredo’s throat because of the drug dispute and slit Olmeda’s throat because she witnessed Lujan killing Alfredo. Lujan left the Gonzales home, obtained gasoline, and returned with a friend, Pablo Renteria, only to find Alfredo still alive. At this point, Lujan repeatedly kicked Alfredo in the head and body, telling him “[tjhis is what happens when you mess with me.” (Id. at 90.) Lujan then searched the house for drugs and, ultimately, poured gasoline over the victims’ bodies, including the apparently still-breathing Alfredo, and set them on fire. Lujan then absconded to El Paso, Texas, where he called Daniel Quintana and told him what happened. The victims’ eleven-year-old daughter discovered the bodies the next afternoon.

In the sentencing phase of the Grauke murder, assuming there is a conviction, the United States would like to introduce at least the following evidence to prove Lujan committed the Chamberino murders: (1) evidence that a bloody rag found on Gonzales’s body contained DNA matching Lujan’s DNA, but did not contain the DNA of the victims; (2) testimony of Daniel Quintana about how he had been with Lujan prior to the homicides, that Lujan had become upset with Gonzales over drugs, and that Lujan had disappeared for a while at the time the homicides occurred; (3) a statement from Pablo Renteria about what he saw when he returned with Lujan to the Gonzales home; and (4) testimony from a medical examiner as to the wounds and manner of the victims’ deaths. The United States offered to sanitize some of this evidence, including Renteria’s statement. The Government also proposed a summary witness as an alternative. Nonetheless, the court excluded from the sentencing phase all evidence related to the Chamberino murders.

DISCUSSION

I. Standard of Review

We review a district court’s order excluding evidence from the penalty phase of a capital case under 18 U.S.C. § 3593(c) for an abuse of discretion. See United States v. McVeigh, 153 F.3d 1166, 1211, 1214 (10th Cir.1998) (providing that “the abuse-of-diseretion standard applies to whether the [proffered] evidence was relevant to [a] mitigating factor”), disapproved of on other grounds, and limited by Hooks v. Ward, 184 F.3d 1206, 1227 (10th Cir.1999); see also Pepin, 514 F.3d at 202 (applying abuse-of-discretion standard).

I. Analysis

The precise issue before us is whether the district court abused its discretion by excluding evidence under 18 U.S.C. § 3593(c). Section 3593(c) sets forth the following evidentiary standard for the penalty phase:

At the sentencing hearing, information may be presented as to any matter relevant to the sentence, including any mitigating or aggravating factor permitted or required to be considered under section 3592.... The government may present any information relevant to an aggravating factor for which notice has been provided under subsection (a). Information is admissible regardless of its admissibility under the rules governing admission of evidence at criminal trials except that information may be excluded if its probative value is outweighed [854]*854by the danger of creating unfair prejudice, confusing the issues, or misleading the jury.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
603 F.3d 850, 2010 U.S. App. LEXIS 8893, 2010 WL 1711494, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-lujan-ca10-2010.