UNITED STATES OF AMERICA v. JESUS ALEJANDRO CHAVEZ
US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, Wilkinson, July 2, 2018,
Searches – Cell site records legally obtained without a SSW prior to the Supreme Court’s Carpenter decision are allowed in evidence under the good faith exception

Facts:
Thirteen members of MS-13, including Chavez, were charged with a series of violent crimes committed during 2013 and 2014 including murders committed against: a man who “disrespected” MS-13, a gang-member who broke MS-13 rules, and someone they believed was a government informant.
Among other charges, each was indicted for either murder in aid of racketeering or conspiracy to commit that crime.
At trial, cell phone records obtained through a court order (not search warrant) were introduced with GPS location information.
Additionally, “Junior” (a former member of MS-13) testified for the government. Junior was working with the FBI and infiltrated the defendants’ MS-13 clique, secretly recorded conversations with them, and was even led by one of the defendants to the bodies of two murder victims.
Junior’s testimony helped explain the context around pieces of forensic evidence and telephone records.
In exchange for his testimony, Junior’s deportation was put off while he obtained a green card. The FBI did not directly get Junior a green card, but did write a letter to immigration authorities on his behalf.
Junior testified that the FBI’s letter was returned and that the judge “didn’t get the letter,” but on cross examination Junior admitted that he did show the judge an FBI letter directly.
During the trial, the government objected at several points in such a way that it “telegraphed how its witnesses were to answer questions posed by defense counsel.” The trial judge upheld a defense objective and gave an instruction to the jury to decide the question for itself.
Prior to deliberation, one defendant requested that the jury be instructed on the crimes of attempted murder and conspiracy to assault. This was denied by the judge, since there was no dispute that the victims were murdered or that there was any agreement to just assault them.
The defendants were convicted and sentenced. Two of the defendants were 18 at the time of the criminal actions in question, but were nevertheless sentenced to the mandatory minimum of life imprisonment.
After the defendants were convicted, it was revealed during another trial that Junior failed to disclose his MS-13 connections on three immigration forms (though his convictions and MS-13 connections did appear in other parts of the immigration file).
The defendants then filed for new trials, claiming that the government violated its discovery obligations and allowed perjured testimony.
This was denied by the US District Court and the defendants appealed on a variety of issues, including: discovery violations, cell-site information obtained without a search warrant, improper prosecutorial conduct, imposition of life-sentences to 18-year-olds, improper jury instructions, and other issues.

Held: The trial was proper, any errors were harmless, and only juveniles (not 18-year-olds) can complain about sentences of life imprisonment.

Cell Site Location Information – The Supreme Court held on June 22, 2018, that a search warrant or exception is required to obtain cell site location information of a week or more.

Good Faith – When officers reasonably rely on a statute that is later changed or invalidated, those searches are still legal and evidence obtained may be admitted at trial

From the Case: “Chavez does not, and cannot, deny that investigators in this case reasonably relied on court orders and the Stored Communications Act in obtaining the cell site records. Without question, then, the good-faith exception to the exclusionary rule applies to investigators’ actions here.”

“Brady” Violations – In Brady v. Maryland, the Supreme Court held that a defendant may receive a new trial if he can show that:
– Evidence was kept from him by the government
– This evidence was favorable to him
– And the evidence was “material” to the verdict at trial

“Brady” Violation – Material Evidence – Evidence is “material” if it “could reasonably be taken to put the whole case in such a different light as to undermine confidence in the verdict”

From the Case: “Whatever impeachment value Junior’s immigration files may have held, it certainly did not rise to” the level of undermining confidence in the verdict. “At trial, the government had at least two eyewitnesses testify for each murder. The government also provided hours of recorded phone calls in which the defendants implicated themselves and each other in the charged crimes. Physical and forensic evidence further implicated the defendants. Impeaching Junior’s testimony would have done almost nothing to undermine what the district court described as a “substantial, overwhelming, and significantly corroborated” body of evidence.

Use of False Testimony- The Supreme Court has held that the government may not knowingly use false evidence against a defendant at trial. If false testimony is given at trial, it is the government’s responsibility to “correct it when it appears.”

Use of False Testimony – If there is “any reasonable likelihood that the false testimony could have affected the judgment of the jury,” then the defendant may be entitled to a new trial.

From the Case: “Junior’s initial testimony that the FBI’s letter on his behalf in his green card proceedings was returned, and thus not received by the immigration judge, was at best incomplete and misleading. But this testimony was corrected when Junior admitted on cross-examination that he personally delivered the letter to the immigration judge.” “It is difficult to imagine how a conviction could have been ‘obtained by the knowing use of perjured testimony’ when that testimony was almost immediately corrected by the witness himself. It is unclear what more the government could or should have done to correct the false testimony once Junior had corrected himself on the stand.”

Prosecutorial Misconduct – A defendant may be entitled to a new trial where the government’s improper conduct “so infected the trial with unfairness as to make the resulting conviction a denial of due process.”

From the Case: “Prosecutors are not required to be perfect, and indeed they could hardly be expected to be. Prosecutors should of course strive for impeccable performance and seek to avoid all improper behavior, but isolated and immaterial incidents such as those at issue here do not implicate the overall fairness of the trial, and therefore do not necessitate a new one.”

Lesser Included Offenses – Where a defendant is charged with murder in aid of racketeering, he is not entitled to an instruction on the lesser-included crimes of assault or attempt where there is no dispute that the victim was murdered; the only question for the jury was whether the defendant had anything to do with it.

From the Case: “Here, there was no evidence to support giving instructions on either assault or attempt with respect to Aguilar’s murder… Cerna was either guilty of this murder, whether as a principal or an aider/abettor, or he was not. No reasonable jury could have found him guilty of assault or attempt but not murder.”

Sentencing – Juveniles – Juveniles may not be sentenced to life imprisonment without consideration of the specific individual and case

Sentencing – 18-year-olds – An 18-year-old is an adult and may be sentenced to a mandatory sentence of life imprisonment

From the Case: “Consider the legal age requirements for driving, drinking alcohol, registering for the draft, voting, holding certain public offices, and marrying, among other things. The lines drawn by age in all of these examples will be imperfect fits for some individuals. But we cannot say that this makes them unconstitutional.”