United States v. Andres Garcia


In the United States Court of Appeals For the Seventh Circuit ____________________ No. 18-1735 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. ANDRES GARCIA, Defendant-Appellant. ____________________ Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division. No. 1:12-CR-356-3 — Rebecca R. Pallmeyer, Judge. ____________________ ARGUED NOVEMBER 28, 2018 — DECIDED MARCH 20, 2019 ____________________ Before ROVNER, HAMILTON, and BRENNAN, Circuit Judges. HAMILTON, Circuit Judge. A jury found defendant-appel- lant Andres Garcia guilty of distributing cocaine—actually distributing a kilogram of the stuff—to co-defendant Alan Cisneros in violation of 21 US.C. § 841. The government of- fered no direct evidence that Garcia possessed or controlled cocaine, drug paraphernalia, large quantities of cash, or other unexplained wealth. There was no admission of drug traffick- ing by Garcia, nor any testimony from witnesses (undercover 2 No. 18-1735 agents, criminal confederates, innocent bystanders, or sur- veillance officers) that Garcia distributed cocaine. Instead, the government secured this verdict based upon a federal agent’s opinion testimony purporting to interpret several cryptic in- tercepted phone calls between Garcia and Cisneros, a known drug dealer. This case illustrates the role trial judges have in guarding the requirement of proof beyond a reasonable doubt in crim- inal cases. It also reminds us of the connection between the roles that judges play in criminal cases, requiring proof be- yond a reasonable doubt, and in civil cases, where motions for summary judgment and for judgment as a matter of law re- quire judges to evaluate the outer limits of reasonable infer- ences under the lower civil standard of proof by a preponder- ance of the evidence. See generally Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 252–53 (1986) (comparing civil summary judgment standards to criminal standard discussed in Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 318–19 (1979)). If the evidence would not allow a civil case to survive a motion for summary judg- ment or a directed verdict, then the case has no business being given to a jury in a criminal trial. We assume the government’s circumstantial evidence here might have supported a search warrant or perhaps a wiretap on Garcia’s telephone. It simply was not sufficient to support a verdict of guilty beyond a reasonable doubt for distributing cocaine. We reverse the district court’s decisions denying Gar- cia’s motions for judgment of acquittal pursuant to Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 29 and reverse his convictions for insufficient evidence. No. 18-1735 3 I. Factual and Procedural Background A. The Investigation of Cisneros and his Conversations with Garcia Beginning in 2010, federal and state agents spent two years investigating an Illinois-based drug trafficking organization headed by Alan Cisneros, who, along with most of his co-con- spirators, was affiliated with the Latin Kings street gang. The evidence against Cisneros included seizures of cocaine and cash used in drug deals, controlled buys made by both a con- fidential informant and an undercover agent, video footage from a camera concealed near Cisneros’ two residences, live surveillance of his residences, consensually recorded tele- phone ...

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