United States v. Estrada

430 F.3d 606 (2nd Cir. 2005)

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Nature of the Case

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Facts

Ds were arrested for narcotics trafficking. P called a number of cooperating witnesses. D sought to impeach Jose Lugo with a burglary conviction. The district court held that, for 'a conviction that goes to credibility, conviction for fraud, that type of thing, then you can bring out the nature of the conviction. If it's simply a felony conviction, the fact of the conviction is what you bring out.' The court permitted limited cross-examination on Lugo's burglary conviction to the fact of an unnamed felony conviction. For Ismael Padilla's larceny convictions, the district court indicated that whether larceny is crimen falsi depends on the underlying facts and permitted extended in camera questioning of the witness about his larceny convictions. After the examination, the court stated that he had not 'heard an argument for the probative value here unless it is a crime of falsity or deceit that goes to . . . untruthfulness.' The judge held that, for crimes not bearing directly on veracity, 'it's the fact and presumably the date, if you want to get it in, that goes to credibility, and the credibility of the witness is not further attacked if it's, you know, Crime A versus Crime B.' The court instructed D on the questions that could be posed: 'In June 1992, you were convicted of a felony, right? And in October 1993, you were convicted of another felony.' As to Joseph Butler, the district court found that Butler's robbery, escape, and manslaughter convictions did not 'go to the question of truthfulness or veracity' and limited impeachment for each offense to the fact of an unnamed felony conviction and its date. DeJesus (D) was convicted and appealed. He contends that the district court's decision to limit the scope of impeachment of the government's witnesses, as a matter of policy, to the fact and date of their felony convictions without permitting inquiry into the statutory names of their offenses of conviction violated the Confrontation Clause and Fed. R. Evid. 609. DeJesus also claims that the district court erred by characterizing Ismael Padilla's larceny convictions as subject to Rule 609(a)(1) rather than as crimen falsi automatically admissible under Rule 609(a)(2).