United States v. Noriega

117 F.3d 1206 (11th Cir. 1997)

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Nature of the Case

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Facts

On February 4, 1988, a federal grand jury indicted Da on drug-related charges. D served as commander of the Panamanian Defense Forces in the Republic of Panama. Panama's president formally discharged Noriega from his military post, but D refused to accept the dismissal. Panama's legislature then ousted the president from power. On December 15, 1989, D publicly declared that a state of war existed between Panama and the United States. After military action by the United States, D surrendered to United States military officials on January 3, 1990. D was brought to Miami to face the pending federal charges. D gave notice of his intent to use classified information regarding his intelligence work for the United States to rebut the government's assertion that he had unexplained wealth. P offered to stipulate that D had received approximately $320,000 from the United States Army and the Central Intelligence Agency. D insisted that the actual figure approached $10,000,000 and that he should be allowed to disclose the tasks he had performed for the United States. The district court held the evidence was irrelevant to his defense and that the tendency of such evidence to confuse the issues before the jury substantially outweighed any probative value it might have had. The district court's CIPA ruling left D free to present evidence of the fact, amounts, time, source and method of conveyance of money he alleged he had received from the United States. D was convicted and appealed the convictions and the denial of a motion for a new trial.