United States v. Harold Hills and Oreather Hills, United States of America v. Mariano Esparza-Alaniz

After trial by jury, defendants Mariano Esparza-Alaniz and Harold Hills appeal from their conviction for violation of 18 U.S.C. 371 and 8 U.S.C. §§ 1324 and 1324(a) (conspiracy to induce the illegal entry of aliens and to transport illegal aliens; transportation of aliens illegally within the country) and sentence thereunder. Appellant Oreather Hills appeals her conviction for violation of 18 U.S.C. 371.

Eleven separate items of error are specified by appellants. None has merit, nor do they collectively. The attempt by appellants to invoke this Court’s decision in Pulido v. United States, 425 F.2d 1391 (1970) is rejected; the facts therein are clearly distinguishable from those found here. Ninth Circuit cases subsequent to Pulido have limited the holding in that case to its precise facts. Two factors in Pulido have,been given controlling significance: the informer-accomplice was a narcotics addict (a notoriously unreliable source) and the identification was given on the street shortly after the arrest, after other information given by the informant concerning the location of the other accomplices turned out to be incorrect (thus easting further doubt on his reliability). In the…