United States v. Ana Roberto Miranda

OPINION

We reverse Miranda’s conviction for importing heroin and for conspiring to import heroin because the district court erred in admitting prejudicial hearsay testimony over appropriate objection.

Miranda entered Guam by commercial airplane carrying heroin with her personal effects. She was searched, and the heroin was found, when she arrived at the airport. Her motion to suppress was denied, and no error is claimed based upon the search.

As part of the Government’s case-in-chief, the prosecutor asked customs agent Flores what he knew about Miranda before she was searched. Over defense counsel’s hearsay objection, the following colloquy took place:

No explanation, other than overzeal-ousness, emerges to excuse the prosecution’s bringing this inadmissible, inflammatory testimony before the jury. The evidence was not conceivably relevant for any nonhearsay purpose. The antecedent motion to suppress left no room for prosecutorial surprise. The admission of this testimony was too devastating to permit us to invoke the harmless error rule.

Reversed and remanded.