United States v. Hector Tafollo-Cardenas
Opinion
Opinion
Wright, J.
We consider if the government deprived the defendant of his constitutional rights when it deported a witness before trial and if the district court improperly admitted prior inconsistent statements of a second witness as substantive evidence.
BACKGROUND
In July 1988 Veronice Orozco-Contreras arrived in San Francisco from Guadalajara, Mexico. Customs officials observing her became suspicious that she might be involved in smuggling, conducted a pat down search and discovered heroin wrapped in white gauze around her waist.
After Drug Enforcement Administration agents arrived and advised Contreras in Spanish of her rights, she waived them and agreed to cooperate with the agents. At first, she told them that she was to give the heroin to a man in a red shirt. Then, she changed her story and said that she had received the heroin from Benjamin Cardenas in Mexico and was to deliver it to his brother, Hector Cardenas, in Oakland. She was to receive $2,000 as courier. She also described an earlier trip to San Francisco in May 1988 when she had taken two packages of heroin from Hector in Mexico and delivered them to Benjamin who was then in the United States.