Gutierrez-Cisneros

MEMORANDUM *

Appellant, Jose Manuel GutierrezCisneros, appeals his conviction, arguing that the district court abused its discretion when it improperly admitted two pawn *174 slips and allowed the government to argue facts not in evidence during closing argument. We have jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1291 , and we affirm.

The district court properly exercised its discretion by admitting the pawn slips into evidence. The pawn slips were not poverty evidence but circumstantial evidence used to corroborate GutierrezCisneros’s statements to law enforcement. His testimony on direct examination that he did not expect to be paid cash for moving marijuana across the border and his testimony on cross examination that he lied about needing cash tended to show that he did not know there was marijuana in the car. His admission to law enforcement that he “needed the cash” tended to show he did know of the marijuana. His failure to redeem his pawned goods is consistent with and buttresses the credibility of the admission that he “needed the cash.” Accordingly, the pawn slips were not poverty evidence because they were not admitted to “show the mere fact that the defendant [wa]s poor.”…

This should have been an easy case. Defendant was driving a car that had been reported stolen, with over 15 pounds of marijuana in the trunk. With no encouragement, defendant volunteered to an officer at the scene that he had smuggled the marijuana for money and that he knew about a drug operation in Guadalajara. For reasons that are hard to understand, however, the prosecution muddied the waters by introducing — over defendant’s objection — two pawn shop receipts. Because the government did not argue on appeal that the district court’s error in admitting these receipts was harmless, we must reverse defendant’s conviction.

According to my colleagues, the pawn shop receipts were relevant to “buttress[ ] the credibility of [defendant’s] admission that he ‘needed the cash,’ ” maj. at-, 1 something he had denied on the stand. But why do we care whether defendant needed cash at the time of his arrest? I can think of only two reasons, both bad.

One reason for proffering the receipts would have been to show defendant’s character for untruthfulness. Defendant’s testimony that he didn’t need cash when he was arrested contradicted his statement at the time of his arrest that he did need…