Solorio-Soto

MEMORANDUM **

Guillermo Solorio-Soto (“Solorio”) appeals his conviction on three counts of transporting unauthorized aliens in violation of 8 U.S.C. § 1324 (a)(l)(A)(ii) and three counts of bringing aliens to the United States for financial gain in violation of 8 U.S.C. § 1324 (a)(2)(B)(ii). We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291 and reverse.

1. The prosecutor’s closing argument included several improper assertions about the significance of Solorio’s prior arrests. Although the prior arrest evidence proved that Solorio had twice been caught with aliens hidden on a truck he was driving, Solorio had never been charged with or convicted of any alien smuggling crimes, which require knowledge as an element, based on those incidents. Yet, on three separate occasions and contrary to the district court’s express limitations on the use of the prior arrest evidence, the prosecutor asserted that Solorio was “caught smuggling aliens,” suggesting that Solorio had acted knowingly even though that had never been proved. Indeed, the prosecutor explicitly asserted that “the fact that [Solorio] is knowingly smuggling aliens in the past negates an inference that he’s just an innocent dupe on…