United States Second Circuit

Defendants' alien transportation conviction is affirmed where: 1) the strength of the evidence rendered harmless any error that might have occurred with respect to denying one defendant a severance; 2) there was no reason to anticipate that the prosecutor's question would prompt one defendant to volunteer that he was in jail; and 3) the prosecutor merely invited the jury to consider the implausibility of one defendant's claim that the government witnesses were all committing perjury and did not impermissibly vouch for the witnesses. However, defendants' Hostage Taking Act conviction is reversed where the Act did not apply to an extortion scheme that used brief confinement of a taxi passenger to obtain a somewhat above average taxi fare.

Appellate Information

• Decided 11/30/2009
• Published 11/30/2009

Judges

• JON O. NEWMAN, Circuit Judge., Before:  NEWMAN, CALABRESI, and KATZMANN, Circuit Judges.

Court

• United States Second Circuit

Counsel

• For Appellees:
  
• Beverly Van Ness, New York, N.Y., for Defendant-Appellant Rodriguez., Edward V. Sapone, New York, N.Y., for Defendant-Appellant Garcia-Reynoso., Nicole Boeckmann, Asst. U.S. Atty., Brooklyn, N.Y. (Benton J. Campbell, U.S. Atty., David C. James, Asst. U.S. Atty., Brooklyn, N.Y., on the brief), for Appellee.