US v. Mejia

Filing 920100311

Opinion

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var WPFootnote1 = 'According to testimony at trial from a DEA agent, the\
notebook contained lists of customer names paired with drug\
quantities and amounts of money collected. The quantity of drugs\
listed in each section added up to around 1,000, while the paired\
remittance amounts added up to around $21,000. The agent testified\
that these values corresponded to the fact that 1,000 grams of\
cocaine had a market value of between $18,000 and $23,000 at that\
time. \
'

var WPFootnote2 = 'Agent Naylor only spoke English and Detective Perez recalled\
translating Mejia\'s answers into English for Naylor. \
'

var WPFootnote3 = 'In briefing and at oral argument the government urged the\
court to move beyond the Butler totality-of-the-circumstances test\
for waiver and instead extend the Supreme Court\'s holding in Davis\
v. United States, 512 U.S. 452 (1994), to the right to remain\
silent. The government asks that we conclude that any statement\
made by a "Mirandized" suspect who has not expressly invoked his\
right to remain silent is admissible. This issue is currently\
pending before the Supreme Court in Thompkins v. Berghuis, 547 F.3d\
572 (6th Cir. 2008), cert. granted, 77 U.S.L.W. 3670 (U.S. Sept.\
30, 2009) (No. 08-1470). We decline to extend our jurisprudence\
beyond Butler in this case because doing so is not mandated by our\
precedent, or current Supreme Court precedent, and most\
importantly, the case before us can be resolved under our existing\
totality-of-the-circumstances test.\
'

var WPFootnote4 = 'Notwithstanding Mejia\'s argument in his reply brief, our\
review of the transcript from the suppression hearing confirms that\
the district court\'s findings as to Mejia\'s apparent responsiveness\
during the interrogation were well-grounded in the record and were\
not clearly erroneous. That Mejia was at times "evasive,"\
according to the officers, does not undermine the voluntariness of\
the statement that he affirmatively chose to make.\
'

var WPFootnote5 = 'Mejia cross-examined the officers at the suppression hearing\
about the lack of contemporaneous documentation of the\
interrogation, but as the district court noted in its suppression\
order, Mejia neither raised this as a grounds for suppression in\
his memorandum to the court, nor did he claim that he did not make\
the statements attributed to him. \
'

var WPFootnote6 = 'Mejia\'s brief also seems to raise the district court\'s denial\
of his motion for acquittal and for a new trial on the same\
sufficiency grounds. We deny those grounds of appeal given our\
conclusion that sufficient evidence supported his conviction. \
'

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