## Facts

- Guam police, with federal agents, executed a warrant on a remote multi-structure compound occupied by spouses Raymond Ignacio Duenas Jr. (Ray) and Lourdes Castro Duenas (Lou).
- Officers allowed journalists onto the property and escorted them through the compound during what became a chaotic, multi-day search.
- The search yielded methamphetamine, firearms, and a large quantity of stolen property.
- Both defendants moved to suppress physical evidence and certain statements; the district court denied suppression.
- After the search, Officer Frankie Smith obtained a Miranda waiver from Ray and took a statement in which Ray allegedly admitted selling methamphetamine in exchange for stolen items.
- At a pretrial suppression hearing, Smith testified about the interrogation and Ray’s statement; the court denied suppression of the statement.
- Smith later died before trial; the district court ruled him unavailable and permitted the government to read his suppression-hearing testimony to the jury over Ray’s hearsay and Confrontation Clause objections.
- A jury convicted both defendants on multiple drug and firearms counts; Ray received 25 years’ imprisonment and Lou received 20 years.

## Issues

1. Whether physical evidence seized during a search executed with an unconstitutional media presence must be suppressed under the Fourth Amendment exclusionary rule.
2. Whether admitting the deceased officer’s suppression-hearing testimony at Ray’s trial was permissible under Federal Rule of Evidence 804(b)(1)’s “similar motive” requirement and the Sixth Amendment Confrontation Clause.
3. Whether the evidence was sufficient to support Lou’s convictions notwithstanding the challenged search and trial rulings.

## Decision

- The court affirmed the denial of suppression of the physical evidence, holding exclusion was unwarranted because the media did not discover or develop evidence used at trial.
- The court reversed Ray’s convictions and vacated his sentence, holding the admission of Officer Smith’s suppression-hearing testimony violated Rule 804(b)(1) and the Confrontation Clause and was not harmless.
- The court affirmed Lou’s convictions and sentence, rejecting her sufficiency and related claims.

## Legal Principles

- A Fourth Amendment violation during warrant execution (including permitting media to enter a home without a law-enforcement purpose) does not automatically require suppression; exclusion depends on whether applying the exclusionary rule would provide meaningful deterrence relative to its costs and whether the unlawful feature produced the evidence.
- Physical evidence need not be suppressed solely because a search was “tainted” by media presence when the media neither assisted in the search nor discovered or developed the evidence introduced at trial.
- Former testimony is admissible under Fed. R. Evid. 804(b)(1) only if the opponent had an opportunity and a similar motive to develop the testimony in the prior proceeding; a suppression hearing focused on Miranda/voluntariness may not supply a similar motive to cross-examine as a trial focused on guilt and the content and reliability of an alleged confession.
- When testimonial former testimony is admitted against a criminal defendant, the Confrontation Clause independently requires a prior opportunity for cross-examination adequate to the issues for which the testimony is offered at trial; lack of a similar motive indicates the prior opportunity was constitutionally insufficient.
- Erroneous admission of former testimony requires reversal when the testimony is a central link connecting the defendant to the charged conduct and the error is not harmless beyond a reasonable doubt.

## Conclusion

The Ninth Circuit held that an unconstitutional media ride-along during execution of a warrant did not justify suppressing lawfully discovered evidence absent media-developed proof, but it reversed Ray Duenas’s convictions because reading a deceased officer’s suppression-hearing testimony at trial failed Rule 804(b)(1)’s similar-motive requirement and violated the Confrontation Clause, while affirming Lou Duenas’s convictions.


United States v. Duenas, 691 F.3d 1070 (9th Cir. 2012)