## Facts

- Federal prosecutors charged four defendants with participating in a large drug-trafficking conspiracy operating multiple distribution points in Puerto Rico, including a point in Old San Juan’s La Perla community known as “La Boveda.”
- After a 35-day joint jury trial, the jury convicted the defendants on various counts, including conspiracy to distribute controlled substances within 1,000 feet of a school and substantive possession-with-intent-to-distribute counts for heroin, cocaine, and marijuana; all but one defendant also faced a firearm count tied to drug trafficking.
- The government relied heavily on cooperating-witness testimony describing drug sales, branded drugs, and participants’ roles at the distribution point.
- A major component of the government’s case against one defendant (Setiawan) was proof that he committed an uncharged murder of a drug dealer (“Teton”), offered to depict him as a violent enforcer within the conspiracy.
- Setiawan attempted to rebut the uncharged-murder proof with evidence that another person (“Cascote”) killed Teton.
- The person who allegedly witnessed Cascote kill Teton (Rivera-Meléndez) invoked the Fifth Amendment and did not testify; Setiawan sought to introduce, through another witness (Ramos-Grateroles), Rivera-Meléndez’s account that he saw Cascote kill Teton at a drug-distribution point.
- The district court excluded the proffered rebuttal testimony as unreliable hearsay, while the uncharged-murder evidence remained before the jury.
- On appeal, all defendants raised broad challenges (including evidentiary rulings and trial management), with Setiawan focusing on the exclusion of the third-party-culpability hearsay and its effect on trial fairness.

## Issues

1. Whether sufficient evidence and trial rulings supported the convictions of Rosario, Gómez, and Hernández in the drug-trafficking conspiracy case.
2. Whether the district court erred in excluding Setiawan’s proffered third-party-culpability statement as hearsay, including whether it qualified as a statement against penal interest under Federal Rule of Evidence 804(b)(3).
3. Whether the combined effect of admitting highly prejudicial uncharged-murder evidence against Setiawan while excluding his rebuttal evidence deprived him of a fair trial and required a new trial.

## Decision

- The First Circuit affirmed the convictions and sentences of Rosario, Gómez, and Hernández.
- The First Circuit vacated Setiawan’s convictions and remanded for a new trial.
- As to Setiawan, the court held that the district court wrongly excluded the rebuttal hearsay proffer and that the evidentiary imbalance—uncharged-murder proof admitted, counter-proof excluded—was not harmless.

## Legal Principles

- Under Federal Rule of Evidence 804(a), a witness who invokes the Fifth Amendment may be deemed “unavailable” for hearsay-exception purposes.
- Under Rule 804(b)(3), an unavailable declarant’s statement may be admissible if it is sufficiently against the declarant’s penal interest and is supported by corroborating circumstances indicating trustworthiness, particularly when offered to exculpate the accused.
- Courts must apply a contextual trustworthiness assessment for Rule 804(b)(3) rather than excluding exculpatory statements through categorical labels such as “inherently unreliable.”
- When the government is permitted to introduce powerful, prejudicial uncharged-act evidence, exclusion of otherwise admissible defense rebuttal evidence bearing on the same act can undermine trial fairness and may require reversal when the error goes to the defense’s core theory.

## Conclusion

The First Circuit upheld the drug-conspiracy convictions of three defendants but ordered a new trial for Setiawan because the district court’s exclusion of a potentially admissible Rule 804(b)(3) third-party-culpability statement—against the backdrop of admitted uncharged-murder evidence—rendered the error non-harmless and compromised the fairness of his trial.


United States v. Rosario-Pérez, 957 F.3d 277 (1st Cir. 2020)