First Circuit on Innocuous Explanations for Conspiracy

May 24, 2014 by Arkady Bukh

Here is today’s opinion from the First Circuit in U.S. v. Ortiz(No. 05-1718), a case having to do with conspiracy charges filed against a guy who was driving around individuals involved in a drug deal and letting the dealers use his phone. In terms of drug law, I’m not sure that there’s much to it other than a very deferential review of the district court’s application of the evidentiary standard for conspiracy. The court is just looking for 1. the existence of a conspiracy, 2. defendant’s knowledge of the conspiracy, and 3. defendant’s voluntary participation. And in this case the district court appropriately concluded that all three factors were present.

Maybe the one relevant point is that Ortiz argued that there were innocent or innocuous explanations for his behavior. The First Circuit rejected that argument: “the possibility of innocuous explanations for his behavior does not foreclose the jury’s contrary inferences.”