Appeals court reinstates smuggling-case verdict

by Michael Kiefer - Nov. 11, 2008 12:00 AM

The Arizona Republic


The Arizona Court of Appeals on Friday reinstated a guilty verdict in a 2006 human-smuggling case that had been thrown out by a Maricopa County Superior Court judge.

In October 2006, a Superior Court jury found Adolfo Guzman-Garcia guilty of conspiracy to commit human smuggling. Two months later, the judge who presided over the case set aside the verdict, based on an interpretation of what constitutes conspiracy in a smuggling case.

On Friday, the Arizona Court of Appeals said the judge was wrong.
County Attorney Andrew Thomas lauded the ruling as a strike against "judicial activism of the lower court."

"The illegal immigrant in this case should be held accountable for violating Arizona's criminal statutes," Thomas said.

The Arizona human-smuggling statues have been controversial since they were passed in 2005. Thomas theorized that the people being smuggled could also be charged with conspiracy under the statute, essentially for smuggling themselves into the state. And so far the appeals courts have upheld that theory.

Friday's decision was "unpublished," meaning that the appeals court did not consider it a precedent to be taken into account in future cases.

According to court records, Guzman-Garcia, 30, was one of five people detained after a traffic stop by a Maricopa County sheriff's deputy in May 2006. Guzman-Garcia confessed to a Spanish-speaking deputy that he had been guided into Arizona from Mexico and had agreed to pay $700 for a ride to California. He was charged with conspiracy to commit human smuggling and went to trial in October 2006.

The state's first cases under the human-smuggling laws passed through the court of Judge Thomas O'Toole, who has since retired. At issue was whether confessions could be admitted without other corroborating evidence. In some cases, O'Toole ruled that they could not.

In Guzman-Garcia's case, however, O'Toole ruled that the confession was fair game. Guzman-Garcia was convicted by the jury. After the fact, his attorney asked O'Toole to set aside the verdict on the admissibility of the confession. O'Toole instead set it aside because he felt that conspiracy did not apply to "a person who is merely being transported by an alien smuggler for profit or commercial purpose."

In his ruling, O'Toole wrote that there had to be evidence that the person had entered into agreement with others and intended to aid in the offense. He acquitted Guzman-Garcia, who was turned over to the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.

The Court of Appeals on Friday ruled that O'Toole was wrong, reinstated the verdict, and ordered that Guzman-Garcia be sentenced under the law. At that level of felony, Guzman-Garcia could face a short prison term, though most human-smuggling defendants are sentenced to probation and deported.

A spokesman for the County Attorney's Office was not sure if Guzman-Garcia was still in custody, or if he had already been deported.

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