Rarity: Testimony of PO at a Franks hearing is deemed too incredible to be believed. United States v. Guzman-Batista, 2013 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 88451 (D. P.R. April 11, 2013). The details are omitted:<\/p>\n
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After a careful review of the testimonies presented at the Franks hearing and the documentary evidence and, after assessing credibility, we find the version of facts as offered by the government based on the testimony of PRPO Rivera-Torres to be incredible. See United States v. Smith, 680 F.2d, 255, 260 (1st Cir. 1982) (“Neither juries nor judges are required to divorce themselves of common sense.”). We explain.<\/p>\n
. . .<\/p>\n
We find the version of facts as testified by PRPO Rivera-Torres and as similarly included in the sworn statement in support of the state search warrant to be too incredible to believe. “[J]udges are not fools required to believe what ordinary citizens do not accept,” Carrasquillo v. Aponte Roque, 682 F.Supp. 137, 141 note 1 (D. Puerto Rico, 1988) (citing Pueblo v. Luciano Arroyo, 83 P.R.R. 551, 83 D.P.R. 573 (1961)) ( “[w]e judges should not, after all, be so naive as to believe statements which no one else would believe”); United States v. Ventura Mel\u00e9ndez, 186 F.Supp.2d 55, 59 (D. Puerto Rico 2001) (same); Federal Deposit Ins. Corp. v. Francisco Inv. Corp, 638 F.Supp. 1216, 1219, note 3 (D. Puerto Rico 1986).<\/p>\n
Furthermore, we note that no corroborating evidence (either from contemporaneous observations by other agents at the scene or evidence collected by the investigators after the fact) was presented by the government to corroborate PRPO Rivera-Torres’ version of facts as testified and as included in his sworn statement in support of the state search warrant.<\/p>\n
No credible evidence was presented either by the government as to the exact location where PRPO Rivera-Torres performed his observations in proximity of the residence at #A8 in Los Pinos Ward and as to the distances in the area of Los Pinos and Apeaderos Ward to accurately reflect his observations vis a vis the passage of time. As to this matter, we award more credibility to the evidence presented by defendant through the testimony on Rivas-Rodr\u00edguez, the videos and measurements taken of the area which accurately reflect the distances and amounts of time to travel from one pertinent location to the other at more precise speeds, all to show that it is impossible for PRPO Rivera-Torres to have observed defendant Guzm\u00e1n-Batista doing so many things within a six (6) minutes time span (grace period) for the alert of his electronic monitoring device not to go off.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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