United States v. Roach, 896 F.3d 1185

In 2015 Shane Roach recruited D.G. via Backpage and, with Angela Santillanes, ran a prostitution operation in which Roach controlled rates, clients, and collected proceeds; D.G. testified Roach used violence and threats to control her.
Police rescued D.G. after she sought help; a search of Roach’s residence recovered items linking him to Backpage ads and used prepaid gift cards.
Roach and Santillanes were initially indicted under 18 U.S.C. § 1591(a)(1); the government dismissed charges against Santillanes in exchange for her trial testimony against Roach.
At trial the district court limited Roach’s cross-examination of Santillanes on three topics: (1) the length of her potential sentence, (2) an alleged lie to her pretrial services officer, and (3) an alleged prepaid-card fraud scheme.
Roach was convicted; on appeal he argued the limits violated the Confrontation Clause and the Rules of Evidence and sought a new trial.
The Tenth Circuit affirmed, holding Roach waived his Confrontation Clause claim and that any evidentiary error was harmless.

Issue	Roach's Argument	Government's Argument	Held
Whether prohibiting cross-examination on Santillanes’s potential sentence violated the Confrontation Clause	Roach: barring questioning about potential punishment prevented jury from assessing witness motive/bias	Gov: Roach failed to preserve a Confrontation Clause objection at trial; waiver	Court: Waived — Roach did not raise Confrontation Clause at trial or argue plain error on appeal
Whether excluding inquiry about lying to pretrial services officer violated the Confrontation Clause	Roach: testimony would show bias/motive to lie for deal	Gov: no proper preservation; trial judge properly excluded as improper impeachment or would require additional testimony	Court: Waived for failure to preserve; no plain-error argument
Whether excluding questioning about prepaid gift-card fraud scheme violated the Confrontation Clause	Roach: evidence would impeach Santillanes’s credibility and show motive to fabricate	Gov: Roach failed to identify the specific ground below; Rule 404(b) notice problem; court acted within discretion	Court: Waived constitutionally; even if rule error, harmless
If evidentiary rulings were error, whether they were harmless	Roach: limitations cumulatively influenced the verdict	Gov: defense had other impeachment avenues; strong independent evidence of coercion; burden on gov to show harmlessness	Court: Any evidentiary error was harmless — no substantial influence on outcome

Hart v. United States, 565 F.2d 360 (5th Cir. 1978) (pretrial motion precedent cited by defendant)
United States v. Harris, 462 F.2d 1033 (10th Cir. 1972) (motion-in-limine context)
United States v. Adams, 271 F.3d 1236 (10th Cir. 2001) (offer-of-proof and preservation requirements)
United States v. Martinez, 776 F.2d 1481 (10th Cir. 1985) (cross-examination limits require offer of proof to preserve)
United States v. LaHue, 261 F.3d 993 (10th Cir. 2001) (plain-error review for unpreserved constitutional claims)
United States v. Mullins, 613 F.3d 1273 (10th Cir. 2010) (failure to object waives appellate review)
United States v. Kupfer, 797 F.3d 1233 (10th Cir. 2015) (harmless-error standard for evidentiary rulings)
United States v. Rivera, 900 F.2d 1462 (10th Cir. 1990) (en banc) (nonconstitutional harmless-error standard)
Kotteakos v. United States, 328 U.S. 750 (1946) (definition of substantial influence in harmless-error analysis)
United States v. Szabo, 789 F.2d 1484 (10th Cir. 1986) (when a motion in limine arguably raises a constitutional claim)