United States v. Santos Centeno, 793 F.3d 378

Background

On June 16 and June 20, 2012, assaults occurred in Independence National Historical Park, Philadelphia; defendants Baldwin and Santos Centeno were tried for aiding-and-abetting assaults and related robberies.
June 16: Victim Ashish Lokhande was found with serious injuries; eyewitness Robles placed Baldwin and Santos near the victim and observed them flee in a gold/tan Ford Taurus with a mismatched (black) hood.
June 20: Joseph Crumbock and his wife D.W. were assaulted and robbed; D.W. identified Santos as her assailant (photo array published at trial); a Park Ranger saw a man drag a woman into the street and then enter the same model car.
Indictment charged Counts One–Three for the June 16 incident (assault resulting in serious bodily injury, assault by striking/beat/wounding, and robbery) and Counts Four–Five for the June 20 incident (assault by striking and robbery).
At trial the jury convicted Baldwin of the two June 16 assault counts (acquitting him of the June 16 robbery and all June 20 counts) and convicted Santos of the assault counts and the June 20 robbery (acquitted of the June 16 robbery).
On appeal the Third Circuit reviewed sufficiency of the evidence, a constructive-amendment claim (Baldwin), and a double-jeopardy claim (Santos). The Court affirmed most sufficiency rulings, vacated Baldwin’s convictions and remanded for retrial due to a constructive amendment, and vacated one of Santos’s assault convictions for merger/resentencing.

Issues

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Sufficiency of aid-and-abet convictions (June 16)	Gov: Circumstantial evidence (presence, flight, cell-phone location, pattern) supports aiding-and-abetting convictions for Baldwin and Santos	Centenos: Evidence insufficient; no direct proof either struck Lokhande or aided the assault	Court: Evidence sufficient — reasonable juror could infer participation and intent; affirm convictions on Counts One & Two as supported by evidence (but other rulings affect Baldwin)
Sufficiency of Santos’s June 20 convictions (assault & robbery)	Gov: Victim ID, Park Ranger, eyewitness corroboration, getaway car link support convictions	Santos: Minor discrepancies in descriptions undermine ID	Held: Evidence sufficient; convictions affirmed on Counts Four & Five
Constructive amendment (Baldwin)	Baldwin: Government argued in rebuttal that being the getaway driver alone could establish guilt — uncharged theory (accessory after the fact) that broadened indictment	Gov: Argued aiding-and-abetting instructions and evidence suffice; no prejudicial amendment	Held: Rebuttal suggested post-offense conduct (getaway driving) could support aiding-and-abetting, effectively broadening indictment to uncharged accessory-after-the-fact theory; jury instructions did not cure this; Baldwin’s Counts One & Two vacated and remanded for new trial
Double jeopardy / merger (Santos)	Santos: Count Two (assault by striking) is a lesser-included of Count One (assault resulting in serious bodily injury) under the jury instructions, so conviction/sentence duplicated punishment	Gov: Conceded error based on the instruction wording	Held: Court accepted concession; vacated Count Two sentence and remanded to merge convictions and resentence

Key Cases Cited

Caraballo-Rodriguez v. United States, 726 F.3d 418 (3d Cir.) (standard for Jackson sufficiency review and deference to jury)
Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307 (1979) (standard for sufficiency of the evidence)
McDaniel v. Brown, 558 U.S. 120 (2010) (presumption that jury resolved conflicting inferences for prosecution)
Rosemond v. United States, 134 S. Ct. 1240 (2014) (aider-and-abettor must act to facilitate and intend to make the venture succeed)
Daraio v. United States, 445 F.3d 253 (3d Cir.) (constructive amendment doctrine)
McKee v. United States, 506 F.3d 225 (3d Cir.) (constructive amendment & per se reversible error)
Syme v. United States, 276 F.3d 131 (3d Cir.) (constructive amendment reversible; harmless-error context)