On April 16, 2024, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed the conviction of a federal prisoner for assaulting two guards. The Court concluded that Gabriel Mirabal should have been permitted to present evidence that the government’s position during a co-defendant’s case was antithetical to that taken at his trial. The trial court excluded this evidence as hearsay, but the Court said that was error because the statements were made by a “party-opponent.”

Mirabal was a prisoner at the Federal Correctional Institution in Victorville, California, on August 19, 2017, when he and fellow prisoner Erik Rojo passed through a metal detector on their return to their cell block after lunch. One of them wore a white shirt, the other a brown shirt, but only the latter triggered the device. Guards Brian Moreno and Anthony Guerrero stopped the brown-shirted prisoner and initiated a pat down search. An argument ensued.

Moreno claimed the brown-shirted prisoner punched him without provocation. Mirabal, who claimed he was that prisoner, said he swung in self-defense after Moreno raised his arm to strike him. Guerrero intervened in the melee, and the other prisoner in the white shirt joined the fray, punching Moreno in the …