Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca7-15-02005/USCOURTS-ca7-15-02005-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Derrick Smith
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

In the

United States Court of Appeals

For the Seventh Circuit ____________________

No. 15-2005

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Plaintiff-Appellee,

v.

DERRICK SMITH,

Defendant-Appellant.

____________________

Appeal from the United States District Court for the

Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division.

No. 12 CR 175 — Sharon Johnson Coleman, Judge.

____________________

ARGUED FEBRUARY 26, 2016 — DECIDED MARCH 11, 2016

____________________

Before POSNER, FLAUM, and EASTERBROOK, Circuit Judges.

EASTERBROOK, Circuit Judge. In March 2011 Derrick Smith 

was appointed to the Illinois House of Representatives to 

complete an unfinished term. He wanted to be elected in his 

own right, which meant that he had to campaign in his party’s primary, set for March 2012. One of his campaign assistants, known to Smith as “Pete,” alerted the FBI that Smith 

might be corrupt. Pete (whose last name has been kept confidential) began recording some of his conversations with 

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2 No. 15-2005

Smith. At the FBI’s suggestion, Pete told Smith that a woman

who lived in his district would provide $7,000 (money that 

would help Smith pay his campaign staff) if Smith wrote a 

letter supporting her application for a grant from the state’s 

Capital Development Board for the construction of a daycare 

center. This was a sting; there was no such woman, and the 

money would come from the FBI.

Letters of recommendation from one public official to 

another are common and lawful—unless paid for. The exchange of an official act for money violates federal law, no 

matter how the recipient uses the cash. See, e.g., Evans v. 

United States, 504 U.S. 255 (1992); McCormick v. United States, 

500 U.S. 257 (1991); United States v. Blagojevich, 794 F.3d 729 

(7th Cir. 2015). Smith wrote the letter, and Pete handed over

$7,000. Smith immediately used some of the money to pay 

his campaign staff; a search of his home turned up the rest.

At Smith’s trial for violating 18 U.S.C. §§ 666(a)(1)(B) and 

1951, the prosecutor introduced the recorded conversations 

with Pete. The jury convicted, and the judge sentenced Smith 

to five months’ imprisonment and one year’s supervised release. Neither side called Pete as a witness: he was a shady 

character and may have been stealing from the FBI in addition to assisting it. Pete said that he would not testify, asserting his constitutional privilege not to be compelled to incriminate himself. Since the prosecutor did not want Pete’s 

testimony, he did not ask the court to grant use immunity; 

defense counsel did not call Pete to see whether the district 

judge would honor his assertion of the privilege. (It is easy 

to imagine lines of questioning whose answers could not incriminate Pete.)

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No. 15-2005 3

The sole argument Smith makes on appeal is that, with 

Pete not in court, the use of his recorded statements violated 

the Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment. It is unclear why Smith casts this as a constitutional argument rather than as one based on the hearsay doctrine. See United 

States v. Walker, 673 F.3d 649, 659–61 (7th Cir. 2012) (concurring opinion). The hearsay rule excludes out-of-court statements offered for their truth. See Fed. R. Evid. 801(c). (There 

are exceptions, but the United States does not argue that any 

applies.)

The Confrontation Clause, by contrast, affects only “testimonial” statements. See, e.g., Ohio v. Clark, 135 S. Ct. 2173 

(2015); Crawford v. Washington, 541 U.S. 36 (2004). Indeed it 

covers only a subset of testimonial hearsay. Statements that 

would have been admissible at common law in 1793 (in other words, statements that are not hearsay or are covered by 

longstanding exceptions to the hearsay doctrine) are outside 

the Sixth Amendment, see Giles v. California, 554 U.S. 353, 

358–59 (2008), as are all statements by witnesses who are 

available for cross-examination, see Crawford, 541 U.S. at 60 

n.9. And Clark shows that the Court has not yet decided 

whether the Confrontation Clause covers testimonial statements by one private party to another. Thus if a statement is 

not hearsay, because not offered for its truth, it also is not 

“testimonial” for the purpose of the Confrontation Clause.

The district judge admitted Pete’s recorded statements 

after concluding that they helped to put Smith’s recorded 

statements in context. Smith maintains that Pete’s statements 

do more than put his own in context—and that even if just 

used for context they are inadmissible because Pete said 

much more on the recordings than Smith did. It is easy to 

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4 No. 15-2005

find statements in judicial opinions discussing whether 

statements have been used for “context” and commenting on 

the relative length of different speakers’ statements, but 

those observations must not be understood to displace the 

legal standards—for hearsay whether the out-of-court 

statement is offered for truth, and for the Confrontation 

Clause whether the out-of-court statement is testimonial.

To see this, consider a simple hypothetical. “Pete: I will 

pay you $7,000 in exchange for a letter my client can use to 

seek a grant for a daycare center. Do you agree? Smith: Yes.” 

In this example, Pete utters 25 words to Smith’s one—but 

there is no hearsay because Pete’s statement is not used to 

show that anyone will pay $7,000. It is used instead to show 

the meaning of Smith’s “yes,” which does not depend on 

whether Pete was speaking truthfully. The “yes” constitutes 

Smith’s agreement to exchange money for an official act. 

Pete’s statements may put Smith’s “in context,” but that’s 

unimportant. What matters is that, without being used for 

their truth, they enable the jury to determine the import of 

Smith’s own words. Allowing the jury to hear Pete’s words 

no more violates the Confrontation Clause than does providing a jury with a dictionary or a translation from a foreign 

language or an expert on criminal jargon. Talking about 

“context” does not help to establish whether such an exchange is properly admitted, nor does counting the number 

of words tell us whether Pete’s statement is hearsay under 

Rule 801 or “testimonial” for constitutional purposes.

Now consider a different example. “Pete: Last week I 

paid you $7,000 for a letter that my client will use to seek a 

grant for a daycare center. Do you remember? Smith: Yes.” 

This has the same 25-to-1 ratio of words, and it too could be 

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No. 15-2005 5

said to show the context of Smith’s reply. But this statement 

would be hearsay, because it would be relevant only if Pete 

spoke the truth—that he had paid $7,000 in exchange for a 

letter. Once again it would be best to tackle the dispositive 

questions directly rather than be sidetracked into word 

counts or a search for “context.” Even the briefest testimonial out-of-court statement—e.g., “Smith shot Jones”—can violate Rule 801 and the Confrontation Clause, no matter its effect on the context in which to place hearers’ responses.

We looked through the record to determine whether 

Pete’s statements (and those of other persons heard on the 

recordings) were offered for their truth. Here is one exchange that Smith has selected as an example:

[Pete]: The broad is fixin’ to give.

Smith: I got you, mother fucker. I told your ass, I got 

you.

[Pete]: For real, look. The broad is gonna give seven 

thousand, with no problem.

Smith: Okay.

Pete’s statements in this exchange are admissible. They were 

not offered for their truth—that is, to show that someone was

going to pay Smith. The “broad” did not exist, and the FBI 

did not plan to let Smith keep the money. Instead Pete’s 

statements were used to show what Smith himself understood the transaction to entail.

Here’s another exchange to which Smith objected:

[Pete]: You ready, you ready to write?

Smith: Yeah I got it.

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6 No. 15-2005

Once again Pete’s statement was not offered for the truth of 

anything, though it does tend to show the meaning of 

Smith’s “I got it.” No hearsay here.

It would not be helpful to run through all of the other exchanges. They are similar to these. Smith has not been convicted on the basis of hearsay, or of out-of-court testimonial 

statements. Smith’s own words and deeds convicted him.

AFFIRMED

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