NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION

To be cited only in accordance with

 Fed. R. App. P. 32.1

United States Court of Appeals

For the Seventh Circuit

Chicago, Illinois 60604

Argued June 6, 2007

Decided August 29, 2007

Before

Hon. WILLIAM J. BAUER, Circuit Judge 

Hon. RICHARD A. POSNER, Circuit Judge

Hon. KENNETH F. RIPPLE, Circuit Judge

Nos. 06-2951, 06-4087

Appeals from the United States 

District Court for the Southern

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, District of Indiana,

Plaintiff-Appellee, Terre Haute Division.

v. No. 2:05CR00026

WILLIE L. HARDIMAN, III and Larry J. McKinney,

LESLIE T. HARDIMAN, Chief Judge.

Defendants-Appellants.

O R D E R

Brothers and co-defendants Willie and Leslie Hardiman challenge their

convictions on the grounds that the district court erred when it denied a motion to

sever their trials, admitted an inadequately redacted inculpatory statement by Leslie Hardiman, and allowed hearsay testimony into evidence in violation of the

Confrontation Clause. They also challenge the sufficiency of the evidence, and

Willie Hardiman argues that his sentence is unreasonable.

The defendants were indicted for conspiracy to distribute in excess of

50 grams of crack cocaine, and possession with intent to distribute in excess of

50 grams of crack cocaine. See 21 U.S.C. §§ 841(a)(1), 846. Willie Hardiman moved
Nos. 06-2951, 06-4087 Page 2

for severance of their trials, but the district court denied that motion. The trial

brought out the following facts: On December 16, 2005, federal and state police

jointly investigating cocaine trafficking in the Terre Haute, Indiana area arrested

Joseph Cherry, having previously conducted several controlled cocaine transactions

with him. Cherry agreed to cooperate with the police. Though he did not testify at

trial, police testified that he had paged Leslie Hardiman, whom he identified as his

cocaine provider, and a few moments later received a return call. The caller’s name

appeared on the phone as “Jerry Curl,” which an officer recognized as a street name

for Leslie Hardiman. Cherry then set up a meeting to purchase cocaine. Police

intercepted Leslie on his way to the meeting, while he was driving a car identified

by Cherry. When Leslie pulled over in an alley, Willie Hardiman, who was traveling

in the passenger seat, ran out of the van carrying a brown paper bag. As he ran, an

officer saw him throw the paper bag into a bush. Police caught him and found the

bag in the nearby bush. It contained more than 54 grams of cocaine. Both brothers

were then arrested.

Leslie Hardiman made several phone calls from the police station that were

recorded by police. He said several times during the calls that Cherry “set me up.”

Willie Hardiman called his mother and told her to tell others not to call Leslie’s

cellphone number any more because the police had confiscated the phone.

Examining the phone, police discovered that the last number Leslie had dialed was

to Cherry just before the scheduled drug transaction. Leslie’s pager number

matched the number dialed by Cherry when he contacted his source to set up the

meeting.

The government also read into evidence a redacted statement that Leslie had

given at the police station in which he admitted having sold cocaine to Cherry on

prior occasions and having orchestrated the drug transaction with Cherry that day.

He also admitted that he had arranged for Willie to become the supplier for

Cherry’s future cocaine purchases, but in the redacted statement Willie’s name was

replaced with “someone else” and “another individual”: Leslie stated that he

“intended to have someone else take over the cocaine business and that [he] was

going to get back into the marijuana business. [He] intended to introduce someone

else to Joe “Sonny” Cherry and informed Cherry that he would be dealing with

another individual during any further transactions involving cocaine....”

Leslie Hardiman was found guilty on both the conspiracy and distribution

counts and sentenced to 280 months. Willie was found guilty of conspiracy and

sentenced to 292 months.

Regarding severance, the defendants contend that they wanted to present

mutually antagonistic defenses and the joint trial hindered their ability to do so.

But generally defendants charged together should be tried together because of the
Nos. 06-2951, 06-4087 Page 3

economies of exploring all the facets of a single crime in a single case. United States

v. Goodwin, Nos. 06-3057, 06-3658, 06-3660, 06-4047, 2007 WL 2077689, at *5 (7th

Cir. July 23, 2007); United States v. Carrillo, 435 F.3d 767, 778 (7th Cir. 2006).

Desire to present mutually antagonistic defenses does not require severance. See

Goodwin, 2007 WL 2077689, at *5; Carrillo, 435 F.3d at 778; United States v.

Hoover, 246 F.3d 1054, 1061 (7th Cir. 2001). Finger pointing is a benefit of joint

trials; it helps the jury determine guilt. See Hoover, 246 F.3d at 1061. Severance is

required only if a jury’s acceptance of one of the defendants’ defenses would

preclude the acquittal of the other defendant. See Goodwin, 2007 WL 2077689, at

*5; Carrillo, 435 F.3d at 778. The defendants’ explanation of the antagonistic

defenses they wanted to present is vague, but even if each wanted to argue that the

other was solely responsible for the possession of and intent to distribute the crack

cocaine, accepting the argument of one would not preclude the other’s acquittal. See

Carrillo, 435 F.3d at 778. 

Willie Hardiman also argues that the district court erred when it admitted

Leslie’s redacted statement to police because replacing his name with “someone

else” and “another person” was insufficient to conceal his identity. See Richardson

v. Marsh, 481 U.S. 200, 207 (1987); Bruton v. United States, 391 U.S. 123, 126

(1968). Redaction is adequate if as redacted the defendant’s statement no longer

implicates the co-defendant. Gray v. Maryland, 523 U.S. 185, 188, 191, 194, 196

(1998); Marsh, 481 U.S. at 211; United States v. Sutton, 337 F.3d 792, 799 (7th Cir.

2003). It was adequate in this case. According to the redacted statement, Leslie

Hardiman would introduce Cherry to an unidentified, new cocaine dealer at some

unspecified future time. There is nothing to suggest that the new dealer was the

person accompanying Leslie at the time of the transaction intercepted by police or

that the introduction would take place during that transaction.

The defendants also argue that the district court erred in admitting Cherry’s

out-of-court statement to officers that Leslie Hardiman was his cocaine source and

the person he called to set up the drug deal at the officers’ request. They argue that

these statements were hearsay. Because no objection was made on this ground at

trial, we review for plain error. United States v. Cotton, 535 U.S. 625, 631-32 (2002);

United States v. Anderson, 450 F.3d 294, 299 (7th Cir. 2006). The information

contained in Cherry’s statements to the officers was placed before the jury from

other sources, and so the admission of his statements was harmless. Leslie

Hardiman was identifiable as the party Cherry called to set up the drug deal

because the phone number that Cherry called matched the number of the pager

recovered from Leslie after arrest. Leslie even admitted that Cherry had “set [him]

up” during one of his recorded phone calls, and that he received the call from

Cherry and was on his way to sell drugs to Cherry when police arrested him.
Nos. 06-2951, 06-4087 Page 4

The defendants also argue that the evidence was insufficient to support their

conviction. Again the standard is plain error; and the evidence was sufficient to find

both defendants guilty of conspiracy and Leslie Hardiman also guilty of possession

with intent to distribute. Leslie admitted that he intended to sell drugs to Cherry

and that he had sold him drugs in the past. And sure enough, Leslie and Willie

Hardiman arrived at the scene of the anticipated drug deal (where police were

waiting for them), and Willie ran from the truck with a bag of crack cocaine, the

subject matter of the anticipated deal. After arrest, both defendants made calls

warning others that they had been set up and not to call Leslie’s cellular phone

because it was in police custody. From this evidence a jury could rationally conclude

that the two defendants had conspired to distribute crack cocaine and that Leslie

had possessed the crack with the intent to distribute it, especially given that he was

Cherry’s usual supplier of crack cocaine.

Lastly, Willlie Hardiman argues that the imposition of a guidelines-range

sentence for possession of crack cocaine was unnecessarily severe and produced an

unwarranted disparity with other defendants who receive a lesser punishment for

possession of powder cocaine. As Willie recognizes, we have repeatedly held that a

district judge is obligated to apply the 100-to-1 crack-to-powder ratio when

calculating a sentencing guidelines range, and cannot calculate a different

guidelines range because of disagreement with Congress’s policy of punishing the

sale of crack cocaine more severely than the sale of powder cocaine. See United

States v. Jointer, 457 F.3d 682, 686-87 (7th Cir. 2006).

AFFIRMED.