Opinion ID: 698715
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Admissions of Party Defendants

Text: 14 To find that the ledgers constituted admissions, there must be sufficient evidence to enable the jury to decide that the defendants authored or adopted the ledgers. See Fed.R.Evid. 801(d)(2)(A) & (B). When evidence is admitted subject to the jury's finding that a threshold condition is satisfied, [t]he judge makes a preliminary determination whether the foundation evidence is sufficient to support a finding of fulfillment of the condition. Fed.R.Evid. 104(b) advisory committee's note; see United States v. Reilly, 33 F.3d 1396, 1404-05 (3rd Cir.1994) ([O]nce the court finds that evidence has been introduced sufficient to permit a reasonable juror to find that the matter in question is what its proponent claims, a sufficient foundation for introduction in evidence has been laid.); United States v. Monks, 774 F.2d 945, 950 (9th Cir.1985) (holding that before introducing evidence as an adoptive admission, the district court must first find that sufficient foundational facts have been introduced for the jury reasonably to conclude that the defendant did actually hear, understand and accede to the statement). 15 The defendants argue that the ledgers are not admissable as admissions because the government's handwriting expert was unable to conclusively determine whether the ledgers were written by the defendants. See United States v. Ordonez, 737 F.2d 793, 800-01 (9th Cir.1984) (ledgers written by unidentified persons are not admissible as admissions). 16 But there is no real mystery as to the participants in the drug conspiracy here or the meaning of the ledger entries themselves. The testimony of the handwriting expert that Montoya was probably the author of the Abuelitos ledger, combined with circumstantial evidence that Montoya wrote the ledger entries, provides an adequate foundation for admitting the ledger as an admission by Montoya. 4 As for the San Bruno ledger, the evidence supported the finding that it was a statement made or adopted by Gil. It was found on Gil's coffee table, the transactions listed in the ledger correspond with Gil's activities that were observed by the police, and the entries marked with I took and I brought dovetail with entries marked Tono took and Tono brought on the Abuelitos ledger. 17 Given this evidence, the district court's decision, pursuant to Fed.R.Evid. 104(b), to allow the jury to decide whether the defendants made or adopted the drug ledgers was not an abuse of discretion. As the district court noted when making its ruling, it's not a question of the court weighing the evidence at this time and deciding whether the showing is strong or weak.... The court merely needs to decide that there is a substantial enough showing to present the issue to the jury for them to perform that weighing function. See Monks, 774 F.2d at 950 (once district court has made necessary foundational finding, jury decides whether statement constitutes an admission).