Opinion ID: 3033565
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Hopkins’s Testimony

Text: We review the district court’s decision to admit evidence for an abuse of discretion. United States v. Warren, 25 F.3d 890, 894 (9th Cir. 1994). 2 This rule provides: A statement not specifically covered by Rule 803 or 804 but having equivalent circumstantial guarantees of trustworthiness, is not excluded by the hearsay rule, if the court determines that (A) the statement is offered as evidence of a material fact; (B) the statement is more probative on the point for which it is offered than any other evidence which the proponent can procure through reasonable efforts; and (C) the general purposes of these rules and the interests of justice will best be served by admission of the statement into evidence. Fed. R. Evid. 807. 11996 UNITED STATES v. SANDERS [1] Sanders objected to Hopkins’s testimony concerning the vent and kite conversations, arguing that it was inadmissible hearsay. To admit such testimony, the district judge must make a preliminary finding that Sanders was the inmate who communicated with Hopkins through the vents and kites. United States v. Gil, 58 F.3d 1414, 1419 (9th Cir. 1995) (“When evidence is admitted subject to the jury’s finding that a threshold condition is satisfied, ‘[t]he judge makes a prelim- inary determination whether the foundation evidence is sufficient to support a finding of fulfillment of the condition.’ ” (citation omitted). The district judge made this finding. She held that “the evidence supports a finding by preponderance of the evidence that those statements through the vents and those kites . . . were statements by the defendant.” This preliminary finding is supported by substantial evidence because (1) Hopkins claimed that he recognized Sanders’s voice; (2) he claimed that Sanders knew his booking number, and that this booking number was written on the declaration; (3) Hopkins received a response to a kite he sent to Sanders; (4) although other inmates also wanted to prevent Hopkins from snitching, no other inmate had any significant interest in getting Hopkins to sign a declaration stating that “Mr. Sanders was not involved in any way with the planning or execution of the U.S. Bank robbery.” [2] Any statements that Sanders made to Hopkins were non-hearsay because the judge found that Sanders was the inmate who communicated with Hopkins through the vents and kites. See Fed. R. Evid. 801(d). Therefore, the district judge did not abuse her discretion by admitting Hopkins’s tes- timony because she made the appropriate preliminary finding which was supported by substantial evidence.