Opinion ID: 2974368
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Recordings of the controlled drug buys

Text: The government sought to play at trial recordings of the controlled drug buys between Jones and the C.I. Jones objected on the basis of hearsay and lack of foundation. Following additional foundation testimony, the district court overruled the objection, although the recordings were not admitted into evidence until later, when Jones reasserted his lack-of-foundation objection and also - 25 - No. 05-5010 U.S. v. Jones objected under Federal Rule of Evidence 404(b), the rule generally prohibiting evidence of prior bad acts. The jury asked to and did listen to one of the recordings during deliberations, apparently to hear a sample of Jones’s voice. Jones challenges the admission of the recordings as a violation of his Confrontation Clause rights. Again, because he did not raise that specific objection below, the challenge is reviewed for plain error. Jones’s challenge is unavailing. In United States v. Sexton, 119 F. App’x 735, 741-43 (6th Cir. 2005), we held that the admission of recordings involving a C.I. and a defendant did not violate the Confrontation Clause because the portions not involving the C.I. were party admissions and the portions involving the C.I. were offered not for the truth of the matters asserted but to “give meaning to the admissible responses of [the defendants].” The Third Circuit has come to the same conclusion via similar reasoning in United States v. Hendricks, 395 F.3d 173, 182-84 (3d Cir. 2005) adding that the portions of the recordings containing the defendant’s and co-conspirator’s statements were not testimonial and fell outside of Crawford for that reason.). The Third Circuit held that “if a Defendant or his or her coconspirator makes statements as part of a reciprocal and integrated conversation with a government informant who later becomes unavailable for trial, the Confrontation Clause does not bar the introduction of the informant’s portions of the conversation as are reasonably required to place the defendant or coconspirator’s nontestimonial statements into context.” Ibid. Jones’s statements captured on the recordings are party admissions and nontestimonial and do not violate the Confrontation Clause. Although the prosecutor did not state exactly why he had moved for the admission of the recordings, nor did the district court state why it overruled Jones’s - 26 - No. 05-5010 U.S. v. Jones objections, it is clear that the portions of the recordings capturing the C.I.’s statements were not offered for the truth of the matters asserted but rather, as in Sexton and Hendricks, to give meaning to Jones’s statements by placing them in context. That is bolstered by the fact that the district court overruled Jones’s hearsay objection. Even if the portions of the recordings containing the C.I.’s statements were offered for the truth of what the C.I. said on them, however, and the admission of them violated the Confrontation Clause, the admission did not substantially affect Jones’s rights, for the reasons discussed above. That the jury asked to hear a sample of Jones’s voice from the tapes, and evidently did hear some part of the tapes (the record does not specify what they heard), does not alter that conclusion.