Opinion ID: 3004712
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Admission of Text Messages

Text: The government used Ellis’s outgoing messages to prove his intent to distribute the marijuana found in his possession. Ellis maintains that the phone’s outgoing messages constitute hearsay statements, inadmissible as admissions of a party-opponent under Federal Rule of Evidence 801(d)(2) because the government failed to “show[] that [Ellis] is in-fact the declarant.” (Appellant’s Br. at 24.) But Ellis cannot point to any clear error in the district court’s preliminary finding that it was more likely than not that he made the statements in question. See Fed. R. Evid. 104. As the court noted, several pieces of evidence supported that finding: the phone was in his possession, contained photographs of Ellis and text messages addressed to “J” and “Javon,” and listed his brother and girlfriend as contacts Ellis also challenges the admission of incoming messages stored on the phone, arguing that they fail to qualify as nonhearsay co-conspirator statements. See Fed. R. Evid. 801(d)(2)(E). -5- Case No. 14-1412 United States v. Ellis The district court, however, held that none of the incoming text messages constituted hearsay because they were used to prove that individuals repeatedly contacted Ellis for narcotics purchases, not for their truth. See, e.g., United States v. Rodriguez-Lopez, 565 F.3d 312, 315 (6th Cir. 2009) (“Even if the statements were assertions, the government offers them, not for their truth, but as evidence of the fact that they were made. The fact that Rodriguez received ten successive solicitations for heroin is probative circumstantial evidence of his involvement in a conspiracy to distribute heroin.”). Because the court admitted all of the incoming text messages on an alternative basis that Ellis fails to address on appeal, he cannot show prejudicial error. See United States v. Williams, 544 F.3d 683, 690 (6th Cir. 2008). Along with his hearsay arguments, Ellis maintains that the text messages “unfairly characterize” him as a drug dealer and should therefore have been excluded under the Rule 403 balancing test. See Fed. R. Evid. 403. But we see nothing unfair about any prejudice resulting from relevant circumstantial evidence of Ellis’s intent to distribute marijuana. B. Exclusion of Ellis’s Statement to Officer Hogan Ellis also contends that the district court abused its discretion in excluding, as hearsay, a statement he made following Officer Hogan’s discovery of the firearm: “You found a gun, that’s bad. I never shouldn’t [sic] have ever bought that car.” (R. 98, Response to Mot. to Exclude at 4.) Ellis argues that his statement qualifies as a present-sense impression because he spoke as soon as Officer Hogan returned to the squad car carrying the gun. See Fed. R. Evid. 803(1). Courts may admit hearsay statements that “describ[e] or explain[] an event or condition, made while or immediately after the declarant perceived it.” Id. Officer Hogan told the court that Ellis waited ten or fifteen yards away in the squad car while Hogan searched the Buick, found and unloaded the gun, and returned to the squad car -6- Case No. 14-1412 United States v. Ellis carrying it. Based on that evidence, the district court declined to admit the statement as a present-sense impression, reasoning that Ellis had “a period of time and some motive to contrive a statement that he should not have bought the car.” (R. 128, Day 1 Trial Tr. at 96.) In so holding, the court appears to have applied this circuit’s standard for admitting excited utterances under Federal Rule of Evidence 803(2) rather than the standard for admitting present-sense impressions under Rule 803(1). See United States v. Penney, 576 F.3d 297, 313 (6th Cir. 2009) (“We have held [that the excited-utterance] exception requires the moving party to show, inter alia, that the statement was ‘made before there is time to contrive or misrepresent.’” (quoting United States v. Arnold, 486 F.3d 177, 184 (6th Cir. 2007) (en banc))). Nevertheless, it is not clear that the district court erred. The present-sense-impression and excited-utterance exceptions are both grounded on the notion that a person is more likely to speak truthfully before he has time to reflect. See Miller v. Stovall, 742 F.3d 642, 650 (6th Cir. 2014) (“Contemporaneousness may indicate that statements were truthful only where the speaker would not have had time to fabricate a story. Indeed, that is the spirit behind the traditional ‘present sense impression’ and ‘excited utterance’ exceptions to the hearsay rule.”); see also United States v. Green, 556 F.3d 151, 155–56 (3d Cir. 2009) (“The fundamental premise behind [the present-sense-impression] hearsay exception ‘is that substantial contemporaneity of event and statement minimizes unreliability due to the declarant’s defective recollection or conscious fabrication.’” (quoting United States v. Manfre, 368 F.3d 832, 840 (8th Cir. 2004))). Here, the court’s finding that Ellis had a “period of time . . . to contrive a statement” suggests that the district court assessed his statement as lacking the indicia of reliability justifying Rule 803(1)’s exception for hearsay statements made during or immediately after the events they describe or explain. -7- Case No. 14-1412 United States v. Ellis And in any event, we are confident that any error in excluding the statement failed to affect the outcome of the trial, given other evidence that Ellis knowingly possessed the gun. See United States v. Marrero, 651 F.3d 453, 471 (6th Cir. 2011).