Opinion ID: 180930
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Any Confrontation Clause Errors Were Harmless

Text: Next, Adams argues that the district court erred by allowing two police officers to testify regarding two conversations they had with a non-testifying confidential source about Adams. He challenges the admission of a CI's statements that led to a search while he was in a booking cell on June 13, 2006 and the admission of a CI's statements that led to a traffic stop on June 1, 2006. The Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment bars the admission of testimonial hearsay evidence unless the declarant is unavailable and the defense had a prior opportunity to cross-examine him. Crawford v. Washington, 541 U.S. 36, 53-55, 124 S.Ct. 1354, 158 L.Ed.2d 177 (2004); United States v. Watson, 525 F.3d 583, 588-89 (7th Cir.2008). A statement is considered testimonial if it is given under circumstances which would lead an objective witness to believe that the statement would be used at a later trial. Watson, 525 F.3d at 589. Our cases recognize there is a particular potential for abuse when police officers testify to out-of-court statements by confidential informants. United States v. Silva, 380 F.3d 1018, 1020 (7th Cir. 2004). We review de novo whether an evidentiary ruling violates the Confrontation Clause, and a harmless error analysis applies. United States v. Castelan, 219 F.3d 690, 694 (7th Cir.2000).
On June 13, 2006, Adams was arrested and held in a booking room. At trial, Officer Broderson testified that a CI called the police station to tell him that Adams had been arrested after leaving a drug dealer's residence, was currently being held at the police station, and had drugs on his person, specifically in his rectal area. Until this CI call, Officer Broderson was not involved in Adams's arrest and had no reason to know that Adams was in the building. Officer Broderson followed up on this information, and as a result, he recovered crack from the booking cell. The government argues that the CI's statements to Officer Broderson were not introduced for the truth but merely as a foundation for explaining why the officer went down to the booking area and his subsequent actions. The government also assures this court that the admitted testimony was brief in explaining why the foundational testimony was admissible. We disagree. The CI's statements directly inculpate Adams on the charge of possessing crack with the intent to distribute it, and were not necessary to provide any foundation for the officer's subsequent actions. The brevity of an inadmissible statement may show its harmlessness, but it cannot make an inadmissible statement admissible. The CI's statements here are different from statements we have found admissible that gave context to an otherwise meaningless conversation or investigation. See, e.g., United States v. Tolliver, 454 F.3d 660, 666 (7th Cir.2006) (defendant's statements on the tape recording would only make sense with the CI's side of the conversation); Silva, 380 F.3d at 1020 (noting generally that a CI statement may be introduced if it would help the jury understand why the police targeted a seemingly random individual); cf. United States v. Lovelace, 123 F.3d 650, 653 (7th Cir.1997) (error to introduce a tip to explain why police officers pulled over defendant in the absence of any need for context). Here, the CI's accusations did not counter a defense strategy that police officers randomly targeted Adams. And, there was no need to introduce the statements for contexteven if the CI's statements were excluded, the jury would have fully understood that the officer searched Adams and the relevance of the items recovered in that search to the charged crime. The CI's statement was offered for its truththat Adams possessed crack on his personand it was testimonial. The district court erred by allowing its admission through Officer Broderson's testimony. Although the statement violated Adams's Sixth Amendment right to confront his witnesses, the error was harmless. Whether an error is harmless beyond a reasonable doubt depends upon factors such as (1) the importance of a witness's testimony in the prosecution's case; (2) whether the testimony was cumulative; (3) the presence or absence of corroborating or contradictory evidence; and (4) the overall strength of the prosecution's case. Castelan, 219 F.3d at 696. Here, the evidence was overwhelming that Adams possessed crack on June 13, 2006. Officer Broderson found the crack in Adams's hat and smoking paraphernalia in his waistband. Then, Adams refused a rectal search. Officer Broderson left Adams in an empty booking cell to talk to a state's attorney. When he returned minutes later, Officer Broderson found Adams with two-feces covered baggies in his hand. A video of the room during this time shows Adams leaning over on the bench and putting his hand down his waistband before the feces-covered baggies of crack appeared in the booking cell. Given this evidence, the error of introducing the CI's statement was harmless.
The second CI statement that Adams challenges served as the basis for a police encounter on June 1, 2006. Officer Gault initiated a police stop of Adams's car and found Adams with a large amount of cash and a crack pipe. When asked by the prosecution to explain how and why he initiated this police stop, Officer Gault explained that he had been contacted by a CI. According to Officer Gault, this CI explained that Adams was involved in drugs, had a large amount of money on him and was on his way to buy crack, and described the car Adams was driving. Over the defense's objection, the district court allowed this testimony as foundation for what the police officer did. The district court did issue a limiting instruction to the jury, stating the court was allowing this testimony not to prove the truth of what he was told but simply as a foundation for what he did. Later, Officer Gault also confirmed that the car Adams was driving matched the description given by the CI. The government does not deny the statements are testimonial, but argues they are relevant non-hearsay because they give context to the investigation and explain why the police officer did what he did. As we said in Silva: under [this] theory, every time a person says to the police `X committed the crime,' the statement... would be admissible to show why the police investigated X. That would eviscerate the constitutional right to confront and cross-examine one's accusers. Silva, 380 F.3d at 1020. Once the court was alerted to the problem, it should have ensured that any references to the CI's statements were eliminated in the police officer's testimony about the June 1, 2006 encounter. Here, the impermissible CI statements are even more dangerous than the CI statements admitted in relation to the June 13, 2006 incident because they not only provide the reason for a specific police encounter, but also implicate Adams in the larger conspiracy. The officer testified that the police department had cultivated the CI to give them information about drug dealers, distributors, or people that possess narcotics and that the CI said that Adams was one of the local people that were involved in drugs. There was no purpose to this testimony except for the jury to believe its truth, that Adams was a person involved in drugs. The statement should not have been admitted, but again the error was harmless. The CI's statements were fully corroborated and independently confirmed by Officer Gault's first-hand knowledge of the incident and the evidence found on Adams that day. Furthermore, the evidence that Adams was not a mere drug user but a member of a larger conspiracy to distribute drugs was independent of any of these statements. Four women testified that they had acquired drugs from, delivered drugs to, or accompanied Adams to buy drugs. Most importantly, three co-conspirators testified against Adams. The CI's statements were cumulative of this other evidence presented at trial, and we find that the error was harmless. Castelan, 219 F.3d at 697-98.