Opinion ID: 562686
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Admission of the Seventy-five Complaint Letters

Text: 11 The Federal Rules of Evidence define hearsay as an out-of-court statement offered in evidence to prove the truth of the matter asserted. Fed.R.Evid. 801(c). While the government had hoped that the letters would be admitted as evidence without restrictions, the district court admitted them for the limited purpose of providing background for the scheme and knowledge elements of the indictment. Toward this end, the district court issued a cautionary instruction to the jury stating: 12 [T]hese letters are not being received for the facts contained in them. They are being received so that you can see that there was an alleged scheme or device to defraud, and it is only evidence to give you background. It is not evidence of the facts themselves. 13 Tr. II at 104-05. 14 Farkas claims that even the limited admission of letters deprived him of his sixth amendment right to confront his accusers. In Ohio v. Roberts, 448 U.S. 56, 100 S.Ct. 2531, 65 L.Ed.2d 597 (1980), the Supreme Court stated that before hearsay evidence can be admitted, there must be a showing that the hearsay declarant is unavailable and that the hearsay statement bears adequate indicia of reliability. Id. at 66, 100 S.Ct. at 2539. Farkas, relying on this two-part test, argues that the admission of the letters violated his confrontation right because there was no showing of unavailability of the letters' authors and because there was no showing that the letters had the requisite indicia of reliability. 15 The government responds that since the letters were only admitted for the limited purpose of providing background, their admission did not violate the prohibition against hearsay evidence. The government also claims that the letters could have been admitted without restrictions under the business records exception to the hearsay rule or as admissions against interest. 16 Farkas' sixth amendment argument fails because it assumes, without proving, that the admission of the complaint letters violated the hearsay rule. The district court did not rule that the complaint letters were hearsay. Rather, it stated that they were probably hearsay and issued the limiting instruction to ensure that there would be no violation of the hearsay rule. See United States v. Nicholson, 815 F.2d 61, 63 (8th Cir.1987) (letters from attorney to insurance company not hearsay since they were used to show the existence of a scheme and artifice to defraud). 17 Farkas claims that even with the cautionary instruction, the jury could not help but use the letters as substantive evidence of credit card fraud. Farkas fails to offer a persuasive reason why we should assume that the jury ignored the cautionary instruction which limited the use of the letters. Therefore, we hold that the limited admission of the letters did not violate the hearsay rule. 18 Without a hearsay violation, Farkas' sixth amendment claim fails. His reliance upon Roberts assumes a hearsay violation that raises confrontation clause questions. Because such a violation is lacking, his analysis is unpersuasive, if not irrelevant.