Opinion ID: 2974130
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Failure to object at trial

Text: The government points out that Baker’s counsel did not object to the admission of the evidence in question at trial, although counsel for Baker’s codefendant Edwards did so object.7 Appellee Br. at 9; J.A. at 251 (Trial Tr. at 732). “[W]hen a party fails to object to evidence at the trial court, his contention on appeal will prevail only if the trial court’s evidentiary decision was plainly erroneous, thus affecting his substantial rights and resulting in a miscarriage of justice.” United States v. Evans, 883 F.2d 496, 499 (6th Cir. 1989). The Supreme Court has set forth the following test for plain-error review: “there must be (1) ‘error,’ (2) that is ‘plain,’ and (3) that ‘affect[s] substantial rights.’” Johnson v. United States, 520 U.S. 461, 466-67 (1997) (third alteration in original) (quoting United States v. Olano, 507 U.S. 725, 732 (1993)). “If all three 5 The Trepel court explained as follows: The Supreme Court has recently stated that all evidentiary rulings are reviewed for “abuse of discretion.” See General Elec. Co. v. Joiner, 522 U.S. 136, [141] (1997). There, the Court was not dealing with an alleged hearsay rule violation, but its sweeping “all evidentiary ruling” statement rather clearly means what it says. It is not clear to us how a trial court would have “discretion” to ignore the definition of inadmissible hearsay in Federal Rule of Evidence 801 or the foundation requirements for establishing exceptions to the hearsay rule under Federal Rules of Evidence 803 or 804, but it is not this court’s privilege to “question why.” Therefore, in disregard of our heretofore well-settled precedent that hearsay evidentiary rulings are reviewed de novo, see United States v. Fountain, 2 F.3d 656, 668 (6th Cir. 1993), we shall review the district court’s ruling for an abuse of discretion. Trepel, 194 F.3d at 716-17. The issue before the Supreme Court in Joiner was “what standard an appellate court should apply in reviewing a trial court’s decision to admit or exclude expert testimony under Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc., 509 U.S. 579 (1993).” Joiner, 522 U.S. at 138-39. 6 McDaniel thus concluded that Joiner did not require any change in our standard of review for evidentiary determinations at trial. United States v. McDaniel, 398 F.3d 540, 544 (6th Cir. 2005). 7 In his brief, Baker states that “[o]bjections to this testimony were raised by each of the co-defendants.” Appellant Br. at 10. However, Baker offers no citation in support of this statement, and we have found nothing in the record to indicate that Baker’s counsel objected to the evidence in question. No. 05-3336 United States v. Baker Page 4 conditions are met, [we] may then exercise [our] discretion to notice a forfeited error, but only if (4) the error ‘seriously affect[s] the fairness, integrity, or public reputation of judicial proceedings.’” Id. at 467 (third alteration in original) (internal quotation marks omitted) (quoting Olano, 507 U.S. at 732). However, the government acknowledges that in certain circumstances courts have excused such a failure to object in light of an objection by a codefendant. In an analogous case, we refused to consider defendants’ claims waived due to their failure to join in a codefendant’s pre-trial motion to suppress evidence; we explained that “[a]dditional fourth amendment challenges by the other appellants raising the identical legal issue would8 neither have altered the [trial] court’s ruling nor served the purposes of the pre-trial motion rule.” United States v. Cassity, 631 F.2d 461, 466 (6th Cir. 1980); see also United States v. Westbrook, 119 F.3d 1176, 1185 (5th Cir. 1997) (“We have sometimes allowed a defendant to preserve a district court error as long as one of his codefendants objected below.”), cert. denied, 522 U.S. 1119 (1998); United States v. Pardo, 636 F.2d 535, 541 (D.C. Cir. 1980) (“We recognize that in certain situations, it may be redundant and inefficient to require each defendant in a joint trial to stand up individually and make every objection to preserve each error for appeal.”); United States v. Lefkowitz, 284 F.2d 310, 313 n.1 (2d Cir. 1960) (“We do not regard the failure of Dryja’s counsel to except as barring Dryja from seeking reversal for error in the charge; Lefkowitz’s exception called the matter to the judge’s attention and further exception would have been fruitless.”). These cases emphasize the futility of requiring each defendant to raise a redundant objection. Westbrook, 119 F.3d at 1185. Baker’s objection would not have served any purpose in light of the fact that the district court was made aware of the basis for the objection by Baker’s codefendant. Accordingly, we do not subject Baker’s claim to plain-error review, and we proceed to the merits of his claim.