Opinion ID: 691979
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: admission of documents

Text: 57 Under the Federal Rules of Evidence, written documents introduced for the truth of the statements contained therein are generally inadmissible as hearsay unless they meet one of the recognized hearsay exceptions. 2 MCCORMICK ON EVIDENCE Sec. 284, at 262-63 (4th ed. 1992). The two hearsay exceptions relevant to this appeal are Records of Regularly Conducted Activity in Rule 803(6), and Public Records and Reports in Rule 803(8). 58
59 Burch and Box contend that records from the Wise County Attorney's office were erroneously admitted into evidence because they were not authenticated. The records concerned people who had been arrested in Wise County for public lewdness and indecent exposure offenses in 1987 and 1988. They contend that the witness called to authenticate the records, County Attorney Stephen Hale, was not county attorney at the time the records were made, and he thus could not properly authenticate them. They further contend that because part of the government's case was its claim that records were lost or irregular, it was especially important for the government to establish that the records introduced were authentic. 60 The primary focus of the public records hearsay exception in Rule 803(6) is on the reliability or trustworthiness of the records sought to be introduced, and that rule sets forth its own basis for authentication. United States v. Veytia-Bravo, 603 F.2d 1187, 1188-89 (5th Cir.1979), cert. denied, 444 U.S. 1024, 100 S.Ct. 686, 62 L.Ed.2d 658 (1980). 18 The trial court has broad discretion to determine the admissibility of the documents. Id. A qualified witness is one who can explain the system of record keeping and vouch that the requirements of Rule 803(6) are met; the witness need not have personal knowledge of the record keeping practice or the circumstances under which the objected to records were kept. United States v. Iredia, 866 F.2d 114, 119-20 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, 492 U.S. 921, 109 S.Ct. 3250, 106 L.Ed.2d 596 (1989). 61 The court below found that the proper indicia ... of reliability has been shown in the identification by the last witness, Hale, that he could recognize the records, knew that they were from his office, and he testified to the other requirements of the business records. The appellants have failed to show that the district court abused his discretion in admitting the records. 62
63 The appellants contend that the district court erred in admitting various records from the Wise County sheriff's office, including jail cards, arrest reports, record bail books, and jail logs. All three appellants objected to the admission of these records, complaining that they were not admissible under Rule 803(8) because the public records exception explicitly excludes in criminal cases matters observed by police officers and other law enforcement personnel. The appellants cited United States v. Cain, 615 F.2d 380, 382 (5th Cir.1980), which held that reports excluded by Rule 803(8) may not be admitted merely because they satisfy the regularly-kept-records exception of Rule 803(6). 64 Relying on United States v. Quezada, 754 F.2d 1190 (5th Cir.1985), the court below overruled their objection and admitted the records from the sheriff's office. In Quezada, this Court explained that: 65 The law enforcement exception in Rule 803(8)(B) is based in part on the presumed unreliability of observations made by law enforcement officials at the scene of a crime, or in the course of investigating a crime.... Thus, a number of courts have drawn a distinction for purposes of Rule 803(8)(B) between law enforcement reports prepared in a routine, non-adversarial setting, and those resulting from the arguably more subjective endeavor of investigating a crime and evaluating the results of that investigation. 754 F.2d at 1193-94. 19 66 The government contends that the records at issue were properly admitted under Quezada as routine, objective observations made as part of the everyday function of the preparing official, and were not made for the purposes of prosecuting the individual being described in the report. Thus, the government argues, the concerns of the law enforcement clause are not implicated. We find this reasoning persuasive. The law enforcement clause has no applicability in that it was designed to protect the arrested individual from being convicted based on unreliable hearsay, e.g., the police officer's perceptions in an adversarial investigation. In contrast, in the instant case, the records were admitted against the officers and the co-conspirators who were keeping the records. Viewed in that light, the records were more akin to an admission than unreliable hearsay. The use of the records certainly do not implicate the concern of Quezada as the records from the sheriff's office were not made pursuant to the investigation of the instant offenses. The district court did not abuse its discretion in admitting the records from the sheriff's office.