Opinion ID: 2064646
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Admissibility of Certain Evidence

Text: Appellant seeks reversal on the basis of certain evidence admitted without objection at trial. Some was hearsay. (Mr. Johnson testified that Mr. Marshall had told him it was an order that Marshall was delivering to Dr. Hsu.) Other evidence allegedly did not have a proper foundation. (Contrary to Dr. Hsu's contention that he had hired Mr. Johnson on occasion, certain witnesses were permitted to testify that they had never seen Dr. Hsu pay Mr. Johnson.) Appellant claimed still other evidence to have been irrelevant or inflammatory. (Extensive evidence of Dr. Hsu's derelictions as a landlord was introduced, as well as a 15-page portion of the contempt hearing transcript, including a statement by the trial judge that either Dr. Hsu or Mr. Marshall had been lying.) We have examined the entire record. Some of this evidence was relevant and properly admitted, such as portions of the contempt hearing transcript supplying the context of the perjured statement. See Harrell v. United States, 220 F.2d 516, 520 (5th Cir. 1955). In addition, some of that transcript, as well as a measure of the evidence about appellant's activities as a landlord, had a proper bearing on motive, intent, and wilfulness. See United States v. Chapin, 169 U.S.App.D.C. 303, 515 F.2d 1274, cert. denied, 423 U.S. 1015, 96 S.Ct. 449, 46 L.Ed.2d 387 (1975); United States v. Sweig, 441 F.2d 114 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, 403 U.S. 932, 91 S.Ct. 2256, 29 L.Ed.2d 711 (1971). Other evidence, such as the hearsay, was cumulative and not prejudicial. Still other evidence was of doubtful propriety, such as the negative evidence without a proper foundation and the trial judge's statement in the contempt hearing transcript that one of the witnesses was lying. After considering this evidence in the context of the entire trial  and despite the admission of some evidence which undoubtedly would have been excluded upon proper objection  we do not find the miscarriage of justice and impairment of a fair trial necessary to characterize the admission of any or all of this evidence as plain error, absent objection or request for a limiting instruction at trial. See Watts v. United States, D.C.App., 362 A.2d 706, 709 (1976) (en banc). [7]