Opinion ID: 585638
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Beauchamp Johnson's Testimony

Text: 10 Fuentes next argues that the court's refusal to allow Johnson to testify concerning this conversation violated his due process right to call witnesses in his own behalf. Johnson's testimony as to what Fuentes said to him was hearsay, and only would have been admissible under Fed.R.Evid. 803(3) as evidence of Fuentes' state of mind at the time he made the statements. In determining admissibility under Rule 803(3), the court must evaluate the reliability of the statement and determine the relevance of the statements to the issues in the case. See United States v. Faust, 850 F.2d 575, 585-86 (9th Cir.1988). As with relevance rulings, we review decisions under Rule 803(3) for abuse of discretion. See id. at 585. 11 As discussed above, Johnson would have testified that Fuentes told him in 1986 that the money was nontaxable and that it was compensation for financial losses; there is no indication that he would have testified Fuentes said it was compensation for emotional distress injuries. This testimony had marginal relevance to Fuentes' good faith belief defense. The district court determined that Fuentes' state of mind in 1986 had little relevance to his state of mind over a year later when he prepared and filed his 1986 tax return. See United States v. Ponticelli, 622 F.2d 985, 991 (9th Cir.) (the court must determine if the declarant's state of mind at the time of the declaration is relevant to the declarant's state of mind at the time at issue.), cert. denied, 449 U.S. 1016 (1980). Moreover, because Johnson's proffered testimony did not indicate that Fuentes believed the money was paid to compensate him for emotional distress, we cannot say that any error in excluding Johnson's testimony would be more likely than not to affect the verdict. Faust, 850 F.2d at 585. The court, therefore, did not abuse its discretion in excluding the testimony.