Opinion ID: 772486
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Lilly v. Virginia

Text: 54 Dhinsa argues that the application of the waiver-by-misconduct rule to allow the admission of hearsay statements of a declarant as evidence of that declarant's murder by the defendant is inconsistent with the Supreme Court's recent decision in Lilly v. Virginia, 527 U.S. 116 (1999) (plurality opinion). In response, the government argues that Dhinsa waived his confrontation rights by murdering the declarants and, therefore, the Mastrangelo evidence is not subject to the Lilly test. We find the government's argument persuasive. 55 Although the Supreme Court has recognized that the hearsay rules and the Confrontation Clause are generally designed to protect similar values, Idaho v. Wright, 497 U.S. 805, 814 (1990), it never has equated the two to suggest that the Confrontation Clause is nothing more or less than a codification of the rules of hearsay and their exceptions. California v. Green, 399 U.S. 149, 155 (1970); see also Dutton v. Evans, 400 U.S. 74, 86 (1970) (plurality opinion). As such, the Confrontation Clause may bar[] the admission of some evidence that would otherwise be admissible under an exception to the hearsay rule. Wright, 497 U.S. at 814; see also Green, 399 U.S. at 155-56; United States v. Torrez-Ortega, 184 F.3d 1128, 1132 n.2 (10th Cir. 1999). Because [t]he central concern of the Confrontation Clause is to ensure the reliability of the evidence against a criminal defendant by subjecting it to rigorous testing in the context of an adversary proceeding before the trier of fact, Lilly, 527 U.S. at 123-24 (quotation marks omitted), the determination of whether an out-of-court statement violates the Confrontation Clause is linked to an evaluation of trustworthiness. United States v. Bryce, 208 F.3d 346, 351 (2d Cir. 2000). 56 In Lilly, a four justice plurality of the Supreme Court reaffirmed the rule summarized roughly twenty years earlier in Ohio v. Roberts, 448 U.S. 56, 66 (1980), that the veracity of hearsay statements is sufficiently dependable to allow the untested admission of such statements against an accused when (1) the evidence falls within a firmly rooted hearsay exception or (2) it contains particularized guarantees of trustworthiness such that adversarial testing would be expected to add little, if anything, to the statements' reliability. 527 U.S. at 124-25 (plurality opinion of Stevens, Souter, Ginsburg and Breyer, JJ.) (internal quotation marks omitted). The concurring opinion of Justice Thomas and the concurring opinion of Chief Justice Rehnquist, joined by Justices O'Connor and Kennedy, also referenced the Roberts dual inquiries. See id. at 144, 148-49; see also Moskowitz, 215 F.3d at 269. In determining whether a statement contains a particularized guarantee of trustworthiness sufficient to permit its admission without violating the defendant's confrontation rights, the trial court should consider the totality of those circumstances that surround the making of the statement and that render the declarant particularly worthy of belief. Wright, 497 U.S. at 819; see also Bryce, 208 F.3d at 351; Mingo v. Artuz, 174 F.3d 73, 77 (2d Cir. 1999) (requiring a court to carefully examine each instance of incriminating hearsay in the light of all the circumstances). 57 Implicit in the application of the Lilly test is a presumption that the defendant has not waived his confrontation rights with respect to the declarant's statements. However, [o]nce the confrontation right is lifted from the scales by operation of the accused's waiver of that right, Houlihan, 92 F.3d at 1281, the district court is not required to assess independently the reliability of those statements under the rubric set forth in Lilly. 6 See White, 116 F.3d at 913 (rejecting defendants' claim that the trial court should have looked for the sort of indicia of trustworthiness that often support an exception to the confrontation or hearsay rules where the defendants forfeited their right under the hearsay rule); Houlihan, 92 F.3d at 1281 ([Defendants'] misconduct waived not only their confrontation rights but also their hearsay objections, thus rendering a special finding of reliability superfluous.). 58 This does not, however, mean that the declarant's statements will be admitted automatically. As discussed supra, after the district court finds by a preponderance of the evidence that the hearsay statement is admissible under Fed. R. Evid. 804(b)(6), it must still perform the balancing test required under Fed. R. Evid. 403 in order to avoid the admission of facially unreliable hearsay. Thai, 29 F.3d at 814 (internal quotation marks omitted); see also Miller, 116 F.3d at 668; Aguiar, 975 F.2d at 47; accord White, 116 F.3d at 913 ([D]efendants were free to move for exclusion under Rule 403 based upon the lack of reliability of the agents who relayed [the declarant's] testimony.); Houlihan, 92 F.3d at 1282 n.6 ([Where a defendant waives his confrontation rights], a district court still should exclude relevant but highly inflammatory evidence, misconduct notwithstanding, if the danger of unfair prejudice substantially outweighs the evidence's probative value.). Thus, while a finding that a statement may be admitted under Rule 804(b)(6) -- resulting in a waiver of the defendant's confrontation rights and hearsay objections -- renders the Lilly test inapplicable, the district court must still balance the probative value of the evidence against its prejudicial effect in accordance with Rule 403. 59 5. Application of Harmless Error Analysis to Violations of the Confrontation Clause and the Present Case 60 Dhinsa argues that the district court's failure to make a finding that he intended to eliminate the declarant[s] as... witness[es] prior to the admission of the Mastrangelo statements was not harmless error. Dhinsa further argues that the admission of such evidence was not harmless under the present circumstances. We disagree. 61 A violation of a defendant's confrontation rights does not, standing alone, require reversal of a judgment of conviction. Rather, the Supreme Court has held that violations of the Confrontation Clause are subject to harmless error analysis. See Arizona v. Fulminante, 499 U.S. 279, 306-07 (1991) (noting that the harmless error analysis has been applied to a wide range of constitutional errors); Van Arsdall, 475 U.S. at 684; see also Lilly, 527 U.S. at 143 (Scalia, J., concurring in part and concurring in the judgment). We have similarly applied a harmless error analysis in evaluating violations of the Confrontation Clause, see, e.g., Moskowitz, 215 F.3d at 270; United States v. Gallego, 191 F.3d 156, 168 (2d Cir. 1999) (Even were we to conclude that the district court erred by admitting [the] plea allocution into evidence, the record before us makes clear that any such error would have been harmless.), cert. denied, 120 S.Ct. 2220 (2000); United States v. Aulicino, 44 F.3d 1102, 1109 (2d Cir. 1995); United States v. Williams, 927 F.2d 95, 99 (2d Cir. 1991), and, specifically, we have applied harmless error analysis where the trial court failed to hold a Mastrangelo hearing. See Miller, 116 F.3d at 669; see also Emery, 186 F.3d at 927. Thus, notwithstanding the requirement that the trial court hold an evidentiary hearing prior to the admission of the challenged witness statements, the failure to do so may constitute harmless error if the evidence presented at trial sufficiently establishes that the defendant was involved in, and intended to procure, the unavailability of the declarants as witnesses. 62 In the present case, the parties acknowledge that the district court made the requisite finding under Mastrangelo that Dhinsa was responsible for the murders of Manmohan and Satinderjit. The parties also agree that Rule 804(b)(6) requires a finding by the trial court that the defendant intended to cause the unavailability of the declarants as witnesses (although they disagree on the definition of the term witness under that Rule), but that Dhinsa failed to object to the introduction of the Mastrangelo evidence under Fed. R. Evid. 804(b)(6). The parties part ways, however, on the effect of Dhinsa's failure to raise Rule 804(b)(6) and, specifically, his failure to object to the admission of that evidence on the ground that the government had the burden of showing that Dhinsa committed the murders for the purpose of procuring the unavailability of the declarants as witnesses. Because we find that any error by the district court in failing to make such a finding was harmless in light of the substantial evidence supporting that conclusion, we need not decide whether Dhinsa waived his objection to the admission of the Mastrangelo evidence under Rule 804(b)(6) for the purposes of the instant appeal. 63 As an initial matter, Dhinsa cannot credibly maintain that his involvement in organizing and facilitating the murders of Manmohan and Satinderjit does not establish that he engaged or acquiesced in wrongdoing within the meaning of Rule 804(b)(6). See Cherry, 217 F.3d at 816. Significantly, Dhinsa does not argue that the hearsay statements were unreliable or inherently untrustworthy. On the contrary, Dhinsa acknowledges that these statements were undeniably powerful proof that he was responsible for Manmohan and Satinderjit's murders. We agree. The record amply demonstrates that Dhinsa murdered Manmohan and Satinderjit to depriv[e] the government of... potential witness[es]. Houlihan, 92 F.3d at 1280; see also Thai, 29 F.3d at 815. 64 With respect to Manmohan, Dhinsa feared that Manmohan would go to the police regarding Dhinsa's involvement in Kulwant's disappearance. This fear was well founded in light of Manmohan's repeated confrontations with Dhinsa and other members of the Singh Enterprise in which he accused them of being responsible for his brother's disappearance. Dodson also testified that Dhinsa ordered Manmohan murdered because he had seen [Dhinsa] and Gogi shoot somebody, and the police [were] getting close to the guy. Thus, Dhinsa believed that Manmohan posed a threat to the Singh Enterprise and to Dhinsa and Gogi personally by his cooperation with the police. See, e.g., Houlihan, 92 F.3d at 1280-81; Thai, 29 F.3d at 815 (defendant motivated by declarant's cooperation with police). 65 With respect to Satinderjit, the evidence presented at trial established that Satinderjit was in fact cooperating with the police at the time Dhinsa ordered Dodson to kill him, providing police with information regarding Manmohan's murder, Kulwant's disappearance and the Citygas pump-rigging scheme. Satinderjit's active involvement with the police is evidenced by his presence at the May 1997 raid of the Citygas offices in Brooklyn, New York during which Dhinsa, Gogi and other members of the Singh Enterprise were arrested. Dodson testified that Dhinsa ordered Satinderjit murdered because he was a witness against his brother. Dodson also testified that Dhinsa was upset that he was taking too long to murder Satinderjit and ordered Dodson to act quickly since Satinderjit was supposed to go to see the [g]rand [j]ury. Powell and Samuels, the other members of the group of hitmen hired by Dhinsa, similarly testified that Dhinsa wanted Satinderjit murdered quickly to prevent him from testifying against Gogi and himself. Dhinsa also made threatening calls to Manmohan warning him to cease his efforts to locate his brother and similar calls to Uberoi, Satinderjit's girlfriend, warning her that they would both be shot if [Satinderjit] did not stop messing around with his case and did not stay out of his business. Thus, there was sufficient support in the record to establish that Dhinsa murdered Manmohan and Satinderjit because he believed that they both had knowledge concerning his criminal activities, as well as those of other members of the Singh Enterprise, and, therefore, could cooperate in a police investigation targeting Dhinsa and the Singh Enterprise. 7 See Thai, 29 F.3d at 815. We also find that the admission of these statements under Rule 403 did not constitute an abuse of discretion. See United States v. Gelzer, 50 F.3d 1133, 1139 (2d Cir. 1995). Further, in light of Dodson's testimony corroborating the fact that Dhinsa ordered the murders to prevent Manmohan and Satinderjit from testifying against him, his brother Gogi and other key members of the Singh Enterprise, and the cellular telephone records establishing Dhinsa's contact with Dodson on the day of the murders, we conclude that it is unlikely that [Dhinsa] would have prevailed at trial absent admission of Manmohan and Satinderjit's hearsay statements. Gallego, 191 F.3d at 165; cf. Van Arsdall, 475 U.S. at 684 (The correct inquiry is whether, assuming that the damaging potential of the cross examination were fully realized, a reviewing court might nonetheless say that the error was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt.); Jean-Baptiste, 166 F.3d at 108. Accordingly, the district court's admission of the Mastrangelo evidence relating to statements made by Manmohan and Satinderjit should not be disturbed.