Opinion ID: 149873
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Redgate's Planners

Text: Kaiser's final claim challenging his conviction on appeal is that the district court improperly admitted Gordon Redgate's business planners into evidence under Rule 803(6) of the Federal Rules of Evidence, which is the business records exception to the hearsay rule. The government argues that the planners were admissible not only as business records, but also as prior consistent statements and co-conspirator statements. Because we conclude that the planners were properly admitted under the business records exception, we do not reach the government's other arguments. The business records exception to the hearsay rule provides for the admission of: A memorandum, report, record, or data compilation, in any form, of acts, events, conditions, opinions ... made at or near the time by ... a person with knowledge, if kept in the course of a regularly conducted business activity, and if it was the regular practice of that business activity to make the memorandum, report, record or data compilation, all as shown by the testimony of the custodian or other qualified witness .... unless the source of information or the method or circumstances of preparation indicate lack of trustworthiness. Fed.R.Evid. 803(6). The purpose of the rule is to ensure that documents were not created for personal purpose[s] ... or in anticipation of any litigation so that the creator of the document had no motive to falsify the record in question. United States v. Freidin, 849 F.2d 716, 719 (2d Cir.1988). We have stated that Rule 803(6) `favors the admission of evidence rather than its exclusion if it has any probative value at all.' United States v. Williams, 205 F.3d 23, 34 (2d Cir.2000) (quoting In re Ollag Constr. Equip. Corp., 665 F.2d 43, 46 (2d Cir.1981)). Since 1997, Gordon Redgate maintained business planners in which he made contemporaneous handwritten entries related to his two companies. The planners included contact log pages with preprinted spaces for recording notes pertaining to phone conversations. During 2001, 2002, and 2003, Redgate kept notes on conversations with Kaiser regarding false confirmation letters that Kaiser asked him to send. Judge Griesa overruled Kaiser's objection and admitted the planners, stating, part of his business was to sign these confirmations, and these are records of the conversations he had in connection with that part of his business. So it seems to me these are unquestionably business records.
Kaiser argues that Redgate's note-taking on telephone conversations was not a regular practice, and that he recorded the conversations to give himself cover in the event the fraud was exposed. United States v. Freidin, 849 F.2d 716, 723 (2d Cir. 1988) (holding that the regular practice requirement must be met to admit a business record, even if the court determines for other reasons that the document is sufficiently trustworthy). Kaiser argues that Redgate's note-taking was too sporadic and selective to meet this standard, citing testimony from Redgate on cross-examination that he only wrote down highlights and matters he perceived to be important. The selectivity that Kaiser points out, however, is the nature of all note-taking. A business record need not be mechanically generated to be part of a regular practice. Redgate's contact log is different in kind from the types of miscellaneous jottings that courts have found inadmissible under this exception, because it was maintained in a consistent way and was focused on a certain range of issues that were relevant to his business. Cf. United States v. Ramsey, 785 F.2d 184, 192 (7th Cir.1986) (Occasional desk calendars, in which entries may or may not appear at the whim of the writer, do not have the sort of regularity that supports a reliable inference.). This Court has allowed the admission of calendars as business records where the witnesses testified that his regular business practice was to keep a calendar in which he documented events of which he had personal knowledge at or near the time they occurred. United States v. Ford, 435 F.3d 204, 214-15 (2d Cir.2006). Redgate's business planners are similar enough to these calendars, in our view, to fall within the scope of the business records exception. [6]
Kaiser also argues that Redgate's planners were not sufficiently trustworthy to serve the purpose of the business records exception due to a discrepancy between Redgate's testimony on direct and redirect examination. Kaiser's theory at trial was that Redgate had time and opportunity to alter the planners before turning them over to his attorney. He argued that Redgate's inconsistent testimony supports this theory. On direct examination, Redgate testified that he turned over most of the pages from his Contact Logs to his attorney on February 13, 2003the day after he learned that the fraud had unraveled and Lee had tendered his resignation to USFand his attorney had told him his problems were significantly greater than worrying about owing money, and ... these were important records, and that he should hold on to them. The attorney took everything except [o]ne page of the contact log that had 2002 stuff on it and two conversations, I believe, in 2003 that they overlooked. The missing page includes notes from December 27, 2002 through January 14, 2003. At first, Kaiser testified that it was not turned over to his lawyer because it was in his current planner at the time he met with his lawyer on February 13, 2003. The missing page was later turned over to the government, at the earliest in May 2003. On cross examination, Kaiser's counsel pointed out there were three subsequent pages of the planner with entries spanning from January 20, 2003 to March 2, 2003. Because the last page had entries after February 13, 2003, the date on which Redgate met with his attorney, it could not have been turned over at that time. Redgate responded, Evidently he didn't take it. On redirect, Redgate changed his testimony. He claimed that the only page not received by his lawyer on February 13, 2003 was not the page he had mentioned on direct examination, containing the entries that spanned 2002 and 2003, but rather, was the last page of the notes, covering the period from February 6, 2003 to March 2, 2003. Kaiser has succeeded in raising questions about the trustworthiness of the planners, but he has failed to show that the district court abused its discretion in finding that the they were sufficiently trustworthy under Rule 803(6). The district court was entitled to rely on Redgate's testimony on redirect to making its evidentiary decision. Reyes, 157 F.3d at 953. Residual doubts on the question [of trustworthiness] would go to the weight of the evidence, not its admissibility. Id. We further observe that the degree of reliability necessary for admission is greatly reduced where, as here, the declarant is testifying and is available for cross-examination, thereby satisfying the central concern of the hearsay rule. See United States v. McPartlin, 595 F.2d 1321, 1350-51 (7th Cir.1979). We cannot say, therefore, that the district court's reliance on Redgate's testimony was in error.