Opinion ID: 464953
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Exclusion of Evidence of the Telephone Threat

Text: 24 On appeal Moss raises four separate challenges to evidentiary rulings of the district court. His first and most compelling argument is that the district court erroneously prevented Moss from testifying to the contents of a threatening telephone call. Moss testified at trial that as he was preparing to go to work on July 10, 1984, he received a phone call directing him to go to the Midnight Sun Bar. Moss testified that he did not know who made the phone call, that he had never been to that bar before, and that he knew he would be contacted by someone at the bar. The plain import of Moss' testimony concerning his reaction to the phone call is that he did not go to the Midnight Sun of his own accord. When Moss attempted to relate the specific contents of what he was told over the phone, Wright's counsel objected to the evidence as hearsay and the district court sustained the objection. 25 Moss correctly points out on appeal that this testimony is not hearsay within the meaning of Fed.R.Evid. 801(c). The content of the phone call was offered not to prove the truth of the matter asserted but rather to show its effect on Moss. See, e.g., United States v. Herrera, 600 F.2d 502 (5th Cir.1979); United States v. Cline, 570 F.2d 731 (8th Cir.1978). 26 Although the district court incorrectly characterized the contents of the phone call as hearsay, Rule 103 of the Federal Rules of Evidence explicitly provides that Error may not be predicated upon a ruling which ... excludes evidence unless a substantial right of the party is affected, and ... the substance of the evidence was made known to the court by offer or was apparent from the context within which questions were asked. Fed.R.Evid. 103(a)(2). Because Moss made no attempt to inform the district court of the nature of the threats made to Moss in the phone call, we cannot assign the district court's ruling as error. Moss seeks to avoid the effect of Rule 103 by arguing that the substance of the telephone call was sufficiently apparent from the context of the questions posed to Moss on direct examination. The context of the question concerning the phone call does reveal that Moss changed his plans after receiving the call. Instead of reporting to his job at the loading dock of a Houston department store, Moss told his supervisor he was ill and went to the Midnight Sun Bar. This context does not, however, reveal whether the phone call put Moss in fear. An equally consistent interpretation might be that Moss was offered a chance to earn a great deal of money. This latter interpretation also squares with Moss' later testimony that at the bar he expected to meet people with whom he had previously been involved when he had laundered money for narcotics dealers. 27 We also do not find that the district court's decision qualifies as plain error affecting substantial rights under Fed.R.Evid. 103(d). The ruling did not gravely hamper Moss' presentation of his duress defense. Moss was able to testify to the direct threats made to him by Wright. He also testified that he knew unknown third parties were in league with Wright because while driving Mrs. Rosenkranz to Norfolk he had been stopped by two men and instructed to give his victim a sleeping pill. We therefore find that Moss incurred no significant prejudice from the erroneous ruling. 28