Opinion ID: 378191
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: admission of coconspirators' statements

Text: 24 On the fourth day of trial, the prosecutor asked John Madden, vice-president of Campbell Hardware, Inc., to relate certain conversations he had with Robert McCabe concerning appellant. Counsel for appellant objected on the grounds that no conspiracy has been shown that (appellant) was in. The district court ruled on the objection as follows: 25 In order to make sure that the record is clear so far as the future is concerned, I would make a finding on the record in light of the evidence that has now been introduced that there is a sufficiency of evidence for the jurors to find the existence of a conspiracy; that there is also a sufficiency of evidence for the jury to find knowing participation in the conspiracy by (David Thompson and Robert Taylor); and a sufficiency to find a joinder in the conspiracy by the corporation by an authorized representative. 26 Appellant's counsel objected to the ruling on the basis that the evidence shows so far that if there was any conspiracy, that conspiracy terminated in approximately 1970; that C. Robert Taylor was not shown to be a member of that conspiracy; that David E. Thompson was not shown to be a member of that conspiracy; and that there was no conspiracy at all in which the defendants were parties. 27 On the sixth day of trial, in ruling upon a subsequent motion to strike certain out of court declarations, the court stated that by a preponderance of the evidence . . . there was a conspiracy to allocate projects by rigging bids and that the declarations occurred during the time that the alleged conspiracy was going on. 28 On this appeal, appellant for the first time 7 asserts that these rulings by the district court were incorrect under the rule announced in United States v. Petrozziello, 548 F.2d 20 (1st Cir. 1977). In Petrozziello, we announced that district courts should not admit out of court declarations of coconspirators under Fed.R.Evid. 801(d)(2)(E) without first finding that it is more likely than not that the declarant and the defendant were members of a conspiracy when the hearsay statement was made, and that the statement was in furtherance of the conspiracy. Id. at 23. Appellant now asserts that the sufficiency of the evidence language used by the district court was not in accord with the Petrozziello standard and was instead more like the prima facie standard which we found inadequate. 29 Whether or not the district court's language is in the abstract adequate under Petrozziello we need not decide. In the absence of proper objection, Fed.R.Evid. 103(a)(1), a deviation from the standard announced in Petrozziello will be reversed only upon a showing of plain error. United States v. Pappas, 611 F.2d 399 (1st Cir. 1979). In this case, the error is far from plain. Indeed, it is not clear that there was any error at all, for it might be possible to find that when read together the district court's two rulings constituted a proper application of the Petrozziello standard. 8 In any event, our discussion of the evidence in the previous sections of this opinion shows that there was enough evidence to support a finding under the proper standard and our reading of the record leads us to believe that the district court would have so found if counsel had properly objected. 9 IV. ADMISSION OF ALLEGEDLY IRRELEVANT EVIDENCE 30 Appellant asserts that we should order a new trial because the district court allowed into evidence exhibits and testimony concerning projects on which there was no direct evidence that Thompson, Inc. participated in any bid rigging. We agree with appellant that the probative value of some of this evidence was insubstantial. However, it did have some relevance in that it illustrated the nearly industry-wide (in Boston) acceptance of the bid rigging, thus negating the inference that the conspiracy had died out in 1970, and showed that one of the objectives of the conspiracy was to obtain excessive, noncompetitive profits, thus negating by inference appellant's claim that the conspirators abjured price gouging. There was, as appellant claims, no direct evidence to link it with some of these projects; however, there was evidence McCabe's testimony from which one could infer that these projects were within the overall scope of the conspiracy which appellant had joined. 31 In light of the at least minimum level of relevance of this evidence, and the fact that appellant does not even assert that there was any possible prejudice as a result of its admission into evidence, we think that the district court's decision was probably correct, and if not, was harmless error.