Opinion ID: 610154
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Hearsay Evidence Objection

Text: 8 The first piece of disputed evidence concerns the radio report overheard by Sergeant Wallace. Defendant objects to the evidence on hearsay grounds under Fed.R.Evid. 801 claiming the evidence is really double hearsay and should not be admitted because it is an out-of-court statement offered for the truth of the matter asserted. The government contends, however, that the evidence was not offered for the truth of the matter asserted, but instead to explain and justify the officers' actions when confronting Shipp on November 27, 1991. The government wanted the jury to understand why the first officer called for back-up and wanted to search Shipp. The district court found the evidence was not hearsay, or double hearsay, because it was not being offered for the truth of the matter asserted. 9 We will not reverse a district court's evidentiary ruling unless we find the court abused its discretion in admitting the evidence. United States v. Bigelow, 914 F.2d 966, 971 (7th Cir.1990), cert. denied, 111 S.Ct. 1077 (1991). Trial judges have broad discretion, and we give their evidentiary rulings special deference without regard to how we may have ruled on the admission in the first instance. United States v. Mokol, 939 F.2d 436, 438 (7th Cir.1991). 10 Not all out-of-court statements are inadmissible under Fed.R.Evid. 801. Out-of-court statements are inadmissible as hearsay only when offered for the truth of the matter asserted. Fed.R.Evid. 801(c); Anderson v. United States, 417 U.S. 211, 219 (1974). Thus if a prior statement is offered only to prove that it was made and not to prove the truth of the matter asserted, it is not excludable as hearsay. Id. at 220 & n. 8. 11 It was not an abuse of discretion for the court to admit evidence of the radio dispatch for the purpose of explaining the officers' conduct. E.g. United States v. Lazcano, 881 F.2d 402, 407 (7th Cir.1989). Of the three occupants in the stopped car, only Shipp got out of the car and was searched. A juror might reasonably wonder why only Shipp was searched. Indeed at trial, defense counsel did ask the officers several times if any of the other occupants in the car were searched or arrested that night. But the prosecutor did not exploit the non-hearsay statements, and defendant did not even ask for a limiting instruction. See Martinez v. McCaughtry, 951 F.2d 130, 133-34 (7th Cir.1991). The district court did not abuse its discretion in admitting the non-hearsay evidence nor in ruling it was not unduly prejudicial under Fed.R.Evid. 403.