Opinion ID: 709030
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Related Issues

Text: 49 Appellants Bennett, Darden, Seals, and Williams argue that the District Court erred when it refused to sever each of their trials from the trial of their co-defendants. 5 [W]e review the district court's denial of a motion for severance for an abuse of discretion, Fregoso, 60 F.3d at 1328, and will reverse only when that abuse of discretion results in severe or compelling prejudice, United States v. Rimell, 21 F.3d 281, 289 (8th Cir.), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 115 S.Ct. 453, 130 L.Ed.2d 362 (1994). When a defendant moves for a severance, a district court must first determine whether joinder is proper under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 8. If joinder is proper, the court still has discretion to order a severance under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 14. These rules are to be liberally construed in favor of joinder. Rimell, 21 F.3d at 288. 50 Appellants argue that joinder was improper under Rule 8 or, alternatively, that the District Court abused its discretion by refusing to sever their trials pursuant to Rule 14. Bennett, Darden, Seals, and Williams contend that they were prejudiced by the spillover effect of overwhelming evidence presented solely against their co-defendants. Darden also claims that the joint trial deprived him of relevant testimony of co-defendant Bennett. 51 Joinder was unquestionably proper under Rule 8. 6 The indictment in this case sufficiently alleged that the joined defendants and counts were factually interrelated. See United States v. Jones, 880 F.2d 55, 62-63 (8th Cir.1989). [I]t is not necessary that every defendant have participated in or be charged with each offense. Id. (quoting United States v. O'Connell, 841 F.2d 1408, 1431 (8th Cir.), cert. denied, 487 U.S. 1210, 108 S.Ct. 2857, 101 L.Ed.2d 893 (1988) and 488 U.S. 1011, 109 S.Ct. 799, 102 L.Ed.2d 790 (1989)). Under Rule 14, a district court may sever a defendant's trial from the trial of co-defendants [i]f it appears that a defendant ... is prejudiced by a joinder of offenses or of defendants in an indictment ... or by such joinder for trial together. When joinder is proper under Rule 8, the defendant seeking a severance has the burden to demonstrate how the joint trial prejudiced his or her right to a fair trial. United States v. Penson, 62 F.3d 242, 244 (8th Cir.1995); see also United States v. Lane, 474 U.S. 438, 447, 106 S.Ct. 725, 731, 88 L.Ed.2d 814 (1986). 52 At best, the appellants' allegations of prejudice are speculative. Williams, for example, argues that the defendants advanced conflicting defense theories and implicated other defendants. Williams, however, has not explained how the defenses of the other defendants were in conflict with his own defense. Even the existence of generally antagonistic defenses does not necessitate a severance. Jones, 880 F.2d at 63. Having failed to show the existence of any antagonistic defenses, Williams has not shown that joinder was prejudicial as the result of such defenses. 53 Bennett, Seals, and Williams contend that only a small part of the evidence implicated them in the activities of the JLO and that such a disparity of evidence resulted in a spill-over effect that was prejudicial. Their argument is fatally flawed, however, because they gloss over the fact that they were indicted as members of a RICO conspiracy that included all of their co-defendants. Each defendant may be held accountable for actions taken by other defendants in furtherance of the conspiracy, and thus all of the evidence offered at trial relating to the activities of the JLO, regardless of whether Bennett, Darden, Seals, and Williams directly participated in those activities, would be admissible against them if they had been given separate trials. See United States v. Garver, 809 F.2d 1291, 1298 (7th Cir.1987); United States v. Hattaway, 740 F.2d 1419, 1424 (7th Cir.), cert. denied, 469 U.S. 1028, 1089, 105 S.Ct. 448, 599, 83 L.Ed.2d 373, 708 (1984). 54 Darden's argument that he was deprived of co-defendant Bennett's testimony is also unsupported by a sufficient showing of prejudice. To be entitled to a severance based on the unavailability of testimony of a co-defendant, a defendant must show that the testimony, otherwise lost due to the co-defendant's assertion of the Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination, would be substantially exculpatory. United States v. DeLuna, 763 F.2d 897, 920 (8th Cir.), cert. denied, 474 U.S. 980, 106 S.Ct. 382, 88 L.Ed.2d 336 (1985). To be substantially exculpatory, the testimony must do more than merely tend to contradict a few details of the government's case. United States v. Oakie, 12 F.3d 1436, 1441 (8th Cir.1993). In this case Darden offered Bennett's affidavit to show what Bennett's testimony would be if Darden had been tried separately. The affidavit, which relates to the shooting of Rochelle Bartlett, only states that Bennett was at the scene of the crime and did not see Darden either before or after the shooting. The affidavit does not indicate that Bennett saw the shooting or the shooter. The affidavit thus does not even contradict the evidence offered by the government that tended to show that Darden was the shooter; it falls far short of showing that Bennett's testimony would be substantially exculpatory. 55 The United States has a strong interest in the joint trial of the members of a criminal enterprise. Such trials save time and money for the courts, prosecutors, and witnesses. Most importantly, however, justice is best served by trying the members of a racketeering enterprise together because a joint trial gives the jury the best perspective on all of the evidence and therefore increases the likelihood of a correct outcome. United States v. Buljubasic, 808 F.2d 1260, 1263 (7th Cir.), cert. denied, 484 U.S. 815, 108 S.Ct. 67, 98 L.Ed.2d 31 (1987). Because the appellants have failed to show that they were prejudiced in any way by the joint trial of this case, the government's interest in trying them together obviously outweighs the appellants' interest in separate trials. The District Court thus did not abuse its discretion by denying their motions for severances.
56 Citing United States v. James, 590 F.2d 575 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, 442 U.S. 917, 99 S.Ct. 2836, 61 L.Ed.2d 283 (1979), Noble Bennett, Jerry Lewis, and Michael Williams argue that the District Court abused its discretion when it permitted the government to present the statements of alleged co-conspirators to the jury without holding a preliminary hearing to determine the admissibility of the statements. The government argues that this Court does not require a preliminary hearing to determine the admissibility of co-conspirator statements. We agree. The appellants' reliance on James is misplaced. In Llach v. United States, we specifically declined to adopt the Fifth Circuit's procedure, which requires the government to prove by a preponderance of the evidence, prior to the admission of co-conspirators' statements, that a conspiracy exists. 739 F.2d 1322, 1328-29 (8th Cir.1984). United States v. Reda, 765 F.2d 715 (8th Cir.1985), is not to the contrary. In Reda, we merely noted that a district court may choose to hold a preliminary hearing rather than conditionally admitting the statements prior to the government's proof of a conspiracy. Id. at 721-22. The choice of the procedure, however, remains within the discretion of the trial court, id. at 722, and the court in this case did not abuse its discretion when it refused to hold a preliminary hearing. 57 Appellants also argue that the court erred when it admitted the statements because they are not co-conspirator's statements, admissible under Federal Rule of Evidence 801(d)(2)(E), and otherwise consist of inadmissible hearsay. While these appellants appear to challenge a number of statements, their briefs specifically identify only two sets of statements. Failure to identify the objectionable statements hampers this Court's ability to review the District Court's rulings on those statements. We therefore will review only the admissibility of the statements specifically identified in the appellants' briefs. 58 We review the evidentiary rulings of a district court only for abuses of discretion, and will reverse only when an improper evidentiary ruling affects the substantial rights of the defendant or when we believe that the error has had more than a slight influence on the verdict. United States v. Ballew, 40 F.3d 936, 941 (8th Cir.1994) (citations omitted), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 115 S.Ct. 1813, 131 L.Ed.2d 737 (1995). 59 First, Bennett argues that Parnell's testimony regarding Bennett's attempt to secure a kilogram of cocaine from Lewis is inadmissible hearsay. Parnell, however, was recounting statements Bennett made directly to him. These statements thus were clearly admissible, at least against Bennett, because they were Bennett's own statements. See Fed.R.Evid. 801(d)(1)(A). Bennett does not have standing to argue that Parnell's statements were inadmissible against any other defendants. Darden, however, adopts Bennett's argument, and we therefore will analyze these statements under the co-conspirator rule below. Second, Lewis argues that the audio recordings of conversations between Willie Dixon and Earl Parnell were inadmissible. The conversations took place between November 1988 and January 1989 and were recorded by Parnell. At the time, Parnell was a government informant and Dixon was allegedly a participant in the JLO conspiracies that involved, among others, Bennett, Williams, and Lewis. 60 The government argues that Parnell's testimony and the audio recordings consist of statements of co-conspirators, which are not hearsay. See Fed.R.Evid. 801(d)(2)(E). For a statement to be admissible under Rule 801(d)(2)(E), the government must prove by a preponderance of the evidence (1) that a conspiracy existed, (2) that the declarants were co-conspirators of the defendants, and (3) that the statements were made during the course of and in furtherance of the conspiracy. See Bourjaily v. United States, 483 U.S. 171, 175-76, 107 S.Ct. 2775, 2778-79, 97 L.Ed.2d 144 (1987); United States v. Jackson, 67 F.3d 1359, 1364 (8th Cir.1995). We have already concluded that the government proved beyond a reasonable doubt that a single conspiracy to violate the RICO statute existed. 7 See supra pp. 1520-21. Moreover, none of the appellants appear to challenge the jury's findings that they were involved in the narcotics conspiracy that served as one of the predicate acts of the RICO conspiracy. We have also held that Noble Bennett and Jerry Lewis were members of the RICO conspiracy and participated in it through a pattern of racketeering activity, see supra pp. 1524-25, 1525-26, and Williams does not argue that he was not a member of the JLO or the narcotics conspiracy. Thus we need only decide whether the declarants were members of the same conspiracies and whether the statements admitted were made during the course of and in furtherance of the conspiracies. 61 Darden, by adopting Bennett's argument, challenges the admissibility of statements made by Bennett. The government proved, as we noted above, that Bennett was a member of the conspiracy charged by the indictment. The government also proved by a preponderance of the evidence that his statements were made during the course of and in furtherance of the conspiracy. Specifically, on December 10, 1988, Bennett told Parnell that he was trying to obtain a kilogram of cocaine from Jerry Lewis and that he wanted Parnell to work with him on that transaction. Tr. vol. 29 at 112-15. As the Superseding Indictment charged a narcotics conspiracy headed by Jerry Lewis between 1978 and 1992, Bennett's argument that his statements were not made during the course of or in furtherance of the conspiracy is specious. 62 Lewis challenges the admissibility of tape recordings of conversations between Willie Dixon and Earl Parnell. For the recordings to be admissible under Rule 801(d)(2)(E), the only basis for admissibility argued by the government, the declarants on these tapes, Dixon and Parnell, both must be co-conspirators of the defendants. Additionally, they must both be making their statements during the course of and in furtherance of the conspiracy. The government's evidence clearly showed that Dixon was a member of the single conspiracy charged in the Superseding Indictment. His statements were properly admitted under Rule 801(d)(2)(E) because his participation in the ongoing conspiracy continued and because his statements were in furtherance of the conspiracy. The furtherance requirement is interpreted broadly. United States v. Edwards, 994 F.2d 417, 422 (8th Cir.1993), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 114 S.Ct. 701, 126 L.Ed.2d 667 (1994). While Lewis characterizes much of the information on the recordings as gossip, Lewis's Brief at 100, statements that describe past events are in furtherance of the conspiracy if they are made to plan future activities, United States v. Haldeman, 559 F.2d 31, 110-11 (D.C.Cir.1976) (holding that narrations of past events were in furtherance of conspiracy because presidential aides involved were required to make regular strategic decisions on how best to proceed with cover-ups, which included review of what had taken place to identify and shore up the loose ends), cert. denied, 431 U.S. 933, 97 S.Ct. 2641, 53 L.Ed.2d 250 (1977), or simply to keep co-conspirators abreast of current developments and problems facing the group, United States v. Massa, 740 F.2d 629, 638 (8th Cir.1984) (holding that statements made to explain events important to the conspiracy or give directions to facilitate it were in furtherance of conspiracy), cert. denied, 471 U.S. 1115, 105 S.Ct. 2357, 86 L.Ed.2d 258 (1985). Because Lewis has made no more specific attack on these statements than calling them gossip, and gossip is not inadmissible per se, we can only conclude that the District Court did not abuse its discretion by admitting Dixon's statements. 63 Earl Parnell, however, was on the same tape recordings. His statements are not admissible under Rule 801(d)(2)(E) because he was a government informant rather than a co-conspirator at the time the statements were made and, obviously, the statements were not made in furtherance of the conspiracy. See United States v. Smith, 578 F.2d 1227, 1233 (8th Cir.1978) (holding inadmissible under Rule 801(d)(2)(E) statements of co-conspirator turned government informant made after declarant agreed to assist government because declarant was no longer member of conspiracy). The District Court abused its discretion by admitting Parnell's statements. Nonetheless, this error does not require us to reverse either Lewis's convictions or the convictions of Carlton Darden, who adopted Lewis's arguments on this issue. Criminal defendants are entitled to a fair trial, not a perfect one. Id. at 1234 (quoting, inter alia, Lutwak v. United States, 344 U.S. 604, 619, 73 S.Ct. 481, 490, 97 L.Ed. 593 (1953)). In light of the overwhelming evidence of Lewis's and Darden's guilt, we do not hesitate to hold that the admission of Parnell's statements on the Parnell-Dixon recordings did not affect the substantial rights of either appellant. See Ballew, 40 F.3d at 941; see also Fed.R.Crim.P. 52(a) (Any error ... which does not affect substantial rights shall be disregarded.).