Opinion ID: 198362
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Tara Ramos's Out-of-court Declaration

Text: 55 Gaines claims error in the district court's refusal to allow Officer David O'Sullivan to testify that Ramos said Fucking Franklin when she saw Trooper Hartley remove a green garbage bag containing crack cocaine during the police search of Gaines's apartment. He argues on appeal that Ramos's utterance would have corroborated Gaines's defense that the drugs belonged to Allen Franklin, who had been allowed to store things in Gaines's apartment including--ostensibly unknown to Gaines--drugs. Gaines also points out that the prosecution made much of O'Sullivan's testimony that Ramos became distraught, as did Gaines, when each became aware that the green bag was being removed. According to the prosecution, Ramos's and Gaines's reactions demonstrated consciousness of guilt. Ramos's Fucking Franklin comment might--according to Gaines--have indicated some reason, other than personal guilt, for Ramos, and Gaines himself, to have become upset. 56 The colloquy at trial relative to the Fucking Franklin remark was laconic, to say the least. During cross-examination of Officer O'Sullivan, defense counsel asked, Did you hear Tara [Ramos] say anything about Allen Franklin in an uncomplimentary way? The prosecutor objected and the court said, Sustained. A side bar conference followed at which defense counsel told the judge that Tara said, Fucking Franklin. The prosecutor stated, It's hearsay; the court replied, Yes; defense attorney proposed, State of mind; and the court responded, No. Objection sustained. That ended the matter. Appellant now claims that exclusion of the comment was reversible error. 57 On appeal, Gaines no longer cites the state of mind exception to the hearsay rule, see Fed.R.Evid. 803(3), as a ground for admitting the Fucking Franklin remark. Rather Gaines says the statement was either not hearsay at all, being non-assertive, or else should have come in under the excited utterance exception to the hearsay rule. See Fed.R.Evid. 803(2). 58 A basic problem with Gaines's appellate arguments for admission is that neither ground was presented to the trial court. Grounds not identified at trial on which rejected evidence is admissible will ordinarily not provide a basis for reversal on appeal. See Jack Weinstein, Weinstein's Federal Evidence § 103.20, at 103-37 & n. 10 (2d ed.1997). As Judge Pratt, writing for a panel of the Second Circuit, stated some years ago, 59 Frequently, it can be argued in good faith that what appears to be inadmissible under one exception to the hearsay rule can be admitted into evidence either as non-hearsay or under another of the hearsay exceptions. Unless the basis for proposed admission is obvious it is the burden of counsel who seeks admission to alert the court to the legal basis for his proffer. 60 United States v. Pugliese, 712 F.2d 1574, 1580 (2d Cir.1983); see also, e.g., United States v. Powell, 894 F.2d 895, 901 n. 5 (7th Cir.1990). 61 Absent mention below, therefore, of the bases currently advanced for admission, exclusion of the proffered Fucking Franklin statement can be successfully raised on appeal only if the district court's ruling amounted to plain error. Powell, 894 F.2d at 901 n. 5. That standard is plainly not met here. 62 We shall assume, without deciding, that there is merit to one or even both of the grounds for admission now put forward. In particular, the excited utterance exception, had it been presented to the trial judge, seems a persuasive basis for admission. Nonetheless, omission of the statement fell well short of causing a miscarriage of justice, an essential element of plain error. See United States v. Olano, 507 U.S. 725, 736, 113 S.Ct. 1770, 123 L.Ed.2d 508 (1993) (quoting United States v. Young, 470 U.S. 1, 15, 105 S.Ct. 1038, 84 L.Ed.2d 1 (1985)). We note that Gaines himself gave a different explanation of why he became distraught and never mentioned Ramos's utterance (nor did Ramos herself ever attempt to mention her alleged utterance when she testified.) Gaines testified the cause of his change in demeanor was that one of the police officers told him that they had found crack cocaine on his back porch and he was going to jail for a long time. While Ramos's Fucking Franklin comment might still have bolstered the defense's attribution of the drugs to Franklin, it might equally have led the jury to think that Ramos knew more about the bag's contents than she had acknowledged. Officer O'Sullivan testified that the contents of the bag could not be seen. For Ramos to react so strongly might suggest she knew all along they contained drugs. The comment was also perfectly consistent with her believing that Franklin was the informer who had turned them in to the police, not merely the sole culprit himself. We further note that another witness, Lino Grau, apparently mentioned Tara's comment to the jury, although her testimony may have been blunted by a ruling of inadmissibility. In any event, given the strength of the government's evidence, and Gaines's and Tara's opportunity to otherwise explain their defense, there was no miscarriage of justice in the exclusion of Officer O'Sullivan's testimony concerning Ramos's remark. 63