Opinion ID: 517394
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: admissibility of co-conspirator's statements

Text: 40 Dorsey's indictment was the result of an undercover investigation by the Fairfax Police Department. At trial, Fairfax Police Investigator Thomas Polhemus provided eyewitness testimony on the manufacturing count. He recounted that, on December 30, 1986, he observed co-defendant Haynes and Dorsey performing the second stage of the PCP manufacturing process on crystals Polhemus had supplied. Investigator Polhemus also testified about conversations with Haynes prior to the December 30 manufacturing episode. 41 In particular, Polhemus reported his December 17 conversation with Haynes, in which Haynes said he wanted to do the manufacturing that night and all he had to do was call his partner when [the partner] got out of school. Haynes did not identify this partner, however, nor did he ever indicate that he had made the after-school call. 42 At trial, Dorsey maintained that the government had failed to establish the existence of a conspiracy at any time prior to December 30, 1986; he therefore objected to any use against him of Haynes's pre-December 30 statements. Such statements, Dorsey argued, did not qualify for the co-conspirator exception to the hearsay rule, Federal Rule of Evidence 801(d)(2)(E). 43 The government answered that the events of December 30 cast light on whether a conspiracy existed on December 17. On the morning of the 30th, as Investigator Polhemus testified, Haynes agreed to perform the manufacturing process and then said he would call his partner, and everything that was needed would be there. Shortly thereafter, again as Polhemus testified, Haynes called Polhemus and said he had, in fact, spoken to his partner, and everything was set to go. 44 Polhemus came to Haynes's apartment with one pound of PCC crystals (the product of the first stage of the PCP manufacturing process) on the afternoon of December 30. Haynes, using a speaker phone, called Chin and told him to come on over right away. Chin arrived at the apartment some time later. Polhemus recognized Chin's voice from the speaker phone conversation. Haynes then proceeded to perform the final PCP manufacturing process with Chin's help. At trial, Polhemus identified Chin as Dorsey. 45 Bourjaily v. United States, 483 U.S. 171, 107 S.Ct. 2775, 97 L.Ed.2d 144 (1987), the government urges, is precedent for reaching back from December 30 to associate Dorsey with a conspiracy to manufacture PCP existing on December 17. In Bourjaily, co-defendant Lonardo had agreed with an FBI informant to find individuals to distribute cocaine. Lonardo said, in a tape-recorded conversation with the informant, that he had a gentleman friend who had some questions. Later, the informant spoke by telephone to the friend about the drug's quality and price. The informant then arranged with Lonardo for the sale to take place in a designated parking lot where Lonardo would transfer the drug from the informant's car to the friend. The transaction proceeded as planned; FBI agents arrested on the spot both Lonardo and friend, who turned out to be Bourjaily. The Supreme Court held that Lonardo's out-of-court statements were properly admitted against Bourjaily. 46 This case does not precisely fit the Bourjaily frame. Government counsel had urged that Haynes's partner here corresponds to Lonardo's friend in Bourjaily. But at oral argument the court pointed to an ambiguity. True, there were references to Haynes's partner in the December 17 Polhemus-Haynes conversation, and again in their conversation December 30. As the court said during argument in relation to the December 17 reference, however: It could have been somebody else.... It could have been another partner. Government counsel acknowledged: It may have, it may have been another partner. Further, as just indicated, see supra p. 1279, no evidence presented at trial suggested that Haynes communicated with Dorsey on or about December 17 concerning Haynes's plan to manufacture PCP with Polhemus. 47 Resolution of the issue here would thus require us to proceed beyond the place where controlling precedent leaves off. The question is substantial, and not without difficulty. In these circumstances, we believe it appropriate to follow the procedure established for our court in United States v. Hooper, 432 F.2d 604 (D.C.Cir.1970) (Leventhal, J.). That case too presented a substantial question, a point not without difficulty, one with no controlling precedent directly in point. Id. at 605. The court concluded in Hooper that there is no need for us to resolve [such an] issue on the merits, id. at 606, when the sentence on the count in question was to run concurrently with, and no longer than, the sentence on a conviction the court affirmed. Accordingly, the court vacated the conviction that presented the unresolved question. 2 In sum, in this case, as in Hooper: 48 We see no reason to devote our time and energies to the research, and opinion-writing, incident to appropriate determination of an issue not governed by controlling precedent when no present public interest or need is furthered thereby. It better serves the general interest of the administration of justice if the court limits its resources to the determination of those questions and cases that must be decided.... 49 Id. 3 We therefore vacate the fifteen to forty-five years sentence on the conspiracy count while leaving in place the forty-five years plus ten years special supervision sentence on the manufacturing count.