Opinion ID: 663160
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Admissibility of the Purported Profit Statement

Text: 7 At the police station following the arrests, a police officer found a small folded white piece of paper in Benavidez's pocket. The slip of paper, labelled Exhibit 66 at trial, contained three columns of numbers and letters. It was neither signed nor dated. Because the numbers were consistent with some of the prices and quantities of cocaine that Benavidez negotiated with Agent Jackson, the government argued that the paper was a tally sheet or profit statement of Benavidez's potential drug transactions. The district court admitted Exhibit 66 into evidence at trial under the adopted admission exception to the hearsay rule. 8 Benavidez contends that the writing was hearsay, and that its admission accordingly violated Fed.R.Evid. 802. He points out that there was no evidence that the writing on the paper was his, nor was there any showing as to who was the author. But such an unauthenticated statement is not hearsay if the party against whom it is introduced has manifested an adoption of its contents or belief in its truth. Fed.R.Evid. 801(d)(2)(B). We conclude that Benavidez had adopted this statement. 9 In United States v. Ospina, 739 F.2d 448, 451 (9th Cir.), cert. denied, 469 U.S. 887, 105 S.Ct. 262, 83 L.Ed.2d 198 (1984), we ruled that business cards that contained handwritten notations and that were found on a dresser in the defendant's motel room constituted adopted admissions and, thus, were not hearsay. One of the business cards bore the phone number of the hotel where the other defendants were staying. The other card contained the address of the location where the cocaine involved in that case was transferred. Id. We accepted the government's view that the business cards were adopted admissions because they were in the possession of the defendant and the defendant acted on the information written on the cards when he travelled to the address written there to pick up the cocaine. Id. 10 We conclude that the facts of this case fall within the rule of Ospina. Benavidez negotiated with an undercover agent the terms of a cocaine transaction, including the price and quantity. The figures on the slip of paper apparently represented the profit expected from a 20-kilogram cocaine deal at $18,000 per kilogram and a 15-kilogram cocaine deal at the same price. These prices were consistent with the prices Benavidez had quoted Agent Jackson in negotiations. Likewise, the quantities were consistent with Benavidez's initial agreement to sell 20 kilograms of cocaine and his later statement that he could obtain only 15 kilograms. The district court found that Exhibit 66 was a record of the negotiations and the profit that might be made in a cocaine deal. We conclude that this finding is not erroneous. Benavidez manifested adoption of the statement in Exhibit 66 by possessing the slip of paper and negotiating sale prices and quantities for cocaine that were consistent with the figures on the slip of paper. 11 Benavidez relies principally on United States v. Ordonez, 737 F.2d 793 (9th Cir.1983), but we find that case distinguishable. In Ordonez, we ruled that the mere fact that a drug ledger was found in the defendant's apartment was not enough to permit an inference that he had adopted its contents. There was no other evidence of adoption. We accordingly held that the evidence had to be excluded. Id. at 800-01. 12 Here, there was evidence of adoption that went beyond mere possession. The figures written on the paper coincided with Benevidez's negotiations. There is a sufficient link between the writing and Benevidez's actions to permit the district court to find an adoption, within the meaning of Ospina. The district court did not err in admitting Exhibit 66. 13