Opinion ID: 2055865
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Association of Defendants Prior to the Beginning of the Conspiracy

Text: In the course of the trial two police officers testified that they had observed defendants in the company of one another on several occasions prior to the date set out in the indictment as the time of the beginning of the conspiracy, March 1, 1968. Philip Paquin, a member of the Attleboro Police Department, testified that in August of 1967 he had observed defendants Sciarra and Lerner, together with a third man, sitting in a parked motor vehicle at the Holiday Inn in South Attleboro. Donald F. Kennedy, a member of the Providence Police Department, testified that during the course of his regular patrols in the Federal Hill section of Providence, he frequently observed the various defendants in the company of one another. Kennedy's testimony related to observations made during a period of about six months preceding the slaying on April 20, 1968. The defendant now argues that the admission of this testimony was prejudicial error on the theory that evidence of the acts of co-conspirators is admissible only when engaged in during the term of the conspiracy. Conceding that this testimony related to a period prior to March 1, 1968, we cannot agree that it was inadmissible. In United States v. Armone, 363 F.2d 385, 403-404 (2d Cir. 1966), the Second Circuit held that since agreement is an element of conspiracy, evidence of association between alleged co-conspirators is relevant. In that case the court held that the admission into evidence of a nightclub photograph showing some of the defendants sitting together and a telephone number book containing the names of several defendants was proper as providing evidence from which the jury could infer that the defendants knew one another and had the opportunity to reach an agreement with regard to the object of the conspiracy. See also Williamson v. United States, 310 F.2d 192, 199 (9th Cir. 1962). The trial justice placed this evidence in the proper context when he instructed the jury that [m]ere suspicion, speculation or associating together of those accused does not establish a conspiracy    [However,] common design or conspiracy may be deduced from circumstances, where they exclude every reasonable hypothesis but that of defendants' guilt of conspiracy. In other words, the proof must not only be consistent with guilt, but at the same time it must be inconsistent with a reasonable hypothesis of innocence. Through this instruction the trial justice apprised the jury of the fact that mere association did not constitute conspiracy but was a circumstance which the jury might consider in determining the existence of an agreement to commit a crime. Therefore, defendant's exception is overruled.