Opinion ID: 77279
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Statements from Underwood's Brother.

Text: 21 At trial, the government sought to introduce and publish to the jury CD's of recorded conversations between Underwood's brother, Darryl, and Hopps, the confidential informant. The CD's contained conversations clearly implicating Underwood in criminal activity. The defense objected to the introduction of the CD's, claiming both that Darryl was not a co-conspirator in the case, and that the admission of the CD's was barred under Crawford v. Washington, 541 U.S. 36, 124 S.Ct. 1354, 158 L.Ed.2d 177 (2004). 22 We review questions of constitutional law de novo. United States v. Brown, 364 F.3d 1266, 1268 (11th Cir. 2004). Determinations of the admissibility of evidence are in the discretion of the trial judge and will not be reversed by an appellate court unless it finds an abuse of discretion. United States v. Miles, 290 F.3d 1341, 1351 (11th Cir.2002). 23 At trial, Underwood argued both that Darryl was not a co-conspirator and that because Hopps was working under the auspices of law enforcement as a confidential informant, the conversations between Hopps and Darryl were not merely non-formal statements made by individuals to acquaintances, but rather analogous to conversations covered by Crawford. The district judge overruled the defense objection, finding that Darryl did qualify as a co-conspirator and that Crawford did not bar admission of the evidence: And I think clearly based on what I've heard so far, the brother [Darryl] was involved as a co-conspirator in this case. But Crawford seems to apply to out-of-court statements by witnesses that are testimonial, and this is not testimonial ... [i]t doesn't seem that Crawford — the Crawford case would prohibit the introduction of these CD's. Underwood appeals both rulings by the district court. 24 We turn first to the argument that the brother was not a co-conspirator. Defendant correctly asserts that in order to introduce statements of the co-conspirator under Fed.R.Evid. 801(d)(2)(E), the government must prove by a preponderance of the evidence that (1) a conspiracy existed, (2) the conspiracy included the declarant and the defendant against whom the statement is offered, and (3) the statement was made during the course of and in furtherance of the conspiracy. Bourjaily v. United States, 483 U.S. 171, 175, 107 S.Ct. 2775, 2778, 97 L.Ed.2d 144 (1987). The government produced CD's with recorded conversations between Darryl and the confidential informant and introduced testimony of agents who observed Darryl driving to and from drug transactions with Underwood. Darryl communicated on Underwood's behalf while the negotiations for the drug deals were taking place, and helped set up meetings between Underwood and Hopps at which the drugs were to be sold. We readily conclude that the government provided ample evidence that Darryl was involved in selling drugs with Underwood, and satisfied the three requirements for introducing statements of a co-conspirator. 25 Nevertheless, Underwood argues that the statements contained on the CD's should not have been admitted at trial because they were testimonial statements under the meaning of the Sixth Amendment and therefore barred under the holding of Crawford. In Crawford, the Supreme Court held that a Washington state court had committed error when it admitted at trial the tape recorded statement of the defendant's wife, made to police, during the police interrogation of her. The interrogation concerned the involvement of the defendant and his wife in the stabbing of a man who had previously tried to rape the wife. The wife was unavailable to testify at defendant's trial because of the spousal privilege. The Court reasoned that the statement to police had been testimonial, and that because the defendant had never had the opportunity to cross-examine his wife about the statement, admitting the statement at trial violated his constitutional rights under the Confrontation Clause. 1 Crawford, 541 U.S. at 68, 124 S.Ct. at 1374. In Crawford, the Court abrogated Ohio v. Roberts, 448 U.S. 56, 100 S.Ct. 2531, 65 L.Ed.2d 597 (1980), and changed the legal landscape with respect to prior testimonial statements, holding: [w]here testimonial evidence is at issue ... the Sixth Amendment demands what the common law required: unavailability and a prior opportunity for cross-examination. Crawford, 541 U.S. at 68, 124 S.Ct. at 1374. However, Crawford did not alter the law with respect to non-testimonial hearsay. Id. (Where non-testimonial hearsay is at issue, it is wholly consistent with the framers' design to afford the States flexibility in their development of hearsay law — as does Roberts. ). 26 Having already concluded that the challenged evidence in this case satisfies the requirements for introducing statements of a co-conspirator, Underwood's only remaining challenge to the admission of the CD's is whether or not the challenged evidence was testimonial. The Court noted that the Confrontation Clause applies to witnesses who bear testimony, which the Court indicated is typically a solemn declaration or affirmation made for the purpose of establishing or proving some fact. Id. at 51, 124 S.Ct. at 1364. The Court in Crawford declined to spell out a comprehensive definition of testimonial. However, the Court did describe the minimum coverage of testimonial status, holding that: it applies at a minimum to prior testimony at a preliminary hearing, before a grand jury or at a former trial; and to police interrogations. Id. at 68, 124 S.Ct. at 1374. Without adopting a particular formulation of the core class of testimonial statements, the Court did mention three: (1)  ex parte in-court testimony or its functional equivalent — that is, material such as affidavits, custodial examinations, prior testimony that the defendant was unable to cross-examine, or similar pretrial statements that declarants would reasonably expect to be used prosecutorially, 541 U.S. at 51, 124 S.Ct. at 1364; (2) extrajudicial statements ... contained in formalized testimonial materials, such as affidavits, depositions, prior testimony, or confessions id.; and (3) statements that were made under circumstances which would lead an objective witness reasonably to believe that the statement would be available for use at a later trial. Id. As the Second Circuit has noted, all of these formulations involve statements made under circumstances which would lead the declarant to believe that the statement would be available for use at a later trial. United States v. Saget, 377 F.3d 223, 229 (2nd Cir.2004). 27 In this case, the challenged evidence consisted of recorded conversations between the confidential informant and Darryl in which arrangements were made for the confidential informant to purchase cocaine. This evidence is neither testimony at a preliminary hearing, nor testimony before a grand jury, nor testimony at a former trial, nor a statement made during a police interrogation. Moreover, the challenged evidence does not fall within any of the formulations which Crawford suggested as potential candidates for testimonial status. Crawford, 541 U.S. at 51, 124 S.Ct. at 1364. Darryl, the declarant in the challenged evidence, made statements to Hopps in furtherance of the criminal conspiracy. His statements clearly were not made under circumstances which would have led him reasonably to believe that his statement would be available for use at a later trial. Had Darryl known that Hopps was a confidential informant, it is clear that he never would have spoken to her in the first place. 28 Although the foregoing discussion would probably support a holding that the evidence challenged here is not testimonial, two additional aspects of the Crawford opinion seal our conclusion that Darryl's statements to the government informant were not testimonial evidence. First, the Court stated: [m]ost of the hearsay exceptions covered statements that by their nature were not testimonial — for example, business records or statements in furtherance of a conspiracy. Id. at 55, 124 S.Ct. at 1367. Also, the Court cited Bourjaily v. United States, 483 U.S. 171, 107 S.Ct. 2775, 97 L.Ed.2d 144 (1987), approvingly, indicating that it hew[ed] closely to the traditional line of cases that Crawford deemed to reflect the correct view of the Confrontation Clause. Crawford, 541 U.S. at 58, 124 S.Ct. at 1368. In approving Bourjaily, the Crawford opinion expressly noted that it involved statements unwittingly made to an FBI informant. Id. Bourjaily held that a co-conspirator's unwitting statements to an FBI informant were properly admitted at trial against the defendant, despite the fact that the defendant had not had a prior opportunity for cross-examination and the declarant was not available at trial. The co-conspirator statement in Bourjaily is indistinguishable from the challenged evidence in the instant case. 29 For the foregoing reasons, we conclude that the challenged evidence in this case was not testimonial, 2 and that it satisfied the requirements for the admission into evidence of co-conspirator statements. Accordingly, the district court did not err in admitting the evidence.