Opinion ID: 742598
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Evidence Concerning Hale's Prior Narcotics Arrest

Text: 181 In 1990, Hale was arrested by NYPD officers and made statements that the government proposed to introduce at the Miller Trial. The district court initially ruled that the evidence would be admitted against Hale but must be redacted to exclude references to his codefendants. Eventually, the court ruled that the statements would not be admitted at all. Defendants contend, however, that they were prejudiced by the timing of the court's decision and trial events prior to the ultimate exclusion of the statements. 182 Hale claims that he suffered prejudice because, inter alia, his attorney, in anticipation of the government's introduction of the statements, had elicited testimony from NYPD Lieutenant Robert Crowe that Hale was a narcotics addict, planning to argue that Hale was therefore incapable of making such statements. Even if we credited the possibility that Hale could be prejudiced by evidence of his drug use, given the far more serious charges against him, Crowe's testimony as to such use was immaterial because Julio Hernandez and Ernesto Piniella testified about Hale's drug addiction. Hale also claims that he was prejudiced because his attorney elicited testimony concerning the existence of outstanding warrants for his arrest. However, that evidence could hardly have had an impact since Piniella and Trent Morris testified that they had been in jail with Hale. 183 Nor is there merit in the contention of the other defendants that their rights under the Confrontation Clause, see Bruton v. United States, 391 U.S. 123, 137, 88 S.Ct. 1620, 1628, 20 L.Ed.2d 476 (1968), were violated by NYPD Detective William Ryan's testimony that he had been advised, after Hale's arrest, that an arrestee wanted to provide information concerning the Supreme Team. After Ryan's mention of the Supreme Team, the district court promptly instructed the jury to ignore testimony from Ryan concerning any statement from Hale about the Supreme Team. And eventually, as indicated above, the court excluded Hale's statements. Ryan's mere testimony that an arrestee had made statements about the Supreme Team, in the absence of any testimony as to the substance of the statements, did not violate defendants' rights under the Confrontation Clause. 184