Opinion ID: 464953
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: moss' arguments on appeal

Text: 23
24 On appeal Moss raises four separate challenges to evidentiary rulings of the district court. His first and most compelling argument is that the district court erroneously prevented Moss from testifying to the contents of a threatening telephone call. Moss testified at trial that as he was preparing to go to work on July 10, 1984, he received a phone call directing him to go to the Midnight Sun Bar. Moss testified that he did not know who made the phone call, that he had never been to that bar before, and that he knew he would be contacted by someone at the bar. The plain import of Moss' testimony concerning his reaction to the phone call is that he did not go to the Midnight Sun of his own accord. When Moss attempted to relate the specific contents of what he was told over the phone, Wright's counsel objected to the evidence as hearsay and the district court sustained the objection. 25 Moss correctly points out on appeal that this testimony is not hearsay within the meaning of Fed.R.Evid. 801(c). The content of the phone call was offered not to prove the truth of the matter asserted but rather to show its effect on Moss. See, e.g., United States v. Herrera, 600 F.2d 502 (5th Cir.1979); United States v. Cline, 570 F.2d 731 (8th Cir.1978). 26 Although the district court incorrectly characterized the contents of the phone call as hearsay, Rule 103 of the Federal Rules of Evidence explicitly provides that Error may not be predicated upon a ruling which ... excludes evidence unless a substantial right of the party is affected, and ... the substance of the evidence was made known to the court by offer or was apparent from the context within which questions were asked. Fed.R.Evid. 103(a)(2). Because Moss made no attempt to inform the district court of the nature of the threats made to Moss in the phone call, we cannot assign the district court's ruling as error. Moss seeks to avoid the effect of Rule 103 by arguing that the substance of the telephone call was sufficiently apparent from the context of the questions posed to Moss on direct examination. The context of the question concerning the phone call does reveal that Moss changed his plans after receiving the call. Instead of reporting to his job at the loading dock of a Houston department store, Moss told his supervisor he was ill and went to the Midnight Sun Bar. This context does not, however, reveal whether the phone call put Moss in fear. An equally consistent interpretation might be that Moss was offered a chance to earn a great deal of money. This latter interpretation also squares with Moss' later testimony that at the bar he expected to meet people with whom he had previously been involved when he had laundered money for narcotics dealers. 27 We also do not find that the district court's decision qualifies as plain error affecting substantial rights under Fed.R.Evid. 103(d). The ruling did not gravely hamper Moss' presentation of his duress defense. Moss was able to testify to the direct threats made to him by Wright. He also testified that he knew unknown third parties were in league with Wright because while driving Mrs. Rosenkranz to Norfolk he had been stopped by two men and instructed to give his victim a sleeping pill. We therefore find that Moss incurred no significant prejudice from the erroneous ruling. 28
29 Moss also argues on appeal that the district court erred in preventing him from testifying concerning two statements he made to Mrs. Rosenkranz. One statement was made while he held Mrs. Rosenkranz at the Econo Lodge Motel in Norfolk, Virginia. The second statement was contained in a note Moss claimed to have written to Mrs. Rosenkranz but was unable to deliver prior to his arrest. The district court sustained Wright's objection to testimony concerning the first statement on the basis that the testimony was self-serving and rejected testimony as to the contents of the note as repetitious. 30 While we conclude that the district court should not have excluded the statement at the Econo Lodge merely because it was self-serving, we find that Moss incurred no substantial prejudice from this erroneous ruling. Although the hearsay evidence might have been admissible under Fed.R.Evid. 803(3) as evidence of Moss' state of mind, the testimony was clearly cumulative. Moss testified to numerous other statements made to Mrs. Rosenkranz that they were being watched and that his daughter was being held by unknown individuals. Mrs. Rosenkranz also testified that Moss made such statements to her. 31 We also find that the district court properly excluded evidence of the contents of a note written by Moss to Mrs. Rosenkranz but never delivered to her. The district court rejected the evidence as repetitious. Moss testified that he wrote the note intending to give it along with a bouquet of roses to Mrs. Rosenkranz when she was released at the Washington Monument. Moss' counsel proffered that the note asked that Mrs. Rosenkranz' husband help Moss as she had promised he would. We find this testimony of marginal relevance and clearly cumulative as well. See Tr. 1461. Moss incurred no prejudice from its exclusion. 5 C. Exclusion of Wright's Threat to his Business Partner 32 Moss next argues that the district court impermissibly prevented counsel for Moss from questioning Glenn Wright on recross-examination about an incident in which Wright quarreled with one of his business partners and threatened the partner with a gun. The district court excluded the questioning on the ground that it was beyond the scope of the redirect examination of Wright. We find that the district court correctly barred this line of questioning. Moss attempted to pursue this questioning, not in order to impeach Wright on the wholly collateral matter of the amicability of his relationship with his business partners, but in order to show that Wright coerced Moss into abducting Mrs. Rosenkranz. Rule 404(b) of the Federal Rules of Evidence clearly excludes evidence of other crimes to prove the character of a person for purposes of showing that he acted in conformity therewith. Evidence that Wright pulled a gun on a business associate does not fit within the exception to the ban on character evidence for bad acts used as proof of motive, opportunity, intent, preparation, plan, knowledge, identity, or absence of mistake or accident. See Fed.R.Evid. 404(b). This line of questioning therefore was properly excluded. 6 33 D. The Admission of Dr. Hirschman's Statement 34 Moss' final argument on appeal is that the district court erred in permitting Wright's psychiatrist to testify in response to the government's question on cross-examination concerning the basis for his diagnosis that: 35 Mr. Wright told me that he went to a bar and then he met somebody, with whom he talked, and that person indicated that he would do anything for money. And at that point, he interjected and said, anything? And then the plan came into effect. 36 Tr. 1001. Moss argues that this testimony was hearsay, that its inclusion denied his Sixth Amendment right of confrontation, and that the statement's inflammatory and prejudicial value far exceeded any probative value it might have. 37 Dr. Hirschman's statement does not fall within the prohibition against hearsay evidence. Rule 703 of the Federal Rules of Evidence permits an expert witness to base his opinion on facts or data which would not be admissible as competent evidence so long as the facts or data are of a type reasonably relied on by experts in the particular field. Dr. Hirschman testified that he based his diagnosis in part upon Wright's own description of the events leading up to kidnapping. Moss does not argue on appeal that psychiatrists do not reasonably rely on conversations with their patients in arriving at a diagnosis. 7 Rule 705 of the Rules of Evidence provides that an expert may be required on cross-examination to disclose the facts or data underlying his opinion. Read together, Rules 703 and 705 reveal that the data underlying an expert's opinion which is elicited on cross-examination does not come in as substantive evidence. The data is admitted for the limited and independent purpose of enabling the jury to scrutinize the expert's reasoning. Thus, Dr. Hirschman's repetition of Wright's account of his meeting with Moss at the Midnight Sun Bar was not admitted as a true account of the meeting but only as the basis for Dr. Hirschman's insanity diagnosis. Since the account of the meeting between Wright and Moss was not offered in evidence to prove the truth of the matter asserted, it falls outside the definition of hearsay provided by Fed.R.Evid. 801(c). 38 Because Dr. Hirschman's testimony did not constitute inadmissible hearsay within the meaning of the Federal Rules of Evidence, it does not implicate the Confrontation Clause issue posed when hearsay evidence is admitted as substantive evidence against a defendant. Cf. Ohio v. Roberts, 448 U.S. 56, 100 S.Ct. 2531, 65 L.Ed.2d 597 (1980). This does not end our consideration of the Confrontation Clause, however. As the Supreme Court has pointed out, its Confrontation Clause cases group themselves into two distinct categories--those involving the admission of hearsay evidence and those involving restrictions on the scope of cross-examination. See Delaware v. Fensterer, --- U.S. ---, 106 S.Ct. 292, 88 L.Ed.2d 15 (1985) (per curiam). Confrontation Clause concerns arise where the rules governing expert testimony are misused in order to bring otherwise inadmissible evidence before the jury without the opportunity for effective cross-examination. In some instances, even the most carefully drafted limiting instructions directing the jury not to consider a statement for its truth will prove insufficient to protect a criminal defendant. In the present case, however, we find that Dr. Hirschman's testimony does not fall within this sort of misuse of the Federal Rules of Evidence to evade the defendant's right to confront the witnesses against him. Wright himself testified at trial and related his version of how he met Moss. Moss therefore cannot credibly argue that he was denied his right to cross-examine Wright. 39 Finally, we find no plain error in the admission of Dr. Hirschman's statement. At trial, Moss did not make a Rule 403 objection that the danger of unfair prejudice greatly outweighed the probative value of Dr. Hirschman's statement; consequently, we can now review only for plain error. See Fed.R.Evid. 103(d). We do not find that Moss was substantially prejudiced by the district court's decision to allow Dr. Hirschman to relate Wright's account of his initial meeting with Moss. The statement that Moss indicated that he would do anything for money is not so prejudicially inflammatory under Fed.R.Evid. 403 as to require reversal of Moss' conviction.