Opinion ID: 165605
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Confrontation Clause and Hearsay Evidence

Text: 11 Solomon first contends that the district court improperly admitted hearsay statements by Officer Liedorff in violation of the Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment. 1 On direct examination, Officer Liedorff described the conversation she had with the driver while seated in the patrol car. Solomon ascribes error to the following colloquy: 12 Q: And when you asked the passenger to sit in your car, did you have a conversation with her? A: Yes, ... 13 Q: And what was the purpose of that conversation? 14 A: To determine whether she was involved, how she knew him, if she was involved with drugs, and to cut her loose if she wasn't, to get rid of her and her traffic violation so I could deal with Mr. Solomon. 15 Q: What specifically did you ask her? 16 A: I asked her if any of the drugs were hers. She said no. I asked her if — 17 Defense counsel: Objection, Your Honor. 18 The Court: Overruled. Go ahead. 19 Q: What did you ask her specifically after that? 20 A: I asked her if there was anything else of his in the vehicle. And she indicated that there was a blue tin. 21 Defense counsel: Your Honor, once again, we are objecting to anything ... that the driver said as hearsay. 22 The Court: Right for now, we'll just wait for it to be linked up later. Go ahead. 23 R.O.A., VI at 39. 24 The government argues that the above-quoted language was not hearsay because it was offered for the limited purpose of explaining why Officer Kelley searched the Lexus. Aple. Op. Br. at 8. We disagree. Having located a firearm and a piece of crack cocaine on Solomon's person, Officer Kelley had probable cause to search the Lexus for additional contraband. The record shows, in fact, that Officer Kelley had already started to search the Lexus before Officer Liedorff alerted him to the existence of the blue tin. R.O.A., VI at 38. Thus, in our view, Officer Liedorff's statements constituted inadmissible hearsay under the Federal Rules of Evidence. See Fed.R.Evid. 801(c) (hearsay is an out-of-court statement offered to prove the truth of the matter asserted). 25 The Supreme Court has recently held that the Confrontation Clause prohibits such testimonial out-of-court statements unless the declarant is shown to be unavailable and the defendant had an earlier opportunity to cross-examine the declarant. 2 Crawford v. Washington, 541 U.S. 36, 124 S.Ct. 1354, 158 L.Ed.2d 177 (2004). Testimonial hearsay includes custodial examinations and [s]tatements taken by police officers in the course of interrogations. Id. at 1364. Here, there was no showing by the government that the driver was unavailable, nor did Solomon have a prior opportunity to cross-examine the driver. Thus, under Crawford, the district court should not have admitted the driver's out-of-court statements. 26 Nevertheless, Solomon did not object on Sixth Amendment grounds, and where a Confrontation Clause objection is not explicitly made below we will not address the constitutional issue in the absence of a conclusion that it was plain error for the district court to fail to raise the constitutional issue sua sponte.  United States v. Perez, 989 F.2d 1574, 1582 (10th Cir.1993) (en banc). To meet this plain error standard, Solomon must show that the constitutional error (1) was obvious, and (2) affected substantial rights. Id. at 1583 (citations and quotations omitted). This standard does not apply, however, where the defendant has failed to argue on appeal that the district court committed plain error in not raising the constitutional issue sua sponte, as Solomon has failed to do here. United States v. LaHue, 261 F.3d 993, 1009 (10th Cir.2001). We therefore deem the issue waived. 27 In the absence of plain error, we are left to review only the hearsay objection, which we review under the nonconstitutional harmless error standard. Perez, 989 F.2d at 1582. A nonconstitutional harmless error is one that does not have a substantial influence on the outcome of the trial; nor does it leave one in grave doubt as to whether it had such effect. LaHue, 261 F.3d at 1009 (citation and quotation omitted); see also Kotteakos v. United States, 328 U.S. 750, 765, 66 S.Ct. 1239, 90 L.Ed. 1557 (1946). Thus, where there is an abundance of evidence regarding the defendant's guilt, the nonconstitutional error will be deemed harmless. See, e.g., United States v. Jefferson, 925 F.2d 1242, 1255 (10th Cir.1991). 28 Solomon contends that admission of the driver's out-of-court statements was not harmless. He argues that a central issue at trial was whether Solomon possessed the firearm in furtherance of a drug trafficking crime, as required for conviction under 18 U.S.C. § 924(c), and whether he intended to distribute the crack cocaine found in his possession, as required for conviction under 21 U.S.C. § 841(a). Solomon argues that without the driver's statements, the government could not tie him to the blue tin and its contents, and, in fact, a reasonable inference could be drawn that the [blue tin] belonged to the owner of the Lexus and that she had given Mr. Solomon the crack that he possessed. Aplt. Op. Br. at 14. Having reviewed the evidence in the record, we disagree. 29 Even without the driver's statements, there was ample evidence tying Solomon to the blue tin: Solomon appeared nervous when pulled over; Officer Liedorff saw him dipping his hands as if he was hiding something; he continued to dip his hands even after Officer Liedorff instructed him three times to place them on the roof of the car; Officer Kelley found the blue tin in the passenger side door pocket closest to Solomon; and a piece of crack cocaine matching the contents of the blue tin fell from his pants. In addition, the jury heard evidence that Solomon was carrying a loaded handgun, had large sums of cash distributed among several pockets, and that no other drug paraphernalia was found in the car or on Solomon's person — all factors identified by the government's expert witness as indicia of drug distribution rather than drug use. 30 Thus, because there was an abundance of evidence other than the driver's out-of-court statements from which a jury could have reached the conclusion that the blue tin belonged to Solomon, we find that the admission of the driver's statements into evidence was harmless.