Opinion ID: 619929
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Challenged Statements and the District Court's Rulings

Text: The first set of statements comes from an audio recording of a conversation among Dritan Duka, Shain Duka, and confidential informant Besnik Bakalli. Dritan said that Tatar wanted to join the military in America and wanted to kill them from inside. (Joint App. 2789.) He told Bakalli that Tatar was very serious, just to get in and kill them and that he was a maniac, he sees [UI] like we aren't human by watching Muslims get killed everyday [UI]. [13] ( Id. ) Later, he said that, when Tatar sought to join the U.S. military, [t]hat was the only thing on his mind that he kill American soldiers (Joint App. 2791). Shain Duka said, [Tatar]'s not totally all there, like you're supposed to be and that Tatar was very funny but he's not serious. (Joint App. 2789.) The District Court accepted the government's argument that these statements were made in furtherance of the conspiracy because the Dukas wanted to show Bakalli that they were serious, to keep Bakalli in the conspiracy, and to buck him up. (Joint App. 950.) After discussing other evidence in the record (including Tatar's own admissions) concerning Tatar's attempts to join the military, the District Court concluded that these statements were akin to a present sense assurance to Mr. Bakalli that this is a serious matter. We've got these people lined up who are going to do serious things and I mean and look at Serdar, he's so serious about this, he wanted to join the military to get on the inside. (Joint App. 951.) The second set of statements occurred later in the same conversation, when Shain Duka was discussing our group. Shain said, our group was this Sayed, that boy, the Turk, Serdani [i.e., Tatar], me, Dritoni [i.e., Dritan], Sulemaini [i.e., Eljvir] ... and that, [b]etween the six of us that hung out together, there was no motherf     that could f   with us. Everybody feared us, We were bad. Heading on the wrong path. (Joint App. 2795-96.) The District Court originally expressed some reluctance to admit these statements, saying, I don't know what the context of that conversation ... is to be honest, but ultimately concluded that the statements were admissible because they were talking about an association that apparently the Government contends continued through the length of the conspiracy. It shows that they've been together as a group for some time. (Joint App. 949.)