Opinion ID: 805640
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Agent Stansfield/Hearsay

Text: Gordon argued at trial and during the hearing on the motion for new trial that the district court improperly admitted hearsay by Agent Stansfield and failed to admonish the jury. The controversy surrounds the labels on several boxes of documents. Several of the boxes were marked “LMPD” or “search warrant” which Gordon believed indicated they were products of the 2006 search and seizure executed by the LMPD. Gordon argues the boxes account for two significant errors. First, the Government withheld the documents during discovery. Second, the records would 5 Moreover, Gordon failed to preserve this issue for appeal when he did not ask the district court to perform an on-the-record balancing test. See United States v. Cowart, 90 F.3d 154, 157 (6th Cir. 1996). 15 have allowed him to refute the Government’s statement during closing arguments that Gordon had not paid taxes in a decade and to accurately calculate his tax liability for purposes of sentencing. Gordon argues that this evidence was central to his defense and the admission of hearsay merits a new trial. Stansfield testified that he wrote “LMPD” or “search warrant” on the boxes in error. Stansfield explained that his predecessor, Agent Mynatt, passed some of the documents related to the case on to him and he (Stansfieincorrectly assumed the documents were a product of the search warrant. Stansfield testified that he received only a small number of documents from the Louisville Metropolitan Police Department and the documents incorrectly labeled “LMPD” were actually produced by Gordon pursuant to a subpoena for Commonwealth records. Gordon characterizes Stanfield’s statement about getting documents from Mynatt as impermissible hearsay. Stansfield, however, never testified as to what Mynatt said. Stansfield’s testimony was his first-hand account.6 There was nothing improper about Stansfield’s testimony related to the boxes.