Opinion ID: 661464
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Admission of Hearsay.

Text: 16 Shawn Johnson, an undercover policeman, made the cocaine purchase from Castillo and Fernandez that led to their arrest. Castillo argues that the court improperly admitted hearsay testimony concerning statements made by Johnson. Johnson testified without objection that immediately following the drug purchase, he reported to his commanding officer, Lieutenant Kracji, that Fernandez had displayed a handgun while Castillo presented Johnson with cocaine that he was required to snort before being allowed to leave the apartment in which the drug purchase took place. See Castillo, 924 F.2d at 1229. The court also admitted the testimony of Kracji and another officer concerning Johnson's statements to Kracji. Castillo contends on appeal, as he did before the district court, that the testimony of Kracji and the other officer was inadmissible hearsay. 17 Fed.R.Evid. 801(d)(1)(B) provides that testimony is not hearsay if [t]he declarant testifies at the trial ... and is subject to cross-examination concerning the statement, and the statement is ... (B) consistent with the declarant's testimony and is offered to rebut an express or implied charge of recent fabrication or improper influence or motive. The prosecution concedes in its brief that Rule 801(d)(1)(B) is inapplicable because if Johnson had a motive to fabricate the story concerning being forced to ingest cocaine, he presumably had that motive when he was debriefed by his superior. 18 The prosecution argues, however, that the testimony was not offered for the truth of the matter asserted, and was not admitted as a prior consistent statement under Rule 801(d)(1)(B). Rather, the government contends, the testimony was offered to rehabilitate Johnson's credibility, and the court did not abuse its discretion in accepting the testimony for this limited purpose. See United States v. Colon, 835 F.2d 27, 31 (2d Cir.1987), cert. denied, 485 U.S. 980, 108 S.Ct. 1279, 99 L.Ed.2d 490 (1988); United States v. Khan, 821 F.2d 90, 94 (2d Cir.1987); United States v. Brennan, 798 F.2d 581, 587-89 (2d Cir.1986); United States v. Pierre, 781 F.2d 329, 333-34 (2d Cir.1986); Jack B. Weinstein & Margaret A. Berger, 4 Weinstein's Evidence p 801(d)(1)(B), at 801-198-99 & n. 15 (1992). 19 Throughout the trial, defense counsel sought to discredit Johnson by arguing that Johnson lied about the presence of a gun to justify his snorting cocaine during the drug purchase. Part of this strategy involved contrasting Johnson's testimony that immediately after the buy he told Kracji that he had been forced to ingest cocaine at gunpoint, with his testimony that the gun was displayed but never removed from Fernandez' waistband. The defense maintained that these statements were contradictory. In Pierre, we held that: 20 When the prior [consistent] statement tends to cast doubt on whether the prior inconsistent statement was made or on whether the impeaching statement is really inconsistent with the trial testimony, its use for rehabilitation purposes is within the sound discretion of the judge. Such use is also permissible when the consistent statement will amplify or clarify the allegedly inconsistent statement. It matters not whether such use is deemed a permissible type of rehabilitation or only an invocation of the principle of completeness, though not a precise use of Rule 106. 21 Id. at 333. And as we explained in Brennan, the standard for admitting hearsay under this exception is less onerous than the standard used to determine whether testimony qualifies as nonhearsay under Fed.R.Evid. 801(d)(1)(B). 798 F.2d at 587 (citing United States v. Rubin, 609 F.2d 51, 66-70 (2d Cir.1979) (Friendly, J., concurring), aff'd on grant of cert. limited to another issue, 449 U.S. 424, 101 S.Ct. 698, 66 L.Ed.2d 633 (1981)). 22 In determining whether the proffered hearsay falls within the Pierre exception, the inquiry is whether the particular consistent statement sought to be used has some rebutting force beyond the mere fact that the witness has repeated on a prior occasion a statement consistent with his trial testimony. Pierre, 781 F.2d at 331. Castillo argues that the hearsay admitted in the instant case was introduced solely to bolster Johnson's trial testimony through mere repetition of Johnson's statements concerning the presence of a gun in Fernandez' waistband. 23 When Castillo sought to impeach Johnson's credibility by characterizing the gun in the waistband statement as contradictory to the at gunpoint statement, it was within Judge Kram's discretion to allow the prosecution to proffer hearsay testimony to aid the jury in determining whether the two statements meant the same thing--that Johnson's use of the phrase at gunpoint was shorthand for the presence of a gun in Fernandez' waistband. The hearsay was admitted for the limited purpose of clarifying the apparent contradiction brought out during cross-examination of Johnson. Under Pierre, this is a permissible rehabilitative use of hearsay. Id. at 331, 333. 24 Castillo also argues, and our dissenting colleague agrees, that the prosecutor abrogated the court's limiting instructions by improperly arguing the truth of the hearsay testimony during his closing and rebuttal arguments. However, the prosecutor invoked the hearsay for the permissible purpose of rehabilitating Johnson's credibility. Immediately following defense counsel's objection to his closing argument, the prosecutor stated to the jury that he was not arguing that the substance of the hearsay testimony be accepted as true, explaining that ... the fact that [Johnson] makes the statement at that point, that is something that you can consider as the judge will instruct you. 25 The dissent quotes passages from the prosecution's rebuttal argument which essentially contend, in response to the defense's wholesale assault on Johnson's credibility (as well as Kracji's), that Johnson was consistent in his description of the events in the apartment, as Pierre permits. We do not regard this argument as crossing the line, especially in light of the court's subsequent instruction (echoing a prior instruction in response to a defense request) that: I instruct you with all the authority at my command that you must consider [Johnson's statements to Kracji] only for the limited purpose for which they were received and for no other purpose. 26