Court Opinion

ID: 9477452
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 06:23:47.169391+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:45:53.126461
License: Public Domain

HENLEY, Senior Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
Appellants allege that the district court erred in admitting, over their objections, taped conversations from the 1983 electronic surveillance of the Mayfair Hotel to prove appellants’ participation in the 1980 vote fraud conspiracy. The district court relied on the coconspirator hearsay exception in admitting the tapes. That provision reads, “A statement is not hearsay if ... [it] is offered against a party and is ... a statement by a coconspirator of a party during the course and in furtherance of the conspiracy.” Fed.R.Evid. 801(d)(2)(E). Because of the lengthy lapse between the 1980 vote fraud activity and the statements intercepted in 1983, defendants present a genuine issue whether the 1983 statements were made “during the course” of the 1980 conspiracy they were offered to prove. I dissent from that portion of part VI. A. of the majority opinion finding these statements admissible against appellant Townsley.
*1087The government correctly asserts that the 1983 statements would be admissible against the individual declarant to prove his or her guilt in the 1980 conspiracy. Fed.R.Evid. 801(d)(2)(A). Because Webbe either participated in or was present during all the 1983 conversations, I agree that those recorded conversations were properly admissible against him under Rule 801(d)(2)(A) & (B). Townsley, however, only minimally participated in the 1983 conversations and the vast majority of the conversations were not admissible against her under Rule 801(d)(2)(A) & (B). I also dissent from the majority’s conclusion that those statements were admissible against Townsley as coconspirator statements. See Rule 801(d)(2)(E).
It is settled that in federal conspiracy trials the hearsay exception that allows evidence of an out-of-court statement of one conspirator to be admitted against his fellow conspirators applies only if the statement was made in the course of and in furtherance of the conspiracy, and not during a subsequent period when the conspirators were engaged in nothing more than concealment of the criminal enterprise.
Dutton v. Evans, 400 U.S. 74, 81, 91 S.Ct. 210, 215, 27 L.Ed.2d 213 (1970); Krulewitch v. United States, 336 U.S. 440, 444, 69 S.Ct. 716, 718, 93 L.Ed. 790 (1949).
A subsidiary conspiracy to conceal the central criminal purpose of the initial conspiracy will not be implied. Grunewald v. United States, 353 U.S. 391, 401-02, 77 S.Ct. 963, 972, 1 L.Ed.2d 931 (1957). A caveat to the refusal to extend Rule 801(d)(2)(E) to subsequent concealment efforts is necessary.
By no means does this mean that acts of concealment can never have significance in furthering a criminal conspiracy. But a vital distinction must be made between acts of concealment done in furtherance of the main criminal objectives of the conspiracy, and acts of concealment done after these central objectives have been attained, for the purpose only of covering up after the crime.
Id. at 405, 77 S.Ct. at 974. Thus, the repainting of a stolen car, id., the selling of the stolen property, or other similar act, E. Cleary, ed., McCormick on Evidence § 267 at 793 (3d ed. 1984), are admissible in evidence because they are in furtherance of the main objective of the conspiracy. Accordingly, the government’s reliance on this court’s decision in United States v. Lewis, 759 F.2d 1316 (8th Cir.), cert. denied, 474 U.S. 994, 106 S.Ct. 406, 88 L.Ed.2d 357 (1985), is misplaced. In Lewis the acts of concealment occurred while the drug distributing conspiracy was still ongoing, thus furthering the continuing criminal objective of the conspiracy. Id. at 1342-43; see United States v. Pecora, 798 F.2d 614, 630-31 (3d Cir.1986) (concealment allowed the continuation of an illegal payoff scheme), cert. denied, — U.S. —, 107 S.Ct. 949, 93 L.Ed.2d 998 (1987). Here, the criminal objective of Count I, to influence the 1980 election, had been attained and statements made in the subsequent 1983 coverup are beyond the scope of Rule 801(d)(2)(E).1
The evidence admitted at trial that was obtained through the 1983 electronic surveillance was voluminous, comprising several hundred pages of transcript. The evidence included numerous inculpatory statements and was not merely duplicative of the direct evidence supporting the convictions on Count I. Therefore, I am unable to conclude that the admission of this evidence in violation of Rule 801(d)(2)(E) was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. Kotteakos v. United States, 328 U.S. 750, 764-65, 66 S.Ct. 1239, 1247, 90 L.Ed. 1557 (1946); United States v. Yow, 465 F.2d 1328, 1331-32 (8th Cir.1972). I would re*1088verse the conviction of Townsley on Count I and remand for a new trial.

. The government’s argument, read expansively, contends that an overarching conspiracy existed which covered the entire time period of 1980 through 1983. This conspiracy encompassed the Seventh Ward Organization (headed by Webbe) and had as its objective maintaining political control of the Seventh Ward. I decline to allow the government to rely on such an overarching unalleged conspiracy as a conduit through which statements made during the time period of one specific alleged conspiracy may flow becoming evidence in another conspiracy during a separate time period.