Court Opinion

ID: 9465169
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 00:37:56.590934+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:39:00.828865
License: Public Domain

HUG, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
I dissent. The question before the court is one of the admissibility of a statement of a co-conspirator under Federal Rule of Evidence 801(d). The trial court suppressed the statement on the ground that there was not sufficient evidence independent of the statement to make out a prima facie case of the existence of a conspiracy. This was a preliminary evidentiary ruling. As the majority views the case, we are asked to review a conclusion of law and not a finding of fact; thus we are not confined to the clearly erroneous standard of review.
The analysis of the majority is that the offer of proof presented facts which must be taken as true and, therefore, the question before the court was one of applying these facts to a legal standard, to determine whether the undisputed facts were sufficient to constitute a prima facie case. The majority contends that this is the same decision that the trial court must make when it rules on a motion for acquittal and is thus a question of law. This argument might be persuasive if we were writing upon a clean slate. However, we are not; and, in my opinion, the law of this circuit is clearly to the contrary. We must remember that this is a preliminary evidentiary ruling on a motion to suppress, although it is akin to the type of decision that would be made on a motion to acquit. The law of the ninth circuit has plainly established that trial court findings concerning admissibility of evidence on a motion to suppress are reviewed as questions of fact under the clearly erroneous standard. United States v. Wysong, 528 F.2d 345 (9th Cir. 1976); United States v. Patterson, 492 F.2d 995 (9th Cir. 1974); Costello v. United States, 324 F.2d 260 (9th Cir. 1963); United States v. Page, 302 F.2d 81 (9th Cir. en banc 1962). This is true, whether that determination by the trial court is made on conflicting evidence or agreed facts. United States v. Hart, 546 F.2d 798 (9th Cir. en banc 1976). The precise question of whether the trial court’s determination is one of fact or law, when the facts are not in dispute, was put clearly in focus in that en banc decision by the concurring and dissenting opinions of Judges Duniway and Hufstedler, and the majority held it to be a question of fact governed by the clearly erroneous standard.1
Viewing the trial court’s decision to suppress the evidence under the clearly erroneous standard, I do not find the decision to *876be clearly erroneous and therefore I would affirm.

. Perhaps we ask too much of the imprecise • and somewhat artificial distinction between a finding of fact and conclusion of law. The relevant inquiry is whether the ruling is the type of determination by a trial court which should be accorded deference on appeal. It would appear that this circuit has determined that findings by a trial court concerning admissibility of evidence on a motion to suppress, whether classed as fact or law, aré entitled to such deference under the clearly erroneous standard. In other words, this is not the type of decision where the appellate court should substitute its judgment for that of the trial court unless the trial court’s finding is clearly erroneous.