Court Opinion

ID: 9472428
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 03:59:54.369036+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:42:55.814748
License: Public Domain

LAY, Chief Judge, and JOHN R. GIBSON, Circuit Judge,
concurring specially.
We recognized in United States v. Macklin, 573 F.2d 1046 (8th Cir.1978), a case filed in tandem with United States v. Bell, 573 F.2d 1040 (8th Cir.1978), the following:
The new rule requiring a specific determination of the existence of a conspiracy by the court on the record does not alter the traditional discretion of the trial judge to allow the government to place the statement into evidence on the condition that it be later shown by sufficient independent evidence that a conspiracy existed. See United States v. Jackson, 549 F.2d 517, 533 (8th Cir.), cert. denied, 430 U.S. 985, 97 S.Ct. 1682, 52 L.Ed.2d 379 (1977). It is preferable whenever possible that the government’s independent proof of the conspiracy be introduced first, thereby avoiding the danger, recognized in Petrozziello [548 F.2d 20 (1st Cir.1977)], of injecting the record with inadmissible hearsay in anticipation of proof of a conspiracy which never materializes.
Macklin, 573 F.2d at 1049 n. 3. We adhere to that statement.
We feel under Rosales-Lopez v. United States, 451 U.S. 182, 101 S.Ct. 1629, 68 L.Ed.2d 22 (1981) that there is no prejudicial error committed on the voir dire in the present case. We therefore concur in the judgment affirming the conviction.