Court Opinion

ID: 9482753
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 08:59:34.294656+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:49:11.149230
License: Public Domain

SENTELLE, Circuit Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting from the judgment:
While I completely concur in the opinion of the Court as to the motion to suppress, I respectfully dissent from the Court’s conclusion that the television receipt was improperly admitted into evidence, and therefore, I dissent from the judgment reversing Patrick’s conviction. In my view, the receipt was not offered as hearsay, and therefore did not need to come within any exception to the hearsay rule.
The Federal Rules of Evidence codify a classic definition of hearsay. “ ‘Hearsay’ is a statement, other than one made by the declarant while testifying at the trial or hearing, offered in evidence to prove the truth of the matter asserted.” Rule 801(c). A receipt is a statement that the person named on the receipt has paid the obligation receipted by the document in question. Therefore, in United States v. Watkins, 519 F.2d 294 (D.C.Cir.1975), we properly held that rent receipts were in fact hearsay where they were offered for the truth of that assertion, that is, that the defendant “did in fact pay the rent” on the apartment at issue in that case. Id. at 296.
In the case at bar, the receipt is a statement that Patrick paid for the television set found in the bedroom. The government did not offer the receipt for the purpose of proving the truth of that statement. It is in fact immaterial to the government’s cause whether he paid for the set or not. The receipt is offered not for the truth of the statement which it constitutes, but *1004rather for the circumstantial value which it bears connecting Patrick with the apartment and the bedroom wherein he, the receipt and the television described were all found.
In this use, therefore, the receipt is not like the rent receipt offered in Watkins for the truth of its stated contents, but rather like the letter considered by the Fifth Circuit in United States v. Mazyak, 650 F.2d 788 (5th Cir.1981). In that case involving charges of marijuana smuggling, the circuit held that the district court had properly admitted a letter addressed to all four defendants referencing their “precious cargo.” The circuit ruled that the letter was not hearsay because it was not introduced to prove the truth of the matter asserted, but rather “that the appellants were associated with each other and the boat.” Id. at 792. Similarly the receipt in the present case was offered not to prove the truth of the matter asserted (the payment of the bill), but rather the association of the defendant, the television set, and the apartment.
Likewise, in United States v. Arrington, 618 F.2d 1119 (5th Cir.1980), the district court admitted utility bills directed to the defendant and found in the search of a home as evidence of his residence in that home. The circuit court dismissed the hearsay challenge to that evidence, stating that “[t]he bills were not proffered to prove the truth of their contents and accordingly were admissible.” Id. at 1126.
Likewise, in the present case, it is immaterial to the value of the evidence whether Patrick actually paid for the television as stated in the receipt, fabricated the receipt in order to cheat someone out of the television, or grabbed the television set and ran while the Circuit City employee was making up the receipt. The probative force of the evidence remains the same. It connects Patrick with the set and with the apartment in which it and the receipt were found.
If there is any problem with the admission of the evidence, it is not one of hearsay, but of document authentication. And in fact, I submit there is no problem there either, for two reasons. First, document authentication under the Rules of Evidence is a liberal matter. “The requirement of authentication or identification as a condition precedent to admissibility is satisfied by evidence sufficient to support a finding that the matter in question is what its proponent claims.” Rule 901(a). In United States v. Sutton, 426 F.2d 1202 (D.C.Cir.1969), we noted that “the sufficiency of a showing of authenticity of a document sought to be introduced into evidence is a matter residing in the sound discretion of the trial judge.” Id. at 1207. More pertinently, we further noted that the contents of a document “conjoined with the circumstances surrounding [its] discovery” can provide an adequate basis for a ruling admitting it into evidence. Id. In that case, this notion was extended even to the authorship of a document. In the present case we need not go so far. Rather, it is at least sufficient to note that the document by its contents appears to be a receipt describing the television set bearing a particular serial number, and connecting that set with a particular named person. The evidence supporting its introduction tended to establish that police found the document in the same room as the television set at the address named on the receipt, and in the presence of the person whose name the receipt bore. If the document needed identification, I cannot imagine that it needed any more.
At bottom, however, I do not really suppose that the document required authentication at all. Again, even if the defendant forged it, the finding of that document bearing the contents it bore under the circumstances under which it was found was relevant to the point it was offered to prove. That being the case, I see no error, let alone one of reversible magnitude. Therefore, I respectfully dissent.