Court Opinion

ID: 9475378
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 05:25:28.441868+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:44:40.812395
License: Public Domain

DONALD RUSSELL, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
I dissent from that part of the majority opinion which reverses on the ground that the co-conspirator Pelino’s 1980 statement was erroneously admitted at trial and that such admission was not harmless. I would find the statement admissible and, were it, despite this view, to be held inadmissible, I would find its admission harmless.
The majority opinion agrees that there was sufficient evidence to establish that Pelino and the appellant Urbanik were engaged in a drug conspiracy and that Urban-ik was still a member of that conspiracy at the time he made the statement which the majority finds inadmissible. The challenged statement was made by Pelino while Haselhuhn, who was a drug distributor ob*700taining m part his supplies from Pelino, was at Pelino’s gym, where apparently Pel-ino handled his drug operations, for the purpose of paying for and picking up cocaine. Both Haselhuhn and Pelino were weightlifters. After Haselhuhn had paid for the cocaine, he and Pelino had a conversation in Pelino’s weightroom. They unquestionably talked about weightlifting at the time and about weightlifters. Pelino told Haselhuhn that there was an expert weightlifter in Florida, who supplied him “pot” at a “thousand pounds a clip.” In this statement, Pelino identified Urbanik as a weightlifter but he also identified to his customer that this weightlifter was his source for controlled materials. This statement was made by Pelino to an individual who shared a common interest with him both in weightlifting and in the availability of drugs. The majority would treat this statement between the two as one relating only to weightlifting and would treat the fact that Pelino was simultaneously indicating to his customer that this weightlifter represented an ample source for him to supply the customer with controlled materials as mere innocent chatter without purpose or intention to influence Haselhuhn in continued purchases of controlled materials from him (Pelino). I do not think it is for us to assume that Pelino was not intending by this statement to impress on his customer that he had in Florida a supplier of drugs who could meet any requirement, even a “thousand pounds (of marijuana) at a clip” and that Haselhuhn could confidently rely on him (Pelino) to supply him (Ha-selhuhn) with his requirements of marijuana or other drugs; that is a question to be resolved by the jury.
Haselhuhn was not at Pelino’s gym to discuss weightlifting or to exercise; he was there to carry out a transaction in drugs. Any conversation about weightlifting was the idle chatter; the real interest of the parties was in drugs and marijuana and their availability. And it can be inferred that Pelino was using the subject of weightlifting to provide him with an opportunity to emphasize his access to a substantial source and to assure Haselhuhn of his ability to supply material easily through his Florida source. If Pelino had intended his conversation to be strictly limited to weightlifting as the majority concludes, there would have been no reason for him to add the significant statement that this other individual was one of his suppliers and, more than that, a large one who could make delivery of substantial amounts “at a clip.” If, however, the purpose of the added statement was to induce Haselhuhn to continue dealing with Pelino for drugs— and that could be a reasonable inference— then the statement would have been in clear furtherance of the conspiracy. Whether that was its purpose was — in my opinion — a question for the jury.
Finally, even if the statement could be considered inadmissible, I do not think its admission could be regarded other than as harmless in view of the overwhelming evidence of Urbanik's guilt.