Court Opinion

ID: 9946119
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Date Created: 2024-02-29 15:01:00.142155+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:25:27.035235
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USCA11 Case: 22-13068    Document: 40-1      Date Filed: 02/26/2024   Page: 1 of 12

                                                            [PUBLISH]
                                    In the
                 United States Court of Appeals
                         For the Eleventh Circuit

                           ____________________

                                 No. 22-13068
                           ____________________

        UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
                                                        Plaintiﬀ-Appellee,
        versus
        MAURICE ANTONIO KENT,

                                                    Defendant-Appellant.

                           ____________________

                  Appeal from the United States District Court
                     for the Northern District of Georgia
                   D.C. Docket No. 4:17-cr-00039-JPB-WEJ-1
                           ____________________
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        2                      Opinion of the Court                 22-13068

        Before WILSON, JILL PRYOR, and BRASHER, Circuit Judges.
        BRASHER, Circuit Judge:
                This appeal concerns the circumstances in which a police of-
        ficer’s statement that recounts witness statements that implicate
        the defendant in a crime may be offered at a criminal trial for a non-
        hearsay purpose.
               Maurice Kent was a member of a violent gang. The govern-
        ment charged Kent with RICO conspiracy and five substantive
        crimes, including the attempted murder of Shadeed Muhammad.
        As an overt act of the RICO conspiracy, the government alleged
        that the gang murdered a former gang member, Qualeef Rhode,
        for cooperating with the police’s investigation into the attempted
        murder of Muhammad. Specifically, the government’s theory was
        that Kent and other gang members believed that Rhodes told the
        police that Kent had attempted to murder Muhammad and, then,
        murdered Rhodes for that reason.
               To support this theory, the government introduced an in-
        vestigator’s testimony from a preliminary hearing in a related case,
        which identified Rhodes as cooperating with law enforcement to
        implicate Kent in the attempted murder of Muhammad. By offer-
        ing the testimony, the government sought to establish that other
        gang members present at the hearing learned of Rhodes’s apparent
        cooperation and murdered him because of it, i.e., the government
        offered the out-of-court statements for the effect they had on the
        listener.
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        22-13068               Opinion of the Court                         3

               Kent argues that this testimony was hearsay, and its admis-
        sion violated his Confrontation Clause rights. Our caselaw has in
        at least two instances deemed inadmissible law enforcement testi-
        mony about witness statements, even when offered for non-hear-
        say purposes. See United States v. Arbolaez, 450 F.3d 1283, 1290 (11th
        Cir. 2006); United States v. Rodriguez, 524 F.2d 485, 487 (5th Cir.
        1975). But we agree with the district court that the testimony in
        this case was admissible. It was not hearsay because it was offered
        for the effect it had on the listeners and not for the truth of the
        matter asserted. The testimony was indisputably relevant for that
        purpose. And we believe the district court took sufficient steps to
        ensure that the jury did not consider these out-of-court statements
        as substantive evidence of Kent’s guilt on the charge of attempting
        to murder Muhammad. Accordingly, we affirm.
                                       I.

               Maurice Kent was a leader in an Atlanta-area chapter of the
        135 Piru gang. During a weekend when members of various chap-
        ters of the gang gathered in the Atlanta area, multiple gang mem-
        bers went to a nightclub and a fight broke out inside the club and
        moved into the parking lot. During the fight in the parking lot,
        Shadeed Muhammed, a member of a different chapter of the gang,
        and security guard Charles Smith were shot.
               Maurice Kent rode to the nightclub with his girlfriend
        Charne Darden. Kent’s younger brother Malique Dixon and a
        member of a different chapter of the gang Qualeef Rhodes were
        also in the car. None of them entered the club, but Kent, Dixon,
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        4                      Opinion of the Court                22-13068

        and Rhodes exited the car and went towards the fight when it con-
        tinued in the parking lot.
               Kent returned to Darden’s car holding a firearm and with a
        bullet wound in his leg. As Kent entered the car, bullets struck the
        vehicle, and Kent discharged his firearm. As Darden drove away
        from the scene, officers observed Kent throw an object out of the
        window and Rhodes run alongside the car. The officers eventually
        trapped the car and found a firearm with Kent’s DNA and finger-
        prints on it close to where Kent threw an object out of the car. In-
        vestigators also found shell casings in Darden’s car and in the park-
        ing lot that matched that gun. Police took Dixon, Darden, and
        Rhodes to headquarters to question them but later released them.
        Kent was taken to a hospital to treat his gunshot wound and then
        booked in DeKalb County Jail.
               Kent had a preliminary hearing in the county magistrate
        court about three weeks after the shooting. His mother, twin
        brother Michael, and two other gang members, Alexyeus Harris
        and Naja Finch, attended the hearing. At the hearing, an investiga-
        tor testified that Rhodes told police he was in the vehicle with Kent
        at the nightclub, that he knew Kent from social media, and that
        Kent was the shooter.
               When Kent returned to the jail that afternoon, he spoke
        with Michael and Harris about Rhodes’s cooperation with the po-
        lice. Kent told Michael to contact Christopher Nwanjoku, a fellow
        gang member, to order all gang members to take down their social
        media because Rhodes spoke with police. Michael told Kent he
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        22-13068              Opinion of the Court                        5

        knew Rhodes “said everything” and later called Nwanjoku and
        other gang members to discuss Rhodes and his whereabouts.
               Two days later, Nwanjoku and other gang members met to
        discuss Rhodes’s statements to the police. The gang members de-
        vised and executed a plan to kill Rhodes. The gang members who
        killed Rhodes reported the killing to Nwanjoku a few hours after it
        was done.
               Kent and his four codefendants were indicted and charged
        with RICO conspiracy. Kent was also charged with five other sub-
        stantive crimes, including the attempted murder of Muhammed.
        The indictment also listed the nightclub shooting and Rhodes’s
        murder as overt acts of the RICO conspiracy.
               Kent filed a motion in limine to prohibit the government
        from introducing a transcript and recording of the investigator’s
        testimony that Rhodes identified Kent as the shooter at the night-
        club. He argued that the testimony was hearsay, and its admission
        would violate his Confrontation Clause rights. The government re-
        sponded that the statements were not hearsay because they were
        being offered to prove the effect they had on Kent and the others
        in the audience at the hearing, i.e., after learning that Rhodes had
        apparently cooperated with police, Kent and other gang members
        directed and carried out Rhodes’s killing.
               The district court agreed the testimony was not hearsay but
        granted the motion in limine in part to redact any statements that
        identified Kent as the shooter. The court admitted the investiga-
        tor’s testimony that Rhodes identified Kent as being in Darden’s
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        6                      Opinion of the Court                  22-13068

        car in the parking lot, that Kent got out of the car when they heard
        the fight, that Rhodes ran alongside the car after the shooting, and
        that, before that night, Rhodes knew of Kent only through social
        media. The district court also instructed the jury to consider the
        testimony only for the effect it had on the listeners in the court-
        room and not to determine whether Kent engaged in the conduct
        described.
              The jury convicted Kent on all counts, and the district court
        sentenced him to a combined sentence of 40 years. Kent timely ap-
        pealed.
                                       II.

               We review for an abuse of discretion the district court’s de-
        cision to admit statements over a hearsay objection. See Arbolaez,
        450 F.3d at 1289 (citing United States v. Cunningham, 194 F.3d 1186,
        1195 (11th Cir. 1999)). But we review de novo constitutional ques-
        tions, like whether that testimony violates the Confrontation
        Clause. See United States v. Underwood, 446 F.3d 1340, 1345 (11th Cir.
        2006) (citing United States v. Brown, 364 F.3d 1266, 1268 (11th Cir.
        2004)).
                                       III.

               Kent argues that the investigator’s testimony was inadmissi-
        ble hearsay because it was offered for the truth of the matter as-
        serted, i.e., that Kent was the shooter at the nightclub. He says that,
        because the testimony was inadmissible hearsay, its admission vio-
        lated his rights under the Confrontation Clause because he had no
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        22-13068               Opinion of the Court                         7

        opportunity to cross examine the investigator or Rhodes. The gov-
        ernment argues that the testimony was not hearsay because it was
        offered to establish the effect it had on the gang members who at-
        tended the preliminary hearing and, because it was not hearsay, it
        could not violate Kent’s rights under the Confrontation Clause. We
        agree with the government.
               We have “long recognized that statements by out of court
        witnesses to law enforcement officials may be admitted as non-
        hearsay if they are relevant” for a non-hearsay purpose and “the
        probative value of the evidence’s non-hearsay purpose is not sub-
        stantially outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice caused by
        the impermissible hearsay use of the statement.” United States v.
        Jiminez, 564 F.3d 1280, 1288 (11th Cir. 2009) (cleaned up). Under
        our caselaw, a court confronted with an out-of-court statement
        should ask (1) whether that statement is offered for a non-hearsay
        purpose, (2) whether that non-hearsay purpose is relevant, and (3)
        whether the probative value of the evidence is substantially out-
        weighed by any unfair prejudice that would arise from admitting
        it. We will walk through each step in turn.
               First, we must inquire whether this out-of-court statement
        is hearsay under Rule 801(c). “Hearsay is a statement, other than
        one made by a declarant while testifying at trial, offered in evidence
        to prove the truth of the matter asserted.” United States v. Rivera,
        780 F.3d 1084, 1092 (11th Cir. 2015) (citing Fed. R. Evid. 801(c)).
        Thus, an out-of-court statement that is offered for a purpose other
        than proving the truth of the matter—such as the effect a statement
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        8                      Opinion of the Court                 22-13068

        had on a listener—is not hearsay and not subject to exclusion on
        that basis. See id.
               It is clear on this record that both parts of this out-of-court
        statement—Rhodes’s statements to the investigator and the inves-
        tigator’s testimony at the preliminary hearing—were offered to
        prove something other than the truth of the matter asserted. The
        government offered the officer’s testimony about Rhodes’s puta-
        tive cooperation as evidence that Kent and the other gang mem-
        bers had a motive to murder Rhodes. That is, the investigator’s tes-
        timony was relevant because it influenced Kent and the other gang
        members who heard that testimony at the preliminary hearing.
        The government did not seek to introduce this evidence as proof
        that Kent in fact attempted to murder Muhammad. Instead, under
        the government’s theory, it was of no consequence whether
        Rhodes’s statements to police or the investigator’s testimony about
        those statements were true.
                Because these statements were not hearsay, Kent’s Confron-
        tation Clause argument necessarily fails. The Confrontation Clause
        provides, “[i]n all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the
        right . . . to be confronted with the witnesses against him.” U.S.
        Const. amend. VI. This Court has explained that “[t]here can be no
        doubt that the Confrontation Clause prohibits only statements that
        constitute impermissible hearsay.” Jiminez, 564 F.3d at 1286. Ac-
        cordingly, the Confrontation Clause “does not bar the use of testi-
        monial statements for purposes other than establishing the truth of
        the matter asserted.” Crawford v. Washington, 541 U.S. 36, 59 n.9
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        22-13068                Opinion of the Court                           9

        (2004) (citing Tennessee v. Street, 471 U.S. 409, 414 (1985)). Because
        the investigator’s testimony at the preliminary hearing was not
        hearsay, its admission did not violate Kent’s rights under the Con-
        frontation Clause.
               Second, we must ask whether the statement’s non-hearsay
        purpose was relevant. See Fed. R. Evid. 401. Just as a party cannot
        introduce irrelevant evidence generally, a party cannot launder
        hearsay into a trial by offering it for an irrelevant non-hearsay pur-
        pose. See, e.g., United States v. Yousef, 327 F.3d 56, 157 (2d Cir. 2003)
        (explaining that “whether proffered as hearsay or non-hearsay” the
        evidence at issue “was irrelevant and, hence, inadmissible under
        Rule 402”), overruled in part on other grounds by Montejo v. Louisiana,
        556 U.S. 778, 797 (2009).
                We agree with the district court that the out-of-court state-
        ments in this case were relevant for a non-hearsay purpose. Indeed,
        this testimony was central to the government’s effort to prove that
        the gang murdered Rhodes. In addition to this statement, the gov-
        ernment also presented evidence that, after the hearing, Kent
        spoke to gang members who attended the hearing about Rhodes’s
        cooperation with the police. Kent directed them to talk to a third
        gang member about Rhodes’s cooperation. The government pre-
        sented evidence that, a few days later, gang members devised and
        carried out a plan to kill Rhodes because they believed he was co-
        operating with the police. There is no dispute that evidence that
        tends to prove a defendant’s motive to murder is relevant in a case
        about that murder. See, e.g., United States v. Clark, 988 F.2d 1459,
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        10                     Opinion of the Court                  22-13068

        1465 (6th Cir. 1993) (holding that evidence of a defendant’s motive
        for a murder is relevant).
                Kent erroneously argues that our decisions in Arbolaez, 450
        F.3d 1283, and Rodriguez, 524 F.2d 485, require us to reverse the
        district court. In both cases, an agent sought to testify about wit-
        ness statements that implicated the defendants in criminal actions
        for the purported non-hearsay purpose of explaining why the agent
        took certain actions. We held that the agents’ testimony was inad-
        missible. See Arbolaez, 450 F.3d at 1290; Rodriguez, 524 F.2d at 487.
        In Arbolaez, we relied on Rodriguez to hold that “the details of state-
        ments received by a government agent and later used as the basis
        for an affidavit in support of a search warrant, even when purport-
        edly admitted not for the truthfulness of what the informant said
        but to show why the agent did what he did after he received that
        information, constitutes inadmissible hearsay.” Arbolaez, 450 F.3d
        at 1290 (cleaned up) (quoting Rodriguez, 524 F.2d at 487).
               We do not read Arbolaez or Rodriguez to establish a bright-
        line rule that forbids the introduction of an agent’s testimony about
        a witness’s statements that implicate the defendant. Instead, the
        problem in both Arbolaez and Rodriguez was that the government
        sought to introduce an out-of-court statement for an irrelevant non-
        hearsay purpose. The agents’ reasons for acting were not at issue
        in either case, so it did not matter that the agents acted because of
        witness statements. The only relevant purpose for introducing the
        agents’ statements in Arbolaez and Rodriguez was a hearsay purpose;
        the statements were therefore hearsay. Here, on the other hand,
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        22-13068               Opinion of the Court                        11

        the detective’s testimony regarding Rhodes’s statements to police
        was relevant because of that testimony’s effect on the listeners—to
        prove why Kent and his fellow gang members directed and carried
        out Rhodes’s killing.
                Contrary to Kent’s reading of Arbolaez and Rodriguez, our
        precedent confirms that a witness’s out-of-court statement to a po-
        lice officer may be admissible if offered for a relevant non-hearsay
        purpose. For example, in Jiminez, we held that a detective’s testi-
        mony that a defendant’s brother implicated the defendant in a drug
        operation was admissible to explain the detective’s later course of
        action. Jiminez, 564 F.3d at 1287. The testimony was admissible be-
        cause it was offered in response to the defendant’s suggestion that
        the detective lied about the reason he re-interviewed the defend-
        ant’s brother—a relevant non-hearsay purpose under Rule 401. Id.
        We thus acknowledged that inculpatory evidence, including testi-
        mony from a government agent regarding witness statements,
        may be admissible if it is relevant for a non-hearsay purpose.
               Third, having determined that there was a relevant non-
        hearsay purpose for this out-of-court statement, we must ask
        whether the probative value of that evidence “is substantially out-
        weighed by a danger of . . . unfair prejudice, confusing the issues,
        misleading the jury” or the like. Fed. R. Evid. 403. When we speak
        of “unfair prejudice,” we mean “an undue tendency to suggest de-
        cision on an improper basis.” See Old Chief v. United States, 519 U.S.
        172, 180 (1997) (quoting Fed. R. Evid. 403 advisory committee’s
        note to 1972 proposed rule). With respect to an out-of-court
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        12                     Opinion of the Court                  22-13068

        statement, the typical risk of unfair prejudice is that the jury could
        consider the statement for the truth of the matter asserted, even if
        it has been introduced for a non-hearsay purpose. Accordingly, a
        court should usually mitigate this risk by instructing the jury about
        how to consider the evidence. Nonetheless, we have recognized
        that, sometimes, the risk is so great that no limiting instruction can
        adequately eliminate it. See Rodriguez, 524 F.2d at 487.
                Here, we are convinced that the district court sufficiently re-
        duced the risk that the jury would improperly consider this out-of-
        court statement for the truth of the matter asserted. The district
        court redacted the most prejudicial portions of the investigator’s
        testimony that identified Kent as the shooter at the nightclub. The
        district court also instructed the jury to consider the testimony only
        for the effect it had on the listeners who attended the preliminary
        hearing. On these facts, the district court was within its discretion
        to conclude that the probative value of the testimony it admitted
        was not substantially outweighed by any unfair prejudice to Kent.
                                       IV.

               The district court is AFFIRMED.