Court Opinion

ID: 9460445
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 21:50:35.237648+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:36:37.161749
License: Public Domain

LEWIS, Chief Judge
(concurring in the result).
I agree that this ease is properly affirmed but, in part, for different reasons than those expressed in the main opinion. I am in agreement with the trial court’s ruling that the matter of admitting hearsay evidence of the informer’s statements, termed error but harmless in the majority opinion, was initiated and pursued by defendants for their benefit. Specific inquiries as to statements made by the informer to the agent were drawn out on cross-examination presumably as an aid to establishing entrapment. The trial court, noting that defendants had opened up this avenue of inquiry, allowed the government to meet this approach with further but limited inquiry by the prosecution in the area of hearsay. I do not agree that the trial court erred in this respect.