holding that statements aimed at preventing detection and punishment were not admissible under the co-conspirator exception because admission of such statements would expand exception to hearsay rule to include declarations made not in furtherance of conspiracy charged, but made in furtherance of an alleged implied but uncharged conspiracy aimed at preventing detection and punishment
How later courts described this case
- holding that statements aimed at preventing detection and punishment were not admissible under the co-conspirator exception because admission of such statements would expand exception to hearsay rule to include declarations made not in furtherance of conspiracy charged, but made in furtherance of an alleged implied but uncharged conspiracy aimed at preventing detection and punishment
- holding that an out-of-court statement of one conspirator may be admitted against his fellow conspirator only if the statements were “made pursuant to and in furtherance of objectives of the conspiracy charged”
- describing conspiracy as an “elastic, sprawling and pervasive offense,” as being “so vague that it almost defies definition,” and as “chameleon-like [because it] takes on a special coloration from each of the many independent offenses on which it may be overlaid”
- finding that statements made over a month after the objective was attained were not in furtherance of the conspiracy because the statements aimed to prevent punishment
Written by the judges who cited it.
Distinguished
Distinguished by United States v. Carl D. Ellis, (d.c.crim.no. 95-Cr-00435-4). United States of America v. Ester L. Carter Ester Carter, (d.c.crim.no. 95-Cr-00435-5), 156 F.3d 493 (1998)
336 U.S. 440, 69 S.Ct. 716, 93 L.Ed. 790 (1949), are inapposite, as they applied the pre-Federal Rules common law of evidence, which
Distinguished by United States v. Borelli, 336 F.2d 376 (1964)
Appellants from conspiracy convictions too often remind us of Kotteakos v. United States, 328 U.S. 750, 66 S.Ct. 1239, 90 L.Ed. 1557 (1946), and of Mr. Justice Jackson's concurrence in Krulewitch v. United States, 336 U.S. 440, 445, 69 S.Ct. 716, 93 L.Ed. 790 (1949), in instances where the reminder is inapposite.
The opinion
Mr. Justice Burton,
dissenting.
While I agree with the opinion of the Court that the hearsay testimony in question was not properly admissible, I regard its admission, under the circumstances of this case, as an absolutely harmless error.
In speaking of harmless errors that may result from the admission of evidence, this Court has said:
“Errors of this sort in criminal causes conceivably may be altogether harmless in the face' of other clear evidence, although the same error might turn scales otherwise level, as constantly appears in the application of the policy of § 269* to questions of the admission of cumulative evidence.” Kotteakos v. United States, 328 U. S. 750, 763 .
*459 Again, in determining whether error in the admission of evidence should result in a reversal of a judgment, we said that the question is—
“what effect the error had or reasonably may be taken to have had upon the jury’s decision. . . .
“If, when all is said and done, the conviction is sure that the error did not influence the jury, or had but very slight effect, the verdict and the judgment should stand, except perhaps where the departure is from a constitutional norm or a specific command of Congress.” Id. at pp. 764 — 765.
The issue before us involves no constitutional question or specific command of Congress. The trial was a long one concerning personal conduct involving simple issues of fact. The record of it covers more than 800 pages. The jury must have been thoroughly familiar with the issues and with the degree of dependability, if any, to be placed upon the oral testimony of the petitioner and of the two witnesses involved in the conversation that is before us as reported by one of them. The evidence supporting the jury’s verdict was cumulative, repetitive and corroborated to such a point that I cannot believe that the verdict or the rights of the parties could have been appreciably affected by such weight as the jury may have attached to this reported snatch of conversation between two people of such negligible dependability as was demonstrated here. After this extended fourth trial, to set ¿side this jury’s verdict merely because of this particular bit of hearsay testimony seems to me to be an unrealistic procedure that tends to make a travesty of the jury system which is neither necessary nor deserved. I would affirm the judgment below.