# Akins v. United States

> District of Columbia Court of Appeals · June 20, 1996 · 679 A.2d 1017

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9707591

## Case

- **Full name:** Michael AKINS, Robert L. Taper, Joel Carrero, and William Barnes, Jr., Appellants, v. UNITED STATES, Appellee
- **Court:** District of Columbia Court of Appeals
- **Decided:** June 20, 1996
- **Citations:** 679 A.2d 1017; 1996 D.C. App. LEXIS 119; 1996 WL 335248
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Concurrence by Farrell
- **Judges:** Schwelb, Farrell, Ruiz
- **Cited by:** 24 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- No negative treatment found by the automated citator. That is not the same as a confirmation that the case is good law; read the citing cases.
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9707591

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- acknowledging the validity of Pinkerton instructions, but holding that a co-conspirator’s statement may not be introduced under any hearsay exception that is not reliability-based unless the statement is admissible as a co-conspirator’s statement made in furtherance of the con…
- noting, based on Ohio v. Roberts, 448 U.S. 56, 100 S.Ct. 2531, 65 L.Ed.2d 597 (1980), that the "Confrontation Clause is only violated by the admission of incriminating evidence under a hearsay exception that is neither firmly-rooted nor reliability-based.”

## Opinion text

FARRELL, Associate Judge,
concurring.
I join Judge Ruiz’s thoughtful opinion with this small qualification. We need not decide whether any limiting instruction, combined with the Pinkerton charge, would set too contradictory a mental task before the jury. Since the issue here is a constitutional one, the burden of persuading us of the efficacy of a particular limiting instruction must be on the government. I am not convinced that the instruction here did the job. Hence the need for the remand we order, to decide in effect whether the instruction was superfluous.

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9707591. Public record. Not legal advice.