U.S. v. Reese

In prosecution on conspiracy to commit bribery charge arising out of scheme in which defendant, as supervisory building inspector, conspired with others to accept bribes in exchange for providing approvals on various construction projects, Dist. Ct. erred in admitting gift list that identified defendant and others as recipients of improper payments, where witness attempting to authenticate said list did not know how list was generated or who authored list. However, error was harmless where Dist. Ct. properly admitted other evidence pertaining to gifts on said list where said testimony established defendant's intent in charged offense, as well as his relationship with gift-giver. Dist. Ct. also did not abuse its discretion in excluding other recorded conversations between defendant and gift-giver, which showed that defendant had told gift-giver to go through appropriate channels to obtain relief on construction projects, since evidence that defendant had acted lawfully on other occasions is inadmissible to prove that defendant had acted lawfully with respect to incidents at issue in charged offense.