U.S. v. Fernandez

In prosecution on felon in possession of firearm charge arising out of defendant’s arrest in passenger area of car, Dist. Ct. erred in sustaining govt.’s objection on hearsay grounds to defendant's attempts to elicit from driver of car what police interrogator had asked driver during interrogation in which driver initially claimed ownership of gun found in car, but then stated that defendant was owner of said gun. Said responses from driver were not offered for truth of matter asserted, but rather to establish what questions or statements driver was responding to and what effect said questions/statements had on driver as listener. However, error was harmless, where jury was already aware that driver gave multiple, contradictory statements to police about ownership of gun. Also, Dist. Ct. did not err in precluding defendant from questioning former girlfriend about substance of text messages she allegedly received from driver, even though said texts potentially shed light on bias driver had against defendant, where: (1) driver denied sending said texts; (2) defense counsel indicated prior to trial that they had no intention of establishing substance of texts through extrinsic evidence; and (3) govt. was therefore not put on notice that it needed to explore provenance and authenticity of said texts.