United States v. Rafiq Brooks

Rafiq Brooks appeals his convictions on one count of conspiracy to possess marijuana with intent to distribute and two counts of possession of marijuana with intent to distribute. At Brooks’s jury trial, the government introduced out-of-court statements by a nontestifying post office supervisor and photographs of a seized package that was the subject of those statements. Brooks targues that the admission of this evidence violated his rights under the Confrontation Clause of -the Sixth Amendment. We conclude that admission of the photographs did not violate the Confrontation Clause, but that admission of the postal supervisor’s statements did, and we reverse the possession conviction that depended on those statements.

I. Background

A.

In March 2011, a task force of DEA officers and local law enforcement began investigating a group of individuals suspected of shipping marijuana through the mail. The leader of the investigation, Officer Kurt Kinsey, focused surveillance on an apartment in Glendale, Arizona. On three occasions in August and September 2011, law enforcement observed people loading boxes into a vehicle at the Glendale apartment and then driving to a post…