## Facts

- Demario (Demario Lamar) Brown was indicted in the District of Maryland on drug-trafficking charges, including heroin offenses, and a related firearm offense.
- Before trial, Brown filed a motion in limine to exclude several documents the government intended to introduce.
- The documents included items such as identification cards, insurance cards, receipts, and bills.
- Each item bore Brown’s name and listed the same address connected to the government’s theory of the case.
- The government sought to use the documents to show Brown’s connection to, and residence at, the address associated with the investigation.
- Brown argued that using the address information to show he lived there would make the documents inadmissible hearsay.

## Issues

1. Whether address-bearing documents (e.g., ID cards, insurance cards, receipts, and bills) constitute hearsay when offered to show a defendant’s connection to, or residence at, the listed address.
2. Whether such documents may be admitted as non-hearsay circumstantial evidence when offered to show association with a location rather than to prove the literal truth of the address.

## Decision

- The court denied Brown’s motion in limine.
- The court permitted the government to introduce the challenged documents at trial to show Brown’s connection to the address.
- The court treated the documents as admissible non-hearsay when used circumstantially to link Brown to the residence, rather than as proof that the address statements were true.

## Legal Principles

- Under Federal Rule of Evidence 801(c), hearsay is an out-of-court statement offered to prove the truth of the matter asserted.
- A writing is not hearsay when it is offered for a use that does not require the jury to accept the writing’s factual assertion as true.
- Documents bearing a defendant’s name together with an address may be relevant circumstantial evidence of the defendant’s association with that location (Fed. R. Evid. 401), even if the address appears as text in the document.
- When the government’s purpose is to show the defendant used, possessed, or associated himself with documents listing a given address, the probative value comes from that association rather than the accuracy of the address as stated by an out-of-court declarant.
- Even when evidence is not barred by the hearsay rule, it remains subject to other limits such as authentication (Fed. R. Evid. 901) and exclusion under Rule 403 if unfair prejudice or confusion substantially outweighs probative value.

## Conclusion

In *United States v. Brown*, the District of Maryland denied a pretrial motion to exclude identification- and account-related papers listing Brown’s name and a specific address, holding the government could introduce them as non-hearsay circumstantial evidence connecting Brown to the residence implicated in the charged drug and firearm offenses.


United States v. Brown, No. RDB-16-0553, 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 55816, 1-5 (2017)