## Facts

- Federal and state authorities investigated crack distribution at a Roxbury, Massachusetts housing project using undercover purchases.
- On July 6, 2001, an undercover officer, driving an unmarked car with audio and interior video recording, arranged and completed a purchase of about $200 of crack cocaine from a man known as “Smoke.”
- The undercover officer observed the seller wearing a blue-checkered/blue plaid shirt during the transaction.
- A few hours later, Dowdell was arrested on an unrelated local charge and was processed through routine booking.
- Police created a booking sheet that included a booking photograph showing Dowdell wearing a blue-checkered shirt and a written description stating he wore a “blue plaid shirt.”
- The undercover officer later identified the person in the booking photograph as the seller from the earlier transaction.
- At a three-day jury trial in federal district court, Dowdell’s defense was mistaken identity; the government offered the booking sheet to corroborate the undercover officer’s identification.
- The district court admitted the booking sheet under the public-records hearsay exception, Fed. R. Evid. 803(8).
- Dowdell was convicted of distributing cocaine base under 21 U.S.C. § 841 and sentenced as a career offender to 198 months’ imprisonment.

## Issues

1. Whether pretrial delay violated the Sixth Amendment right to a speedy trial or the Interstate Agreement on Detainers (IAD).
2. Whether changing the indictment’s drug description from “cocaine” to “cocaine base” impermissibly amended the indictment in violation of the Fifth Amendment’s grand-jury requirement.
3. Whether a booking sheet containing a photograph and clothing description is inadmissible as a law-enforcement “police report,” or admissible as a public record under Fed. R. Evid. 803(8).
4. Whether the government breached an enforceable promise by recommending a sentence above 20 years.

## Decision

- The First Circuit affirmed the conviction and the 198-month sentence.
- The court found no reversible Sixth Amendment speedy-trial violation under the Barker v. Wingo factors.
- Any IAD claim was forfeited by failure to timely and properly invoke IAD protections in the trial court.
- The indictment change from “cocaine” to “cocaine base” was treated as a non-substantive correction that did not broaden the charge or cause constitutional prejudice.
- The booking sheet was properly admitted under Rule 803(8) as a routine, ministerial public record, not the kind of investigative police report excluded in criminal cases.
- The government did not breach a binding agreement limiting its sentencing recommendation.

## Legal Principles

- Sixth Amendment speedy-trial claims are assessed under Barker v. Wingo, considering length of delay, reasons for delay, the defendant’s assertion of the right, and prejudice.
- IAD protections may be forfeited if not timely asserted and preserved in the trial court.
- A court may permit a formal, non-substantive correction to an indictment’s wording where the change does not broaden the offense charged by the grand jury or deprive the defendant of fair notice.
- Under Fed. R. Evid. 803(8), routine booking records made pursuant to legal duty—such as photographs and straightforward descriptions of an arrestee’s appearance—may be admissible as public records and are not automatically excluded as law-enforcement investigative reports.
- A claimed government sentencing limitation is enforceable only if supported by a binding agreement or promise shown in the record.

## Conclusion

The First Circuit upheld Dowdell’s drug-distribution conviction and career-offender sentence, rejecting speedy-trial and indictment challenges and holding that a routine booking sheet with a photograph and clothing description was admissible under Rule 803(8) to corroborate identification, while also finding no enforceable breach in the government’s sentencing position.


United States v. Dowdell, 595 F.3d 50 (1st Cir. 2010)