## Facts

- Federal agents surveilled suspected heroin-related activity involving Paul V. Oates and Isaac Daniels.
- Agents stopped Oates and Daniels without a warrant based on their observations and narcotics experience, including prior familiarity with Oates.
- During a search of Daniels, agents found a white powdery substance on Daniels’ right thigh and arrested both men.
- The substance was sent to a U.S. Customs laboratory, where a government chemist tested it and prepared an official report and worksheet stating the material was heroin.
- At Oates’s jury trial in the Eastern District of New York for possession with intent to distribute heroin and conspiracy, the government introduced the report and worksheet without calling the chemist, asserting the chemist was unavailable due to illness.
- Over objection, the district court admitted the documents, and the jury convicted Oates on both counts.

## Issues

1. Whether the warrantless stop and search that produced the powder were lawful, such that the district court properly denied suppression.
2. Whether the chemist’s report and worksheet were admissible under the Federal Rules of Evidence, particularly as public records under Rule 803(8) or as business records under Rule 803(6).
3. Whether admitting the chemist’s conclusions without live testimony violated the Sixth Amendment Confrontation Clause (and whether that question needed to be reached).

## Decision

- The Second Circuit affirmed the denial of the motion to suppress, holding the agents had sufficient grounds, viewed through the lens of trained narcotics officers, to justify the stop and search.
- The court held the chemist’s report and worksheet were inadmissible hearsay under the Federal Rules of Evidence.
- The court ruled the documents were barred by Rule 803(8)(B)’s exclusion for matters observed by “police officers and other law enforcement personnel” in criminal cases.
- The court rejected admission under Rule 803(6), holding the government could not bypass Rule 803(8)(B) by re-labeling law-enforcement investigative reports as business records.
- The court found the evidentiary error not harmless because the laboratory analysis was central to proving the substance was heroin, and reversed the convictions.
- The court declined to decide the Confrontation Clause issue because the evidentiary rules required exclusion.

## Legal Principles

- In a criminal case, Rule 803(8)(B) excludes from the public-records hearsay exception law-enforcement investigative observations and related reports prepared for prosecution.
- A government laboratory chemist preparing drug-analysis materials for a criminal investigation may fall within “law enforcement personnel” for purposes of Rule 803(8)(B).
- Evidence barred by Rule 803(8)(B) cannot be admitted indirectly through Rule 803(6) or other hearsay exceptions when doing so would negate the specific limitation Congress placed on law-enforcement reports in criminal prosecutions.
- When an inadmissible forensic report supplies proof of an essential element (e.g., identifying a controlled substance), erroneous admission is likely prejudicial and may require reversal absent harmlessness.

## Conclusion

The Second Circuit upheld the warrantless stop and search but reversed Oates’s convictions because the prosecution proved the substance was heroin through a non-testifying Customs chemist’s report and worksheet, which were excluded by FRE 803(8)(B) and could not be admitted as business records under FRE 803(6).


United States v. Oates, 560 F.2d 45 (2d Cir. 1977)