## Facts

- Larry Adell, a 16-year-old, disappeared on June 1, 1974, after leaving friends at a Palm Springs restaurant to go to the parking lot.
- Before leaving, Larry told friends he intended to meet a man named “Angelo” there to receive a pound of marijuana that had been promised to him.
- Larry never returned and was never found.
- Shortly after the disappearance, Larry’s father received communications demanding ransom and containing threats.
- The government charged Hugh MacLeod Pheaster and Angelo Inciso with conspiracy to kidnap and hold Larry for ransom, and charged Pheaster (with Inciso as aider and abettor) with mailing ransom letters and extortionate threats.
- At trial, the government introduced circumstantial evidence connecting defendants to the scheme, including telephone records, voice identification evidence, and ransom letters.
- Over hearsay objections, the district court admitted testimony about Larry’s statements of intent to meet “Angelo,” instructing the jury the statements were admitted only to show Larry’s then-existing state of mind, not for the truth of asserted facts.
- A jury convicted both defendants on all counts; the district court imposed a life sentence on the conspiracy count and additional concurrent terms on the mailing counts.

## Issues

1. Whether statements by the missing victim that he intended to meet “Angelo” were admissible under Federal Rule of Evidence 803(3) to prove his then-existing intent and to support an inference that he acted on that intent.
2. Whether Rule 803(3) and the Hillmon doctrine permit a further inference, from the declarant’s stated intent to meet a named person, that the named person likely participated in the meeting.
3. Whether other asserted errors (including challenges to the indictment, evidentiary rulings, constitutional claims, and sentencing) required reversal.

## Decision

- The Ninth Circuit affirmed the convictions and sentences, finding no reversible error.
- The court held the district court properly admitted Larry’s intent statements under Rule 803(3) as evidence of then-existing state of mind.
- The court approved the use of the statements to support an inference that Larry likely carried out his stated plan and went to meet “Angelo.”
- The court allowed the jury to consider the intent evidence even though it indirectly implicated Inciso, concluding this use was consistent with prevailing authority applying the Hillmon doctrine.
- The court emphasized the trial court’s limiting instruction that restricted the jury’s use of the statements to the declarant’s state of mind.
- The court rejected defendants’ remaining claims of error, including attacks on the indictment, investigative conduct, other evidentiary rulings, and sentencing.

## Legal Principles

- Under Fed. R. Evid. 803(3), hearsay statements are admissible to prove a declarant’s then-existing state of mind, including intent or plan, subject to the rule’s limits on using statements of memory or belief to prove past facts.
- A declarant’s statement of intent may be used inferentially to support a finding that the declarant later acted in accordance with that intent (Hillmon doctrine).
- A declarant’s intent statement referencing action with another person may be admitted even when it permits an additional inference about the other person’s involvement; objections to that inferential step generally go to weight rather than categorical inadmissibility, particularly where other evidence corroborates the theory.
- A limiting instruction may confine the jury’s use of intent statements to the permissible state-of-mind purpose and reduce the risk of unfair prejudice.

## Conclusion

The Ninth Circuit upheld convictions for kidnapping conspiracy and extortionate mailings, ruling that the missing victim’s statements about his intention to meet “Angelo” were admissible under Rule 803(3) and could support inferences about subsequent conduct, with the jury’s use constrained by a limiting instruction and supported by additional circumstantial evidence.


United States v. Pheaster, 544 F.2d 353 (9th Cir. 1976)