[PUBLISH] In the United States Court of Appeals For the Eleventh Circuit

____________________

No. 22-13068 ____________________

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff-Appellee, versus MAURICE ANTONIO KENT,

Defendant-Appellant.

____________________

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia D.C. Docket No. 4:17-cr-00039-JPB-WEJ-1 ____________________ USCA11 Case: 22-13068 Document: 40-1 Date Filed: 02/26/2024 Page: 2 of 12

2 Opinion of the Court 22-13068

Before WILSON, JILL PRYOR, and BRASHER, Circuit Judges. BRASHER, Circuit Judge: This appeal concerns the circumstances in which a police of- ficer’s statement that recounts witness statements that implicate the defendant in a crime may be offered at a criminal trial for a non- hearsay purpose. Maurice Kent was a member of a violent gang. The govern- ment charged Kent with RICO conspiracy and five substantive crimes, including the attempted murder of Shadeed Muhammad. As an overt act of the RICO conspiracy, the government alleged that the gang murdered a former gang member, Qualeef Rhode, for cooperating with the police’s investigation into the attempted murder of Muhammad. Specifically, the government’s theory was that Kent and other gang members believed that Rhodes told the police that Kent had attempted to murder Muhammad and, then, murdered Rhodes for that reason. To support this theory, the government introduced an in- vestigator’s testimony from a preliminary hearing in a related case, which identified Rhodes as cooperating with law enforcement to implicate Kent in the attempted murder of Muhammad. By offer- ing the testimony, the government sought to establish that other gang members present at the hearing learned of Rhodes’s apparent cooperation and murdered him because of it, i.e., the government offered the out-of-court statements for the effect they had on the listener. USCA11 Case: 22-13068 Document: 40-1 Date Filed: 02/26/2024 Page: 3 of 12

22-13068 Opinion of the Court 3

Kent argues that this testimony was hearsay, and its admis- sion violated his Confrontation Clause rights. Our caselaw has in at least two instances deemed inadmissible law enforcement testi- mony about witness statements, even when offered for non-hear- say purposes. See United States v. Arbolaez, 450 F.3d 1283, 1290 (11th Cir. 2006); United States v. Rodriguez, 524 F.2d 485, 487 (5th Cir. 1975). But we agree with the district court that the testimony in this case was admissible. It was not hearsay because it was offered for the effect it had on the listeners and not for the truth of the matter asserted. The testimony was indisputably relevant for that purpose. And we believe the district court took sufficient steps to ensure that the jury did not consider these out-of-court statements as substantive evidence of Kent’s guilt on the charge of attempting to murder Muhammad. Accordingly, we affirm. I.

Maurice Kent was a leader in an Atlanta-area chapter of the 135 Piru gang. During a