United States of America v. Ashley Dana Marie Howard

United States Court of Appeals
For the Eighth Circuit
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No. 24-2912
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United States of America
Plaintiff - Appellee
v.
Ashley Dana Marie Howard
Defendant - Appellant
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Appeal from United States District Court
for the District of North Dakota - Eastern
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Submitted: October 21, 2025
Filed: March 17, 2026
[Unpublished]
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Before GRUENDER, STRAS, and KOBES, Circuit Judges.
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PER CURIAM.
Guns and drugs hidden in Ashley Howard’s car doors landed her in prison.
Although she challenges the district court’s1 decision to admit text messages and a
photograph recovered from her cellphone, we affirm.
1 The Honorable Peter D. Welte, Chief Judge, United States District Court for
the District of North Dakota.

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I.
Howard’s boyfriend was the focus of a police drug-trafficking investigation.
When officers pulled him over, they stopped another one of his vehicles that she was
driving. It smelled of marijuana and had a smoked joint in the ashtray. A search
behind the door panels uncovered 982 blue fentanyl pills, three pistols, and a
magazine for one of the guns.
Howard’s cellphone had even more incriminating evidence. Text messages
showed that she had been involved in drug deals with someone called “Pink.” There
was also a picture of a plastic bag full of blue pills, just like the ones in the car.
Based on what the officers found, the government charged her with two
possession offenses, one for the fentanyl, see 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1), (b)(1)(B)(vi),
and another for the firearms, see 18 U.S.C. §§ 2, 924(c)(1)(A)(i). Although she
claimed that her boyfriend kept her in the dark about the pills and guns, the jury
found her guilty anyway.
II.
One of the reasons, according to Howard, was the admission of the texts and
picture that connected her to drugs and drug dealing. The police could not find
“Pink,” which meant that she did not testify at Howard’s trial, raising questions
about whether her texts were inadmissible under the rule against hearsay and the
Confrontation Clause. See U.S. Const. amend. VI; Fed. R. Evid. 802. And even if
neither applied, whether the district court should have excluded them, along with the
photograph of the pills, as “[e]vidence of any other crime, wrong, or act.” Fed R.
Evid. 404(b)(1). The answers, however, either do not help Howard or do not matter.

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A.
The answer to the first question does not help her because only an out-of-court
statement admitted for the truth of the matter asserted presents a potential hearsay or
Confrontation Clause problem. See Smith v. Arizona, 602 U.S. 779, 785 (2024). If
a witness says a substance was fentanyl, for example, and the prosecution uses the
statement at trial to show that it was, the defendant typically has a right to cross-
examine the witness, if not keep it out entirely. See id.; Fed. R. Evid. 802. But only
when, like in the above example, the purpose is to show that the statement’s content
is true. See Anderson v. United States, 417 U.S. 211, 219–20 (1974); Giblin v.
United States, 523 F.2d 42, 45 (8th Cir. 1975).
Here, no right to exclude the texts or cross-examine Pink arose because the
government introduced them for another purpose: to provide “context” for Howard’s
own incriminating messages, which were non-hearsay admissions by a party-
opponent. United States v. White, 962 F.3d 1052, 1055 (8th Cir. 2020) (citation
omitted); see Fed. R. Evid. 801(d)(2)(A); United States v. Wright, 993 F.3d 1054,
1063 (8th Cir. 2021) (explaining that digital “chat conversations are not hearsay if
they were not offered for their truth but rather to provide context for [the
defendant’s] responses” (alteration in original) (citation omitted)). To give an
example, jurors would only be able to understand Howard’s statement, “I need
money,” if they also knew that Pink wanted to buy “25/30” of something. See White,
962 F.3d at 1055. The point was not to show that Pink actually wanted 25/30 of
something, but rather to prove that Howard was the one selling it to her. Viewed
this way, statements like this one were neither hearsay nor “implicate[d] the
Confrontation Clause.”2 United States v. Shipp, 141 F.4th 940, 945 (8th Cir. 2025).
2 As the government conceded at oral argument, it may have used one of Pink’s
texts, which said that she was “[r]unning to [an] atm in [S]lammers,” for the truth of
the matter asserted. To the extent it did, any error was harmless beyond a reasonable
doubt, both because proving that Pink was going to an ATM was not particularly
incriminating and the other evidence of Howard’s guilt was overwhelming. See

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B.
The other point does not matter. Even assuming the texts and picture were
inadmissible as “[e]vidence of any other crime, wrong, or act,” Fed. R. Evid.
404(b)(1), they made no difference to the outcome. The remaining evidence against
Howard was considerable, which means any error had, at most, “a slight influence
on the verdict.” United States v. Begay, 116 F.4th 795, 798 (8th Cir. 2024) (citation
omitted).
Consider what else the jury saw and heard. Perhaps most incriminating was
what Howard was transporting when officers pulled her over: three guns, a
magazine, and 982 fentanyl pills. See United States v. Gaona-Lopez, 408 F.3d 500,
506 (8th Cir. 2005) (explaining that one could infer that a person who had the key
to a car containing a large quantity of drugs “knew what was” inside). Then, when
police caught her, she lied about where she had been and texted someone else that
they were “popping the doors.” Both “indicated consciousness of guilt.” United
States v. Chatmon, 742 F.3d 350, 353 (8th Cir. 2014). Not to mention that the
magazine, which was right next to the drugs and guns, had her DNA on it. See
United States v. Lewis, 483 F.3d 871, 875 (8th Cir. 2007) (concluding that a potential
error in admitting Rule 404(b) evidence was harmless because of the presence of
DNA evidence). This other evidence overwhelmingly proved her guilt. See United
States v. Adams, 996 F.3d 514, 522 (8th Cir. 2021).
Besides, to the extent the texts or picture might have otherwise mattered in
the jury’s eyes, the district court gave a limiting instruction explaining that
“committ[ing] a similar act in the past . . . is not evidence that [Howard] committed
such an act in this case.” See United States v. Warren, 788 F.3d 805, 812 (8th Cir.
2015) (discussing a similar instruction). We presume, as usual, that jurors followed
this instruction, see Weeks v. Angelone, 528 U.S. 225, 234 (2000), which reinforces
Chavez v. Weber, 497 F.3d 796, 805 (8th Cir. 2007); Flittie v. Solem, 751 F.2d 967,
974 (8th Cir. 1985).

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that “any error in admitting the evidence . . . was harmless,” United States v. Riepe,
858 F.3d 552, 561 (8th Cir. 2017).
III.
We accordingly affirm the judgment of the district court.
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