1. The doctrine providing that, when there is evidence establishing the existence of a conspiracy between at least two other people, the prosecution need only offer slight evidence of a defendant’s knowing participation or intentional involvement in the conspiracy to secure a conviction. • This rule was first announced in Tomplain v. United States, 42 F.2d 202, 203 (5th Cir. 1930). In the decades after Tomplain, other circuits adopted the rule, but not until the 1970s did the rule become widespread. Since then, the rule has been widely criticized and, in most circuits, abolished. See, e.g., United States v. Durrive, 902 F.2d 1221 (7th Cir. 1990). But its vitality remains undiminished in some jurisdictions.
2. The doctrine that only slight evidence of a defendant’s participation in a conspiracy need be offered in order to admit a coconspirator’s out-of-court statement under the coconspirator exception to the hearsay rule. See Fed. R. Evid. 801(d)(2)(E).
