United States v. Sesay, Alhaji

United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued November 12, 2002 Decided December 24, 2002

No. 01-3100

United States of America,
Appellee

v.

Alhaji M. Sesay,
Appellant

Appeal from the United States District
Court for the District of Columbia
(No. 00cr00047-01)

---------

Lisa B. Wright, Assistant Federal Public Defender, argued
the cause for appellant. With her on the briefs was A. J.
Kramer, Federal Public Defender. Neil H. Jaffee, Assistant
Federal Public Defender, entered an appearance.

Mary B. McCord, Assistant United States Attorney, ar-
gued the cause for appellee. With her on the brief were
Roscoe C. Howard, Jr., United States Attorney, and John R.
Fisher, Elizabeth Trosman, and Darrell C. Valdez, Assistant
United States Attorneys.

 Before: Ginsburg, Chief Judge, and Edwards and Garland,
Circuit Judges.

Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge Edwards.

Edwards, Circuit Judge: Appellant Alhaji M. Sesay was
convicted of possession with intent to distribute cocaine base
and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. Appellant's
main argument on this appeal is that the District Court
deprived him of his rights to confront witnesses and to
present a defense when it excluded evidence that appellant
had a pre-existing civilian complaint against the police officer
who discovered the coat allegedly containing the gun and
drugs that led to appellant's arrest. The District Court's
evidentiary rulings were reasonable when they were issued
before trial, but evidence presented during the trial undercut
the rationale supporting the evidentiary exclusions. Howev-
er, the defense did not raise any new objections, offer any
proffers of evidence, or ask the trial court to allow introduc-
tion of the civilian complaint as substantive evidence. We are
therefore constrained to review appellant's challenges to the
evidentiary exclusions under the "plain error" standard. See
Fed. R. Crim. P. 52(b). Because appellant has not met the
heavy burden of showing plain error, see United States v.
Olano, 507 U.S. 725 (1993), we reject his challenges relating
to the disputed civilian complaint.

Appellant also challenges the District Court's exclusion of a
disputed police report on hearsay grounds. It is clear that
the District Court did not abuse its discretion in excluding the
report. We therefore reject this claim.

I. Background

A. January 9, 2000

The Government and defense present a similar picture of
the events leading to appellant's arrest on January 9, 2000.
The main point of difference between the two sides is whether
the gun and narcotics that the police found in a coat in a car
at the scene of the arrest belonged to appellant, or were the
result of a plant.

 Both sides agree that appellant and his friend, Jerrold
Coates, were on the corner of 10th and M Streets, Northwest,
in Washington, D.C., when Coates was shot in the back in a
drive-by shooting. Ms. D, who lived in an upper-story apart-
ment on that corner, heard the gunshots and looked out her
window. She would later testify that she saw a young man
holding a handgun and standing over what she presumed to
be a victim lying in the street. Ms. D watched as a truck
pulled up and the man with the gun dragged the victim
toward it, put the victim in the front passenger seat, and got
into the back seat himself. The truck then drove away. Ms.
D immediately called 911 to report what she had seen.

While the defense contends that appellant was not in fact
holding a gun, both sides agree that Sesay's friend, Rashawn
Fowler, arrived at the scene of the shooting in a Chevy Tahoe
just as Ms. D described. Both sides also agree that Sesay
helped the injured Coates into the front seat of the Tahoe
before climbing into the back. Fowler then drove them to
the Howard University Hospital, where Coates could receive
the medical attention that he needed.

Several Metropolitan Police Department officers heard the
radio run that there had been a shooting at 10th and M
Streets, and heard that the victim had been picked up in a
blue sport utility vehicle. Expecting that the victim might be
taken to the nearest hospital, Officers Darris Larsen and
Christopher Johnson went to Howard University Hospital.
Once there, they saw a blue Chevy Tahoe parked in front.
Officer Johnson saw the driver, Fowler, get out of the Tahoe
and walk toward the hospital. Fowler was wearing a coat.
Officer Johnson asked Fowler if he had just brought someone
to the hospital who had been shot, and Fowler responded that
he had.

Shortly thereafter, Officer Laurence Heinz and other police
officers arrived at the hospital. Officer Heinz searched the
Chevy Tahoe, beginning with the front seat and moving to the
back seat. Evidence presented by the Government indicates
that when Officer Heinz picked up a coat from the back
passenger seat, a gun fell from it and hit the ground. Officer

Heinz left the gun on the ground until officers from the crime
scene unit arrived.

Heinz's search is the subject of controversy between the
Government and the defense. The defense argues that Offi-
cer Heinz held a grudge against appellant, because appellant
had filed a complaint against him the previous year, after
Officer Heinz arrested Sesay for reckless driving and driving
without a permit. The defense argues that Officer Heinz
thus possessed both the motive and opportunity to plant the
weapon and narcotics. The Government replies, inter alia,
that Officer Heinz did not know to whom the coat belonged
when he searched it, because appellant was still in the
hospital at the time of the search.

Officers Ralph Nitz, John Spencer, and Adrian Lancaster,
from the crime scene unit, came to the hospital to collect and
process the evidence. Officers Nitz and Lancaster recovered
the gun and the coat from which it had fallen. The officers
found 17 zip-locks of crack cocaine inside the outer left breast
pocket of the coat. The coat was a size "large," and had some
small rips and a small hole. Officer Nitz asked Fowler to try
on the coat, which was far too small on him; the 275-pound
Fowler wears a size "XXX."

The crime scene unit officers also seized a coat from the
floor of the trauma room where the victim was being treated.
This coat was a green Eddie Bauer parka with a hole through
the back, and wet blood on the inside around the hole.

After the gun was found, appellant first appeared leaving
the hospital and walking toward the Tahoe, before turning
and walking away from it. Although it was very cold and
everyone else on the scene wore coats, Government witnesses
testified that Sesay was not wearing a coat. Officer Johnson
stopped appellant and asked if he had brought someone to the
hospital. Appellant replied that he had, and that he had
arrived in the Tahoe. He explained that he had been on 10th
Street when a friend was shot. He stated that another friend
passed by in the Tahoe and gave them a ride to the hospital.

 Fowler claimed that he was standing with his hands on the
police car when the police began searching the Tahoe. When
Fowler saw the gun hit the ground, he recalled thinking, "I
don't know where that came from. It ain't my gun." 5/16/00
Tr. 23. Fowler was arrested, but was released after giving a
videotaped statement to the police suggesting that the jacket
in the back seat belonged to Sesay. The police officers
decided that the coat, firearm, and narcotics belonged to
appellant.

B. Procedural History and Evidentiary Rulings

On February 8, 2000, a federal grand jury returned a
three-count indictment charging appellant with one count of
possession with intent to distribute cocaine base in violation
of 21 U.S.C. ss 841(a)(1) and 841(b)(1)(C); one count of
possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, in violation of 18
U.S.C. s 922(g)(1); and one count of possession of a firearm
during a drug trafficking offense, in violation of 18 U.S.C.
s 924(c).

At the pretrial motions hearing on April 11, 2000, defense
counsel sought to question Detective Eduardo Voysest, who
had spoken to witnesses on the night of the offense. The
defense wanted to inquire of Voysest as to whether he knew
about Officer Heinz's previous contact with appellant. The
District Court sustained the Government's objection based on
Officer Heinz's preliminary hearing testimony that he did not
know about the complaint, as well as evidence that appellant
was still inside the hospital when Officer Heinz found the gun,
and evidence that Officer Heinz did not know to whom the
gun or the coat belonged when he found them. Defense
counsel did not seek permission to explore the relationship
between Detective Voysest and Officer Heinz to establish a
foundation for asking Detective Voysest about Sesay's previ-
ous complaint against Heinz.

Subsequently, before the pretrial conference, the Govern-
ment filed a "Motion to Exclude Evidence of Defendant's
Complaint Against Officer." The Government argued that
the evidence was irrelevant because, at the time when Officer
Heinz discovered the gun, he was unaware that the person

who had been in the back seat of the Chevy Tahoe was Sesay.
At the pretrial conference on May 4, 2000, defense counsel
argued that the defense still had not received discovery
regarding the complaint against Officer Heinz, and proffered
that the defense had a witness who could show that Officer
Heinz was lying when he testified at the preliminary hearing
that he did not know that a complaint had been filed against
him. The Government responded that the complaint was not
formal or written but was simply appellant's oral complaint
made at the time of his arrest, which the police department
was investigating.

The District Court addressed the Government's "Motion to
Exclude Evidence of Defendant's Complaint Against Officer"
at the pretrial conference. The court first stated that "there
is absolutely not a shred of evidence anywhere that Officer
H[einz] knew that Mr. Sesay was the person with whom the
coat was associated and consequently with whom the gun was
associated when he arrived on the scene...." 5/4/00 Tr. 47.
However, the District Court recognized that a broader issue
of Officer Heinz's credibility had been raised. The District
Court therefore left open the possibility of the defense revisit-
ing Sesay's complaint against Officer Heinz at some "appro-
priate juncture" during trial:

So what the defense will be entitled to do is, at the
appropriate juncture, to ask the question or to raise
the point about Mr. Sesay having lodged a complaint
against Officer H[einz], and in that regard whether
or not Officer H[einz] spoke truthfully, if it can be
shown that he has said one thing in one instance and
another thing in another instance, and also with
regard to how it may have colored, if at all, the
testimony that he's offered in connection with the
facts of this case.

5/4/00 Tr. 48-49.

During the pretrial conference, defense counsel also briefly
mentioned that, in addition to cross-examining Officer Heinz
regarding his potential bias based on the complaint, he would
like to inquire of the "other officers" about their knowledge of
Officer Heinz's prior contact with appellant. Defense counsel

did not name those "other officers" or provide any basis for
his assertion "that the actions of the officers assisting Officer
H[einz] at the time of Mr. Sesay's arrest, may in fact have
been also impacted upon by the bias of Officer H[einz]."
5/4/00 Tr. 38. The District Court denied this request, be-
cause "[t]here [was] nothing to suggest that anyone else's
thinking has been influenced by the conflict characterized as
existing between Detective H[einz] and Mr. Sesay and any
other officers." 5/4/00 Tr. 49. Following this ruling, defense
counsel did not ask permission to voir dire the "other offi-
cers" outside the jury's presence in order to establish a
foundation for his proposed inquiry.

On May 15, 2000, a jury trial commenced. At trial, the
Government indicated that Officer Heinz would not be called
as a witness. Defense counsel asked that he be made avail-
able for questioning by the defense. The Government object-
ed, arguing that Officer Heinz could not be called by the
defense as a witness solely to be impeached. The trial judge
ruled that the defense could not call Officer Heinz solely to
impeach him, but stated that the defense could call Officer
Heinz after making a proffer of his testimony. The prosecu-
tion subsequently filed a memorandum arguing more fully
that the only direct evidence to be offered by Officer Heinz
would be adverse to the defendant and cumulative of other
testimony, and that appellant should not be permitted to use
impeachment evidence concerning the complaint as a subter-
fuge to get otherwise inadmissible evidence before the jury.
The trial judge then indicated that his ruling had been made,
and noted that both parties had received a transcript of the
original ruling. At the start of the defense case, as the
examination of Officer Heinz began, the District Court "re-
mind[ed] everyone of the limitations that I have placed on
inquiries to be made during the continuation of this trial,
strict limitations." 5/17/00 Tr. 50. The defense's questioning
of Officer Heinz was then relatively limited and it did not
cover Sesay's civilian complaint against Heinz.

On May 18, 2000, after the close of the evidence, the
District Court granted a motion for judgment of acquittal on
count three (possession of a firearm during a drug trafficking

offense). On May 22, 2000, the jury returned guilty verdicts
on the two remaining counts of possession with intent to
distribute crack cocaine and possession of a firearm by a
convicted felon. On September 21, 2000, the trial judge
sentenced appellant to 63 months' imprisonment on each
count, to be served concurrently, a $1,000 fine, a $200 special
assessment, and three years of supervised release. No timely
notice of appeal was filed. However, on August 2, 2001, the
District Court granted appellant's motion to reissue the judg-
ment, and the judgment was reissued and entered on August
7, 2001. A timely notice of appeal was thereafter filed on
August 15, 2001.

II. Analysis

A. Evidence of the Complaint

Appellant first argues that the District Court erred in
depriving him of his rights to confront witnesses and to
present a defense when it excluded evidence that he had a
pre-existing civilian complaint against Heinz. He argues that
the defense should have been permitted to cross-examine the
police witnesses concerning their knowledge of appellant's
complaint against Officer Heinz, and that the defense should
have been allowed to introduce the complaint as substantive
evidence of Officer Heinz's motive to plant contraband in the
coat. Appellant's arguments have some merit. The objec-
tions ultimately fail, however, because appellant has not
shown that the District Court's evidentiary exclusions result-
ed in "plain error."

1. Examination of the Other Officers

When the District Court issued its pretrial rulings, they
had a legitimate basis. There was no indication during any of
the pretrial proceedings that any of the other testifying
officers worked closely with Officer Heinz. Therefore, there
was no proper foundation for the line of inquiry that defense
counsel sought to pursue. However, during trial it became
apparent that the police witnesses who testified against appel-
lant all worked on the same shift with Officer Heinz in the
Third District. Officer Taggart, for example, testified that he

had been working with Officer Heinz on the midnight shift for
three or four years. 5/16/00 Tr. 78. Officer Heinz testified
that he spoke with Officers Larsen and Johnson "every
night." 5/17/00 Tr. 55. This evidence indicated a close
relationship between Officer Heinz and the testifying officers.
Once this became clear, there was good reason to allow
defense counsel to question the witnesses about their knowl-
edge of appellant's complaint against Officer Heinz.

However, the defense did not renew its request to question
the officers to determine whether, in light of the evidence
indicating a close relationship between Heinz and the other
officers, the District Court still meant to prevent defense
counsel from questioning these other officers about their
relationship with Officer Heinz and their knowledge of the
civilian complaint that Sesay had filed against Officer Heinz.
Thus, any error resulting from the exclusion of the evidence
must be reviewed under the "plain error" standard. See Fed.
R. Crim. P. 52(b). See also United States v. Arrington, 2002
U.S. App. LEXIS 22993, at *18 (D.C. Cir. Nov. 5, 2002)
("Because [the defendant] did not object to the court's in-
struction at trial, we review this complaint solely to determine
whether the district court committed plain error."); In re
Sealed Case, 283 F.3d 349, 352 (D.C. Cir. 2002) ("If the
defendant allows an alleged error to pass without objection
... he then assumes the burden of meeting the more exacting
plain error requirement of Rule 52(b)....").

The Supreme Court has articulated the plain error require-
ments of Rule 52(b), as follows:

There must be an "error" that is "plain" and that
"affect[s] substantial rights." Moreover, Rule 52(b)
leaves the decision to correct the forfeited error
within the sound discretion of the court of appeals,
and the court should not exercise that discretion
unless the error "seriously affect[s] the fairness,
integrity or public reputation of judicial proceed-
ings."

Olano, 507 U.S. at 732 (quoting United States v. Young, 470
U.S. 1, 15 (1985)); see also Johnson v. United States, 520 U.S.
461, 466-67 (1997) ("[B]efore an appellate court can correct an

error not raised at trial, there must be (1) error, (2) that is
plain, and (3) that affects substantial rights.") (internal quota-
tions omitted). Olano further explained that, for the plain
error standard to affect substantial rights,

the error must have been prejudicial: It must have
affected the outcome of the district court proceed-
ings.... When the defendant has made a timely
objection to an error and Rule 52(a) applies, a court
of appeals normally engages in a specific analysis of
the district court record - a so-called "harmless
error" inquiry - to determine whether the error was
prejudicial. Rule 52(b) normally requires the same
kind of inquiry, with one important difference: It is
the defendant rather than the Government who
bears the burden of persuasion with respect to prej-
udice. In most cases, a court of appeals cannot
correct the forfeited error unless the defendant
shows that the error was prejudicial.

Olano, 507 U.S. at 734.

On the record in this case, we cannot find "prejudice," nor
can we find that the alleged errors "seriously affect the
fairness, integrity or public reputation of judicial proceed-
ings." We simply cannot say that the alleged error "affected
the outcome of the district court proceedings." Olano, 507
U.S. at 734. Therefore, defendant has not carried the burden
of persuasion necessary to prevail under Rule 52(b).

Furthermore, lest there be any confusion on this point,
defense counsel was not entirely foreclosed from advancing
appellant's defense. For example, counsel could have asked
the officers about the timing of events at the hospital, includ-
ing when they first came to learn that the coat in the car
belonged to appellant. This would have made clear whether
the officers had reason to know that the coat belonged to
Sesay before they searched it, and possibly supported appel-
lant's view that the officers had time and knowledge sufficient
to plant the gun so as to implicate Sesay. Counsel also could
have sought permission to conduct voir dire of the police
witnesses outside the jury's presence, after Officer Taggart
testified that he had worked on the midnight shift with

Officer Heinz for three or four years, or after it became
apparent that the Government was not going to call Officer
Heinz as a witness. We have no way of knowing whether
defense counsel made strategic decisions not to pursue these
lines of inquiry or mistakenly assumed that he could not
renew his request to examine the officers in light of the newly
uncovered facts about Heinz's relationship with the other
officers. In any event, there is no plain error.

2. Substantive Evidence

There may also have been error, albeit not "plain error,"
resulting from the exclusion of appellant's civilian complaint
against Heinz as substantive evidence of bias. There were
grounds for admitting the evidence of the complaint substan-
tively, for it suggested animosity between appellant and
Officer Heinz. This animosity, in turn, might have given
credence to appellant's claim that the police planted the gun
and drugs to implicate him. However, when the District
Court ruled that the defense could not call Officer Heinz
merely to impeach him, appellant never asked to use Officer
Heinz to introduce the complaint as substantive evidence of
bias. Appellant claims that "[i]t was clear to all concerned
below that this was one of the purposes for which defense
counsel wanted to use the complaint," Appellant's Reply Br.
at 9, but the record does not support this assertion. Thus, we
also review the exclusion of the complaint only for plain error.
See Fed. R. Crim. P. 52(b). It is true that the civilian
complaint raises a question of bias, but, following the stan-
dard enunciated in Olano, we cannot find that defendant has
satisfied his burden of proving that the alleged error affected
the outcome of the trial. Therefore, appellant has not satis-
fied his burden of persuasion.

B. Police Report Statements

Appellant also argues that the District Court abused its
discretion in excluding as hearsay a statement from a police
report that witnesses at the scene of the shooting saw the
victim, not appellant, with the gun. The District Court
properly excluded this evidence as hearsay.

 At the pretrial conference, defense counsel complained that
the Government had not provided Brady information that had
been requested regarding the identity of witnesses who had
observed someone other than appellant with a gun. See
Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83 (1963). The request had
been made on the basis of a police report that had been
provided through discovery, which indicated that witnesses at
the scene of the shooting had observed the gunshot victim
holding a gun during or immediately following the shooting.
The Government's counsel replied that, after speaking to each
individual officer and all of the detectives, reviewing the
paperwork, and speaking with Government witnesses, it ap-
peared that the statement had been only a rumor: No
witness had actually made this claim. The defense counsel
pointed out that the PD 163 written by Officer Heinz identi-
fied Defendant 1 as appellant and Defendant 2 as Coates, and
that it stated that "witnesses at the scene of the shooting
observed Def #2 with a gun in his hand during and/or just
after the shooting." The Government replied that it believed
that Officer Heinz had simply gotten his numbers mixed up.
The District Court denied the defense's request.

At trial, defense counsel attempted to direct Officer Heinz's
attention to the back of the PD 163, where it was written that
"Def #2" had been observed with the gun. The Government
objected on the grounds that this issue was covered by the
District Court's pretrial ruling. When defense counsel
brought up Officer Heinz's preliminary hearing testimony
that he had received information from Detective Voysest that
there was a witness to Coates possessing the firearm, the
Government objected that the information was double hear-
say and, again, that the information had been determined to
be incorrect. The defense counsel replied that he was offer-
ing the statement not to prove its truth, but

based upon the fact that this was the state of the
investigation at the time of the precipitation of this
document. This was the information upon which the
Metropolitan Police Department acted, similar to the

 Government's representations earlier on with re-
spect to the radio run and why individuals go to a
certain scene.

5/17/00 Tr. 60. The District Court sustained the Govern-
ment's objection, and the defense did not call Detective
Voysest.

Appellant now challenges these evidentiary rulings. We
review the District Court's evidentiary rulings for abuse of
discretion, United States v. Warren, 42 F.3d 647, 655 (D.C.
Cir. 1994), and conclude that the District Court did not abuse
its discretion in this case.

The Federal Rules of Evidence provide that "'[h]earsay' is
a statement, other than one made by the declarant while
testifying at the trial or hearing, offered in evidence to prove
the truth of the matter asserted." Fed. R. Evid. 801(c).
Hearsay is generally inadmissible as evidence. Fed. R. Evid.
802. However, "[a]n out-of court statement that is offered to
show its effect on the hearer's state of mind is not hearsay
under Rule 801(c)." United States v. Thompson, 279 F.3d
1043, 1047 (D.C. Cir. 2002); see also United States v. Wright,
783 F.2d 1091, 1098 (D.C. Cir. 1986).

Appellant contends that the witness statements were not
hearsay because they were offered to show the effect on the
hearer's state of mind. He argues that

it was not the witnesses' statements that were rele-
vant alone, but the disavowal of the statements that
made them relevant by showing that, in the face of
contrary information they had originally considered
reliable enough to act upon, the police took action
harmful to appellant by disavowing the statements
inculpating the co-defendant and dismissing the case
against him.
Appellant's Reply Br. at 14.

We rejected a similar claim in United States v. Evans, 216
F.3d 80 (D.C. Cir. 2000), cert. denied, 531 U.S. 971 (2000).
There, the trial court had permitted the Government to
introduce the testimony of an FBI agent that the FBI "'had
received ... information that [the defendant] was involved in
drug trafficking."' Id. at 85 (quoting agent's testimony;

ellipsis in original). This information had come from a gov-
ernment informant who was not a witness and would not be
available for cross-examination. The Government argued
that the statement was not hearsay because it was not offered
for its truth, but rather to establish why the FBI "did what
they did." Id. The court rejected this contention:

But if [the agent's] testimony about the FBI's "infor-
mation" did not go to the truth of that assertion, to
what did it go? The trial prosecutor said he offered
the testimony to establish "why they did what they
did with George Rose." For testimony to be admis-
sible for any purpose, however, it must be relevant.
See Fed. R. Evid. 402. And to be relevant, it must
have a "tendency to make the existence of [a] fact
that is of consequence to the determination of the
action more probable or less probable than it would
be without the evidence." Fed. R. Evid. 401. How
was "why they did what they did with George Rose"
related to such a fact of consequence?

Id. at 85. The court concluded that

the admission of [the agent's] testimony was error
under the Federal Rules of Evidence: under Rules
801 and 802 because the jury was effectively told
that the testimony could be used for its truth, and
under Rule 403 because the probative value of the
only relevant nonhearsay purpose--general back-
ground--was substantially outweighed by the dan-
ger of unfair prejudice.

Id. at 89. Likewise, in this case, the statement in the PD 163
that "witnesses at the scene of the shooting observed Def #2
with a gun in his hand during and/or just after the shooting"
is not relevant for anything other than its truth. And if it has
any relevance as "background," the probative value was sub-
stantially outweighed by the danger of prejudice.

Appellant argues that the statement at issue here was
offered to show the state of mind of the officers when they
arrested Fowler, Coates, and appellant. The "state of mind"
to which appellant refers is "that the police understood there
to be witnesses who saw the victim with the gun immediately

after the shooting." Appellant's Br. at 32. However, this
"state of mind," if not based on the truth of the statement, is
not relevant to a fact of consequence in the trial. The only
real issue at trial was who possessed the gun and drugs. The
statement in the PD 163 was only relevant to this issue if it
was accurate. If, as the Government asserted, the statement
reflected a mistaken rumor, then it would not have assisted
the jury in determining who possessed the gun and drugs.
To accept appellant's "state of mind" argument would be to
permit a loophole in the hearsay rule large enough to swallow
the rule itself. See Evans, 216 F.3d at 86 ("If we were to
accept the government's rationale here, then explaining why
government agents 'did what they did' through reference to
statements of absent informants would be acceptable in al-
most any case involving an undercover operation, and in
many others as well.").

Appellant also argues that the statement "was critical to
the defense to persuade the jury that the police had lied and
manipulated the evidence in a manner designed to strengthen
the case against appellant." Appellant's Br. at 32. This
argument clearly relies on the truth of the statement. If the
statement was not offered for its truth, it would not "per-
suade the jury that the police had lied and manipulated the
evidence."

III. Conclusion

The judgment of the District Court is hereby affirmed.