Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-11-07086/USCOURTS-caDC-11-07086-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 440
Nature of Suit: Other Civil Rights
Cause of Action: 

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United States Court of Appeals 

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued April 5, 2013 Decided July 9, 2013 

No. 11-7086 

LINDSAY HUTHNANCE, 

APPELLEE

v. 

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, ET AL., 

APPELLANTS

Appeal from the United States District Court 

for the District of Columbia 

(No. 1:06-cv-01871) 

Mary L. Wilson, Senior Assistant Attorney General, 

Office of the Attorney General for the District of Columbia, 

argued the cause for appellants. With her on the briefs were 

Irvin B. Nathan, Attorney General, Todd S. Kim, Solicitor 

General, and Donna M. Murasky, Deputy Solicitor General. 

John Moustakas argued the cause for appellee. With him 

on the brief were Jeffrey D. Skinner, Andrew S. Hudson, 

Arthur B. Spitzer, and Frederick V. Mulhauser. 

Before: BROWN and KAVANAUGH, Circuit Judges, and 

RANDOLPH, Senior Circuit Judge. 

 Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge BROWN. 

USCA Case #11-7086 Document #1445653 Filed: 07/09/2013 Page 1 of 23
2 

 Dissenting opinion filed by Circuit Judge KAVANAUGH.

 

 BROWN, Circuit Judge: The District of Columbia and two 

of its police officers appeal a jury verdict in favor of Lindsay 

Huthnance, an alleged victim of overzealous law 

enforcement. Huthnance claimed District police violated her 

common-law, statutory, and constitutional rights when they 

arrested her for disorderly conduct. A jury agreed, awarding 

her $90,000 in compensatory damages against the District and 

two of its officers, as well as $7,500 in punitive damages 

against the individual officers. The District and the officers 

now challenge the district court’s decision to exclude certain 

evidence, and argue that two jury instructions were improper. 

We agree the court erred by issuing a missing evidence 

instruction, but conclude the error was not prejudicial and 

affirm the district court. 

I 

 On November 15, 2005, Huthnance and her boyfriend, 

Adrien Marsoni, joined two friends at the Raven Bar and Grill 

in the District’s Mt. Pleasant neighborhood for a few drinks. 

On their walk home afterwards, Huthnance and Marsoni 

stopped at a 7-Eleven to buy cigarettes, a decision that 

ultimately spoiled what may otherwise have been a lovely 

evening. The parties dispute what happened, but in broad 

strokes, Huthnance got into a verbal tussle with some police 

officers and was arrested for disorderly conduct. 

This is Huthnance’s story. She “saw a number of police 

officers inside” the 7-Eleven and asked “what was going on.” 

Trial Tr. 52 (Mar. 7, 2011). Apparently uninterested in 

friendly banter, the officers told her to mind her own business 

and move along, so she turned to Marsoni and said, “Wow, 

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3 

nice use of my tax dollars.” Id. One of the officers, “in sort of 

a confrontational way,” challenged Huthnance to repeat 

herself, but she declined and walked out of the store, 

intending to go home. Id. at 52, 55. On their way out, Marsoni 

told someone outside the 7-Eleven to “fuck off,” but they 

continued “up the street” unmolested. Id. at 55, 112. This did 

not last. Two officers—James Antonio, the person Marsoni 

told to “fuck off,” and Liliana Acebal—followed Huthnance 

and Marsoni, stopped them, and demanded to see 

identification. Marsoni complied; Huthnance did not. Instead, 

she “asked continuously” why she was being stopped, 

whether the officers had probable cause, and whether she was 

under arrest. Id. at 55. The officers did not respond.

Huthnance then “raise[d her] voice” and said “I want your 

badge number.” Id. at 55, 61. She was instead told to put her 

hands against the wall. She complied, at which point Officer 

Acebal searched and handcuffed her. A third officer drove 

Huthnance to the police station, where she remained until 

morning. Huthnance claims this encounter began around 

11:45 p.m. and that she was arrested ten minutes later and was 

taken to the police station soon after midnight. 

The appellants paint a very different picture. Relying on 

Officer Antonio’s and Officer Acebal’s trial testimony, they 

claim Officers Antonio and Acebal, along with Officer Jose 

Morales, stopped to use the 7-Eleven’s bathroom during a 

plainclothes robbery detail. Officers Antonio and Acebal 

waited outside while Officer Morales went inside, and while 

sitting in their car, they saw Huthnance inside the 7-Eleven, 

“backing up towards the door. . . . waving her arms around” 

with “her middle finger ex[t]ended towards the officers that 

were inside the 7-Eleven.” Trial Tr. 43 (Mar. 11, 2011). They 

also heard her “scream out: You donut eating mother fuckers, 

this is where my tax dollars are going.” Id. at 44. Seeing that 

his colleagues inside 7-Eleven had not asked Huthnance to 

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stop “standing in the doorway” and that two people “had 

walked up and tried to get into the 7-Eleven,” Officer Antonio 

approached Huthnance and asked her to “keep it down and 

just keep moving.” Id. at 44–45. Officer Acebal also asked 

Huthnance to calm down. Apparently unappreciative of the 

officers’ solicitude for potential 7-Eleven patrons, Huthnance 

screamed, “Fuck you. Mind your own fucking business, go 

fuck yourself.” Id. at 45. Huthnance and Marsoni then began 

walking away, but Huthnance turned around, pulling back 

from Marsoni, and in a “[v]ery loud” voice said, “Fuck that. I 

ain’t fucking going nowhere. I’m a fucking citizen, I know 

my fucking rights.” Id. at 48. Marsoni repeatedly tried to calm 

her down and go home, but despite his best efforts, she began 

walking back toward the officers, yelling further affirmations 

of her citizenship and rights. 

 By now, the officers had asked her a number of times to 

calm down and go home and warned her that if she did not, 

they would issue her a citation for being “loud and 

boisterous.” Id. at 55. People were also beginning to “gather 

around” to see what was happening, residents of the 

apartments across the street were turning on their lights, and 

vehicles were slowing and stopping. Officer Antonio 

therefore walked back to the car to get the citation booklet, 

and Officer Acebal asked Huthnance for identification. 

Huthnance, who is about a foot taller than Officer Acebal, 

stood “basically on top of” the officer and replied, “Fuck you 

little bitch, I ain’t giving you shit.” Id. at 60. The officers had 

noticed “a hint of alcohol on her breath” and that her hair was 

“a little messy” and her eyes “a little red,” id. at 46, so when 

bystanders started moving closer, the officers decided to 

arrest her. Huthnance then asked, “What are you arresting me 

for, being drunk and eating a burrito?” Trial Tr. 29 (Mar. 14, 

2011). According to the officers’ testimony at trial, they first 

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arrived at the 7-Eleven around 1:40 a.m. on November 16 and 

arrested Huthnance somewhere between 1:45 and 1:55 a.m. 

 Huthnance eventually sued the District of Columbia and 

Officers Antonio, Acebal, and Morales claiming the police 

essentially arrested her for “contempt of cop,” Appellee’s Br. 

at 1, and that the government knew or should have known 

about its officers’ habits of doing so and failed to train them 

properly. After a few weeks of trial, the jury found that 

Officer Antonio and Officer Acebal committed the tort of 

false arrest and violated Huthnance’s First and Fourth 

Amendment rights, that Officer Acebal committed the tort of 

assault and battery, and that the District was deliberately 

indifferent to citizens’ First and Fourth Amendment rights.1

The jury found Morales was not liable on any of the counts. 

The District and Officers Antonio and Acebal now appeal. 

II 

 During discovery, Huthnance asked the District to 

produce “[a]ll Documents referring or relating to the arrest 

and detention of Plaintiff (and any encounter that preceded 

it) . . . including, without limitation, any police reports, 

witness statements, log entries, video recordings, post and 

forfeit paperwork, and all radio 

communications/transmissions relating to Plaintiffs [sic] 

arrest, detention and transportation.” The District produced 

the arrest report the officers prepared at the police station after 

arresting Huthnance, the form Huthnance signed in jail that 

entitled her to release, and a “Court Case Review Form.” The 

 1

 Huthnance also claimed the officers misused the procedure 

through which she was released from arrest, thereby violating her 

Fifth Amendment rights. The jury found in her favor, but the 

district court later vacated the verdict. 

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District later supplemented its response, stating, “As a result 

of its search, the District has concluded that there are no radio 

communications related to plaintiff’s arrest, however see 

Attachment 21, radio log related to plaintiff’s arrest.” The 

radio log in question listed the following information: 

AGENCY: MPD 

DATE/TIME: 20051116020505ES 

DISPATCH DATE/TIME: 20051116020506ES 

UNIQUE ID: 5118642 

CASE NUMBER: R2005155750 

ADDRESS: 3100 MOUNT PLEASANT ST NW 

 Huthnance subsequently told the District she wanted to 

depose someone about radio transmissions, so the District 

produced a supervisor at its Office of Unified 

Communications. See FED. R. CIV. P. 30(b)(6). The following 

exchange occurred at the deposition: 

Q: [W]hen a requester wants to pull information 

about a call, how does your office—what 

information does your office use as the identifier to 

match up the request with the call? 

A: Usually the location, time and date. 

Q: You say “usually.” There’s times when you use 

other identifiers? 

A: Maybe the central complaint number, . . . the 

CCN number. 

Q: And the CCN number is the category on [the 

radio log] marked complaint number, I believe. 

A: No. They are two separate things. 

Q: So the CCN number, is that the case number on 

this [radio log]? 

A: No. It’s different. 

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Q: Okay. So I don’t see CCN number on this radio 

[log], correct? 

A: Right.

Huthnance asked no follow-up questions, a decision she later 

explained was the result of her conclusion that the radio log, 

unconnected to her arrest, had been produced only because of 

its relationship to the date, time, and location of her arrest. As 

Huthnance pointed out, the address 3100 Mount Pleasant 

Street corresponds to a liquor store down the street from 

where she was arrested.

 This was the end of the matter until Officer Antonio 

testified at trial that Huthnance’s arrest “was called into 

dispatch” at 2:05 a.m. and that he knew the time because “[i]n 

preparing for the trial, I observed a dispatcher’s report.” Trial 

Tr. 64 (Mar. 11, 2011). Huthnance filed, and the district 

court granted, a motion in limine to block any further 

testimony and evidence about the radio log. Later that day, 

however, the appellants’ expert witness referenced the radio 

log twice. First, explaining why the arrest report was not a 

“perfect narrative,” he stated: 

[T]here have been certain inaccuracies, but minor, 

pointed out already in it. Dates—and I don’t say that 

the times—the times from the evidence that I’ve 

seen about the dispatch runs, they certainly 

corroborate the time on this particular document. So 

I don’t consider that a mistake or an inaccuracy. 

Trial Tr. 116 (Mar. 14, 2011). Second, he testified the 

typographical errors on the arrest report did not “negate the 

lawfulness of the arrest” because “we know that from other 

records that the event took place in the morning of the 16th of 

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October.” Id. at 121.2

 Huthnance’s counsel approached the 

bench to complain about the witness’s disregard of the court’s 

order, and the appellants’ counsel apologized, noting that the 

witness had in fact been instructed not to refer to the radio 

log.

 The district court’s order granting Huthnance’s motion in 

limine had also provided that Huthnance “is entitled to a 

missing evidence instruction or, at her election at or before 

the end of the trial, an instruction that Officer Antonio’s 

testimony about the dispatch report be disregarded,” and 

Huthnance ultimately invoked that provision, asking the court 

to issue the missing evidence instruction. Over the District’s 

objections, the court granted Huthnance’s wish and instructed 

the jury it could infer the radio log was not introduced into 

evidence either because it does not exist or because it would 

have been unfavorable to the District and the officers’ case. 

 The appellants challenge both the court’s decision to 

exclude evidence relating to the radio log and its missing 

evidence jury instruction. We review the district court’s 

evidentiary rulings for abuse of discretion, see, e.g., Chedick 

v. Nash, 151 F.3d 1077, 1084 (D.C. Cir. 1998), and we apply 

the same standard to its articulation of jury instructions, Joy v. 

Bell Helicopter Textron, Inc., 999 F.2d 549, 556 (D.C. Cir. 

1993), and its threshold decision to issue a missing evidence 

instruction, see Czekalski v. LaHood, 589 F.3d 449, 455 (D.C. 

Cir. 2009). That said, we will reverse an erroneous 

evidentiary ruling or jury instruction only if the error affects a 

party’s substantial rights. See FED. R. CIV. P. 61. 

 2

 The witness apparently misspoke since the log shows the 

dispatch was recorded in 2005 on November 16 at 2:05:05 Eastern 

Standard time. 

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A 

 The district court did not abuse its discretion by 

excluding evidence of the radio log.3 Before trial, the court 

ordered the parties to file a joint statement describing, among 

other things, “each exhibit to be offered in evidence.” Order 

App’x A, No. 1:06-cv-01871 (D.D.C. Jan. 21, 2010). The 

order stated that “[t]here is a strong presumption that any 

exhibit not listed in accordance with this court’s order will not 

be admitted at trial.” Id. The appellants admit they never 

listed the radio log on their pretrial exhibit list. Nor do they 

point to any place in the record suggesting they tried to amend 

the exhibit list. True, the district court’s presumption was 

ostensibly rebuttable, but the appellants also point to nothing 

in the record suggesting they tried to rebut the presumption 

and introduce the radio log. 

 Instead, they tell us that “[a]ny prejudice to 

Huthnance . . . was outweighed by the document’s importance 

to the defense, especially the individual officers, and the 

truth-seeking function of the jury,” particularly given that 

Huthnance had possessed a copy of the radio log for over a 

year before trial and the Rule 30(b)(6) deponent did not 

represent the individual officers. Appellants’ Br. at 35. Given 

the appellants’ apparent lack of interest in introducing 

evidence “importan[t]” to their case, we find it hard to say the 

district court abused its discretion by relying on the parties’ 

implicit representations about the utility of the available 

 3

 The appellants allot only one paragraph to this argument and 

barely mention the standard for reviewing district court evidentiary 

decisions. See FED. R. APP. P. 28 (requiring appellant’s brief to 

contain “for each issue, a concise statement of the applicable 

standard of review”). Not a strong start. 

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evidence4

 or by enforcing a pretrial order the appellants 

concede was proper. Nor do we think the district court abused 

its discretion by consigning the consequences of exclusion to 

the party that could have most easily prevented it. See Mem. 

Op., No. 1:06-cv-01871, at 35 (D.D.C. July 19, 2011) 

(suggesting the appellants could have avoided any problems 

caused by the exclusion of the radio log simply by 

“follow[ing] the rules”). 

 That Huthnance possessed the radio log before trial is a 

clever non sequitur: possession does not entail knowledge. 

True, the context was such that Huthnance was on notice she 

might need to investigate further, if only to shore up her stock 

of impeachment evidence—for instance, by asking the 

deponent or individual officers to compare the documents 

directly. See 2 MCCORMICK ON EVIDENCE § 264 (7th ed. 

2013) (“It is wiser to hold that if an argument on failure to 

produce proof is fallacious, the remedy is the answering 

argument and the jury’s good sense.”). But there is also no 

evidence Huthnance acted in bad faith when, as the appellants 

decry, she failed to notice independently that the eleven-digit 

“case number” listed on the radio log (R2005155750) 

comprised the central complaint number listed on the arrest 

report (155750) preceded by the letter “R” and the four digit 

year (2005). Since 2005 was obviously the year, the District’s 

system was not particularly difficult to decipher. However, 

not only did the District’s Rule 30(b)(6) deponent not link the 

 4

 There is no reason to think the radio log was more than minimally 

probative because, as the district court explained, “[t]here was no evidence 

that the call to the dispatch happened contemporaneously with the arrest.” 

Mem. Op., No. 1:06-cv-01871, at 33 (D.D.C. July 19, 2011). Officer 

Antonio testified that officers are required to call arrests into dispatch 

“upon making the arrest” and that Huthnance’s arrest was called into 

dispatch at 2:05 a.m., Trial Tr. 63–64 (Mar. 11, 2011), and the appellants 

point to no other evidence in the record that would bear on the matter.

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radio log to Huthnance’s arrest, a fact the appellants 

acknowledge, but he effectively denied the numeric overlap.

B 

 Once it excluded the radio log and related evidence, 

however, the district court erred by issuing the missing 

evidence instruction. 

1 

 The missing evidence rule provides that “when a party 

has relevant evidence within his control which he fails to 

produce, that failure gives rise to an inference that the 

evidence is unfavorable to him.” Int’l Union, United Auto., 

Aerospace & Agricultural Implement Workers of America 

(UAW) v. NLRB (“Int’l Union”), 459 F.2d 1329, 1336 (D.C. 

Cir. 1972). The idea is that “all other things being equal, a 

party will of his own volition introduce the strongest evidence 

available to prove his case.” Id. at 1338. Thus, “[t]he 

production of weak evidence when strong is available can 

lead only to the conclusion that the strong would have been 

adverse. Silence then becomes evidence of the most 

convincing character.” Interstate Circuit v. United States, 306 

U.S. 208, 226 (1939) (internal citations omitted). 

 Pushed to its outer limits, this logic suggests any failure 

to introduce ostensibly relevant evidence warrants an adverse 

inference. The missing evidence rule does not go so far. We 

have, for instance, denied the inference where the evidence 

was not “peculiarly within the power of one party.” Czekalski, 

589 F.3d at 455 (internal quotation marks omitted). Thus 

circumscribed, the rule serves a practical function—whether 

efficiency, deterrence, cost allocation, or otherwise. See, e.g., 

Int’l Union, 459 F.2d at 1338–39. 

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 We have likewise proscribed the inference when its 

premises do not obtain, such as when there are innocuous 

explanations for the party’s failure to introduce the evidence. 

Explanations might range from “[c]onsiderations of strategy, 

economy and logistics, reinforced by the rule against 

cumulative evidence,” United States v. Pitts, 918 F.2d 197, 

199 (D.C. Cir. 1990), to the judge’s or other party’s role in 

suppressing the evidence or the party’s belief “his opponent 

has failed to meet his burden of proof,” Int’l Union, 459 F.2d 

at 1338. The missing evidence rule is unavailable, for 

example, where the evidence in question is constitutionally 

protected. See, e.g., id. at 1339 n.45. 

 The rule is thus “disappointingly free of mystery and 

mumbo-jumbo.” Id. at 1335. Though its roots dig deeper than 

Blackstone, see, e.g., 2 WILLIAM BLACKSTONE,

COMMENTARIES *368, the rule is “more a product of common 

sense than of the common law.” Int’l Union, 459 F.2d at 

1335. At bottom, the question is whether an adverse inference 

is “natural and reasonable.” United States v. Craven, 458 F.2d 

802, 805 (D.C. Cir. 1972); see 2 WIGMORE, EVIDENCE 

§§ 285–90 (James H. Chadbourn rev., 1979). If not, then it 

does not matter that the doctrine’s prerequisites are otherwise 

satisfied. See United States v. Norris, 873 F.2d 1519, 1522 

(D.C. Cir. 1989). 

 The district court plays an important role in this regard. It 

must “determine whether a jury could appropriately deduce 

from the underlying circumstances the adverse fact sought to 

be inferred.” Burgess v. United States, 440 F.2d 226, 237 

(D.C. Cir. 1970) (Robinson, J., concurring); see id. at 234 

(opinion of Fahy, J.); Brown v. United States, 414 F.2d 1165, 

1167 (D.C. Cir. 1969). As our standard of review makes 

manifest, this gatekeeping function entails a fair amount of 

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discretion. But in exercising that discretion, a district court 

may not abandon its post at the bulwarks of our justice 

system. Because the missing evidence instruction deals not 

with evidence but with its absence, “there is the danger that 

the instruction permitting an adverse inference may add a 

fictitious weight to one side or another of the case.” Burgess, 

440 F.2d at 234 (opinion of Fahy, J.). Court instructions have 

the weight of law, whether they require or merely permit the 

inference, id. at 235, so the court should not thumb the scales 

unnecessarily. Sometimes, to be sure, evidence is so strong a 

party would be crazy not to introduce it. But when it would be 

inappropriate to draw an adverse inference, the district court 

should not instruct the jury it may do so. 

 Such was the case here. The District gave Huthnance a 

copy of the radio log during discovery and affirmatively (if 

somewhat ambiguously) stated that the log “related to 

plaintiff’s arrest”; and though its Rule 30(b)(6) deponent 

erroneously failed to link the log to the arrest report,5

 the 

deponent’s statements did not necessarily mean the log was 

irrelevant or, if it was, that the District did not believe 

otherwise. The district court knew all this.6

 By listing the 

 5

 Whether in fact the radio log sheds light on Huthnance’s 

arrest would not ordinarily be for us to decide, but Huthnance 

effectively conceded the log’s relationship to the arrest report at 

oral argument. See Oral Arg. 12:24–12:51. 

6

 We make no claim about whether the radio log was 

“peculiarly” within the appellants’ control. At oral argument, 

Huthnance suggested for the first time that the log was 

“constructively missing evidence” insofar as Huthnance’s 

ignorance about the log’s relevance means it was effectively within 

the appellants’ peculiar control. Oral Arg. 26:49–29:37. This has 

some force. We, along with other circuits, have interpreted the 

“peculiar availability” requirement of the analogous missing 

witness instruction in a practical, not just physical, sense. See, e.g., 

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dispatch time as 2:05 a.m., November 16, the log tended to 

support the appellants’ claims about what time everything 

happened. The district court knew this, as well. And once the 

court excluded the log, the appellants could not (try to) 

introduce it even if they wanted to. We cannot squeeze an 

adverse inference from these facts; there is simply no 

evidence the District—the only appellant subject to any 

charges of fault—sought to hide the ball. Nor, on the facts of 

this case, would a missing evidence instruction serve any 

useful function. Quite the opposite. Condoning the missing 

evidence instruction here would incentivize gamesmanship. 

See Burgess, 440 F.2d at 239 (Robb, J., concurring); United 

States v. Comulada, 340 F.2d 449, 453 (2d Cir. 1965). As we 

noted above, Huthnance’s ignorance about the log’s relevance 

appears to have been a misunderstanding she could have 

avoided simply by looking more closely at it or by asking a 

few more questions. 

 Pointing to the district court’s statement that “the District 

is having sanctions imposed against it for their conduct in the 

case,” Trial Tr. 13 (Mar. 23, 2011), Huthnance maintains the 

missing evidence instruction was nevertheless an appropriate 

trial-management device. Yet even assuming the court’s 

reference to sanctions in fact referred to the missing evidence 

 

United States v. Young, 463 F.2d 934, 942 (D.C. Cir. 1972);

Sagendorf-Teal v. County of Rensselaer, 100 F.3d 270, 275 (2d Cir. 

1996); Oxman v. WLS-TV, 12 F.3d 652, 661 (7th Cir. 1993); United 

States v. Spinosa, 982 F.2d 620, 632 (1st Cir. 1992); United States 

v. Blakemore, 489 F.2d 193, 195 (6th Cir. 1973). But in light of 

Huthnance’s failure to make this argument earlier, see, e.g., United 

States v. Southerland, 486 F.3d 1355, 1360 (D.C. Cir. 2007), her 

emphasis that her “principal argument” is that the instruction was a 

sanction, Oral Argument 29:52–30:37, and our conclusion that an 

adverse inference was nevertheless inappropriate here, we can leave 

that question unresolved. 

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instruction—which is not at all clear7

—the record offers no 

indication why any additional sanction was needed once the 

radio log had been excluded. Officer Antonio’s testimony did 

not violate the district court’s pretrial order, which prohibited 

the parties only from introducing certain “exhibits,” or the 

exclusion order, which had not yet been entered; nor is there 

evidence suggesting the appellants knew their expert would 

reference the log. To the contrary, the only record evidence on 

the matter is appellants’ counsel’s statements to the court that 

he had in fact instructed the witness about the exclusion order. 

 Huthnance advances an alternative reason why the 

testimony was improper and therefore necessitated the 

missing evidence instruction: it violated the federal rules of 

evidence—in particular, the rule against hearsay and the best 

 7

 The court’s reference was vague, and the only other time it 

invoked the concept of evidentiary sanctions was in a post-trial 

discussion about excluding evidence in which it also declined to 

describe its exclusion order as a sanction. As may be evident from 

our discussion, the district court did not clearly explain why it 

issued the missing evidence instruction. The instruction made its 

first appearance in the case when Huthnance filed the motion in 

limine to exclude the radio log and requested one of two possible 

curative instructions. After oral argument at which neither party 

discussed the instructions, the court adopted Huthnance’s proposed 

order—which empowered her to decide which instruction would be 

given—basically unchanged. Later, Huthnance included a missing 

evidence instruction in her proposed jury instructions, and after oral 

argument, the court again decided to issue the instruction. The court 

did so, however, at the same time it ruled on a different proposed 

instruction, so the only clues it provided about its thought process 

were its comment about sanctions and its recognition that the 

instruction would be “very damaging” to the individual defendants 

who had nothing to do with the Rule 30(b)(6) deposition mix-up, 

Trial Tr. 10 (Mar. 23, 2011), which of course is a reason not to 

issue the instruction. 

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evidence rule. We remain unpersuaded. The missing evidence 

instruction is not a panacea for evidentiary errors. If Officer 

Antonio’s or the expert witness’s testimony violated the rules 

of evidence, Huthnance should have objected, and if 

sustained, that would have presumably afforded a sufficient 

remedy—particularly if accompanied by a simple instruction 

to disregard the testimony.8

 Though she now insists 

otherwise, Huthnance implicitly acknowledged the 

sufficiency of that approach when, in her motion to exclude 

the radio log, she asked the court either to issue a missing 

evidence instruction or to instruct the jury to disregard Officer 

Antonio’s testimony about the log; she then doubled down on 

that position after trial when she suggested to the district court 

that the jury “carefully adhered to its instructions,” Plaintiff’s 

Opp. to Defendants’ Post-Trial Mot., No. 1:06-cv-01871, at 

18 (D.D.C. May 26, 2011). Huthnance made the strategic 

decision to seek exclusion of the evidence without the jury’s 

knowledge, see Oral Arg. 15:04–15:25, and to complain in a 

sidebar discussion about the expert witness’s violation of the 

exclusion order, see, e.g., Trial Tr. 121 (Mar. 14, 2011). That 

was her choice. 

2 

 A court confronting a trial error must ask whether the 

error substantially affected the outcome of the case. If the 

court cannot say with fair assurance the error was harmless, it 

must conclude the error was not. See Williams v. U.S. 

Elevator Corp., 920 F.2d 1019, 1022–23 & n.5 (D.C. Cir. 

 8

 Though we have acknowledged that “objection cannot 

always procure realistic cure for damage,” United States v. Young, 

463 F.2d 934, 940 (D.C. Cir. 1972), an objection—particularly one 

accompanied by judicial instruction—may sometimes suffice. See 

United States v. Foster, 557 F.3d 650, 656 (D.C. Cir. 2009);

Gaither v. United States, 413 F.2d 1061, 1080 (D.C. Cir. 1969). 

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17 

1990). This analysis depends on a number of factors, 

including the closeness of the case, the centrality of the issue 

in question, and the effectiveness of any steps taken to 

mitigate the effects of the error. See Carter v. District of 

Columbia, 795 F.2d 116, 132 (D.C. Cir. 1986). 

 The parties’ accounts of what happened differ materially, 

and the evidence at trial was equivocal, tending to corroborate 

both parties’ positions. Yet the radio log was not central to 

this credibility dispute because only the jury’s findings about 

what happened were outcome determinative, and the log was 

relevant only because it tended to corroborate the appellants’ 

claims about when everything happened. The jury could have 

determined that everything happened at 2 a.m. but still found 

for Huthnance, or it could have determined that everything 

happened at midnight but still found for the appellants. See 

Appellants’ Br. at 50 (arguing Huthnance breached the peace 

by disturbing people who were likely asleep in their 

apartments, “whether it was midnight or 2:00 a.m.” (emphasis 

added)). It likewise could have determined the radio log had 

little bearing on which party’s story was correct because, as 

we noted above, the log did not necessarily make a claim 

about when the arrest happened. See supra note 4. The 

missing evidence instruction called the jury’s attention to all 

of these distinctions by framing the log’s relevance in terms 

of its alleged ability to “show[] the time that the arresting 

officers reported Ms. Huthnance’s arrest,” Jury Instructions, 

No. 1:06-cv-01871, at 3 (D.D.C. March 24, 2011) (“Jury 

Instructions”). 

 In a slightly different case, we might have concluded the 

instruction was nevertheless prejudicial: notwithstanding the 

log’s relevance to the case before trial, the instruction might 

have mattered in light of what happened at trial. In this case, 

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however, it did not.9

 First, District police sergeant Michael 

Smith—who, Officer Antonio testified, was generally present 

at the time of the incident—testified in a deposition 

Huthnance introduced at trial that he saw Officers Antonio 

and Acebal at the 7-Eleven “maybe around 12:00 o’clock at 

night” and that he saw them talking to “some lady” and “a 

guy” a few businesses away from the 7-Eleven. Trial Tr. 128 

(Mar. 9, 2011). Sergeant Smith did not recall the woman 

“yelling and screaming in the 7-Eleven” or otherwise doing 

anything that would “get [his] attention at all,” and he 

testified he could not hear their voices from about fifty feet 

away. Id. at 129–30. Yet the appellants have not pointed to 

any place in the record where they refuted his apparently 

neutral testimony or explained it away. 

 Second, the district court also issued a missing witness 

instruction—an instruction of the same doctrinal vintage as 

the missing evidence instruction—about two eyewitnesses the 

appellants identified but who never testified at trial,10 and the 

appellants have offered no reason to think the jury would have 

drawn an adverse inference about the radio log but not the 

missing witnesses. See Shinseki v. Sanders, 556 U.S. 396, 409 

(2009) (“[T]he party that seeks to have a judgment set aside 

because of an erroneous ruling carries the burden of showing 

that prejudice resulted.” (internal quotation marks omitted)). 

 9

 It is suggestive that Huthnance’s counsel all but ignored the 

timing dispute during closing argument, expressly telling the jury 

that timing was irrelevant. He apparently did not think the jury’s 

decision would be swayed by the appellants’ failure to introduce the 

log. The appellants’ counsel implicitly agreed when he only briefly 

mentioned the issue and only as an avenue to insight about 

Huthnance’s general credibility and the likelihood that she was 

drunker than she thought. 

10 The appellants do not challenge this instruction. 

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Needless to say, those witnesses would have testified about 

more than just the time the officers phoned in Huthnance’s 

arrest. So not only did the missing witness instruction—unlike 

the missing evidence instruction—go to the heart of the 

factual dispute, but even without the missing evidence 

instruction, the jury would still have been instructed it could 

draw an inference adverse to the appellants about the very 

same issue implicated by the missing evidence instruction. 

III 

 At the time of Huthnance’s arrest, the District’s 

disorderly conduct statute prohibited “shout[ing] or mak[ing] 

a noise either outside or inside a building during the nighttime 

to the annoyance or disturbance of any considerable number 

of persons,” but only if someone did so “with intent to 

provoke a breach of the peace, or under circumstances such 

that a breach of the peace may be occasioned thereby.” D.C. 

CODE § 22-1321 (1981); see In re T.L., 996 A.2d 805, 809–10 

(D.C. 2010).11 The district court paraphrased this statute to the 

jury and explained that it could find Huthnance intended, or 

was likely, to breach the peace only if she (i) “[w]as so 

 11 In relevant part, the statute provided: 

Whoever, with intent to provoke a breach of the peace, or 

under circumstances such that a breach of the peace may 

be occasioned thereby: . . . (3) shouts or makes a noise 

either outside or inside a building during the nighttime to 

the annoyance or disturbance of any considerable number 

of persons . . . shall be fined not more than $250 or 

imprisoned not more than 90 days, or both. 

The District later revamped the statute. The law now prohibits, 

among other things, “unreasonably loud noise between 10:00 p.m. 

and 7:00 a.m. that is likely to annoy or disturb one or more other 

persons in their residences.” D.C. CODE § 22-1321(d). 

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unreasonably loud as to unreasonably intrude on the privacy 

of a captive audience, or so loud and continued as to offend a 

reasonable person of common sensibilities and disrupt the 

reasonable conduct of basic nighttime activities such as 

sleep,” and (ii) “[d]id wake, or was likely to wake a 

considerable number of people from sleep, or did intrude, or 

was likely to intrude on the reasonable expectation of 

tranquility in the home of a considerable number of people.” 

The appellants believe this explanation of the breach-of-peace 

element misstated the law “because it focused on a captive 

audience and the disruption of sleep or the tranquility of the 

home.” Appellants’ Br. at 47. They argue that because breach 

of peace under District law turns on the totality of 

circumstances, the disorderly conduct statute can be triggered 

by “the disruption of traffic and profanely loud and boisterous 

behavior that causes people to gather, especially late at night.” 

Id. at 49. 

 We think any error infecting the district court’s breachof-peace jury instruction was harmless. The appellants bear 

the burden of showing prejudice, so we are particularly struck 

by their theory of the case (and sole argument on appeal), 

according to which Huthnance breached the peace by 

“causing a scene that prompted a bus to stop and forced other 

traffic to slow down or detour around the bus, disturbed 

people in their apartments . . . so that they turned on the lights 

and looked out the window, and caused as many as thirteen 

people to gather on the sidewalks.” Id. at 50. If the jury had 

believed this, it would have found for the appellants even 

under the allegedly erroneous jury instruction, so the 

appellants’ claim to prejudice depends on showing the jury 

might have credited their evidence about the rubbernecking 

but not their evidence about activity in the nearby 

apartments—and that the jury might therefore have found for 

Huthnance. See Joy, 999 F.2d at 557 (“[I]t is specious to 

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21 

claim that the district court’s jury instructions prevented the 

jury from reaching a verdict for Allison if the jury agreed with 

Allison’s theory of the case. If the jury adopted Allison’s 

view . . . it could have held for Allison . . . .”); cf. United 

States v. Johnson, 216 F.3d 1162, 1166 (D.C. Cir. 2000) 

(“Where there has been an error in instructions, we have held 

such error to be harmless if the jury necessarily found facts 

that would have satisfied a proper instruction.”). The evidence 

did not preclude the jury from crediting only a subset of the 

appellants’ evidence, but not only have the appellants 

proffered no reason to think this credibility distinction is 

anything other than theoretical, they have given us little 

reason to think the jury could or would have parlayed the 

distinction into a favorable verdict. 

 The appellants have pointed to no evidence that supports 

their claims about the rubbernecking without also supporting 

their claims about the neighbors waking up. The arrest report 

mentioned neither event, and the officers testified about both. 

Given that the officers’ testimony is the only evidence the 

appellants adduced that positively supports their account, the 

jury had every reason to take the evidence of rubbernecking 

and disturbed neighbors as the appellants presented it: all or 

nothing. The “all,” moreover, started weak and ended weaker. 

The officers failed to present a unified front at trial about the 

rubbernecking, Huthnance’s counsel subjected the officers to 

a rigorous cross-examination that exposed a number of 

inconsistencies in their testimony, and the general credibility 

of the officers’ account took a hit when the district court 

issued the missing witness instruction.

 At no point in this process would the jury have had any 

reason to distinguish between the officers’ testimony about 

rubbernecking and the officers’ testimony about the sleepy 

neighbors. Few of the inconsistencies in the officers’ 

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testimony related to rubbernecking and the neighbors, so we 

doubt that only the officers’ credibility about the neighbors 

suffered damage; the strikes by Huthnance’s counsel were not 

so targeted. The jury could not have distilled the 

inconsistencies into a single conclusion about the likelihood 

that Huthnance disturbed the neighbors’ slumber. More 

plausibly, the jury, considering the officers’ credibility both 

generally and with respect to individual pieces of testimony, 

drew conclusions about the officers’ testimony that swept 

more broadly. And the missing witness instruction certainly 

drew no distinction between the constituent pieces in the 

officers’ story. If the jury did not believe Huthnance woke up 

the neighbors, in other words, it was not because of any 

evidence unique to the officers’ account of those—or any 

other—facts. 

IV 

 For the reasons stated, the district court’s judgment is 

Affirmed.

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KAVANAUGH, Circuit Judge, dissenting: The Court 

concludes that the missing evidence instruction given at trial 

was not appropriate. I agree with that conclusion. The next 

question is whether that error was harmless. The District 

Court itself recognized that the missing evidence instruction 

would be “very damaging” to the defendants if the District 

Court were to give it (as the District Court ultimately did). I 

agree with that assessment. Because the missing evidence 

instruction was not appropriate here and because it was “very 

damaging” to the defendants, I would vacate the judgment 

and remand for a new trial. 

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