Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca8-05-03881/USCOURTS-ca8-05-03881-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
United States of America
Appellee
Fred Walker
Appellant

Document Text:

1

The Honorable Henry E. Autrey, United States District Judge for the Eastern

District of Missouri. 

United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE EIGHTH CIRCUIT

___________

No. 05-3881

___________

United States of America, *

*

Appellee, *

* Appeal from the United States

v. * District Court for the 

* Eastern District of Missouri. 

Fred Walker, * 

*

Appellant. * 

___________

Submitted: June 14, 2006

Filed: December 18, 2006

___________

Before MURPHY, MELLOY, and COLLOTON, Circuit Judges.

___________

COLLOTON, Circuit Judge.

Following a jury trial, Fred Walker was convicted of one count of unlawful

possession of a firearm as a previously convicted felon, in violation of 18 U.S.C.

§ 922(g)(1). The district court1

 sentenced him to a term of 96 months’ imprisonment.

Walker appeals, and we affirm.

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On the evening of January 13, 2004, Fred Walker, a convicted felon, was

arrested as part of a heroin investigation. Walker was forcibly removed from his

vehicle, and taken by ambulance to a hospital to receive treatment for injuries

sustained during the arrest. About an hour after Walker’s arrest, his wife, Victoria

Walker, arrived on the scene and consented to a search of the residence she claimed

to share with Walker at 10323 Monarch in St. Louis County.

When police officers searched the residence, they discovered a bag of

marijuana, numerous rubber bands, and a .38 caliber revolver located in a sliding

compartment in the right side of the headboard of a bed in one of the bedrooms. A

bottle of Dormin, which is commonly used to dilute heroin, was also found in the

compartment. On a dresser to the right of the bed, the police observed an envelope

addressed to Walker at “5814 Dressell.” In a sliding compartment in the left side of

the headboard, police found a small .32 caliber Derringer. Men’s clothing and shoes

were found on the right side of the bed, and women’s clothing and shoes were found

on the left side of the bed.

After Walker was released from the hospital, he was taken to the police

headquarters for booking. According to testimony presented by the prosecution, he

provided “10323 Monarch” as the address of his residence, and when asked about a

gun found at that address, he admitted that he owned the gun for his protection.

Walker again provided the street address of 10323 Monarch while being processed

into federal custody the following day.

At the beginning of Walker’s trial, the government informed the district court

it intended to introduce evidence of Walker’s prior conviction for robbery in the first

degree. Walker was sentenced in 1986 in Missouri state court to serve 15 years in

prison, was released on parole on February 6, 1996, and was discharged from parole

on July 29, 2001. (Appellee’s Add. at 5). Walker had used a firearm during the

commission of the robbery offense, and the government sought to use the conviction

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to “show knowledge of his possession of firearms.” (T. Tr. I at 4). Walker objected,

claiming the conviction was “so remote in time that it would be prejudicial to the

defendant and without probative value to the jury,” (id. at 4), but the court held that

the conviction was relevant to whether Walker knowingly possessed the gun, and

declined to exclude the evidence.

During trial on the felon-in-possession charge, the court permitted the

government to introduce evidence of the prior conviction under Federal Rule of

Evidence 404(b), after admonishing the jury that it “may not use this similar acts

evidence to decide whether the defendant carried out the acts involved in the crime

charged in the indictment,” but could consider the evidence to “decide whether the

defendant knowingly possessed the firearm on January 13, 2004.” (T. Tr. III at 9-10).

The government called Special Agent Kimberly Copenhagen with the Bureau of

Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, who identified a certified copy of the

robbery conviction, and then testified that the transcript of the hearing in which

Walker pleaded guilty indicated that he was armed with a revolver during the

commission of the robbery offense. She explained that the offense was committed on

December 19, 1985.

Walker testified in his defense that he was not living in the house located at

10323 Monarch, but actually was residing at 5814 Dressell in St. Louis City. He

explained that he and his wife had just bought the house on Monarch, but had not yet

sold the house on Dressell. Walker said that his wife and a friend who was living with

them moved to the Monarch residence, but claimed that he had stayed at Dressell to

protect the house from vandals. He denied telling the officer during the initial

booking that he lived on Monarch and disputed the officer’s testimony that he had

admitted possessing a gun, but stated he had provided the Monarch address during

federal processing because he thought it was a “stable place” and would assist him to

“make bond.” He denied owning any guns, and stated that he did not know of any

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guns that were in the house on Monarch. The jury found Walker guilty of unlawful

possession of a firearm as a previously convicted felon.

On appeal, Walker contests the admission of his prior robbery conviction,

arguing that it was improperly admitted under Federal Rule of Evidence 404(b)

because the conviction is not relevant to the charged offense, is too remote in time,

and is overly prejudicial. Rule 404(b) provides that evidence of other crimes is

admissible to prove “motive, opportunity, intent, preparation, plan, knowledge,

identity, or absence of mistake or accident.” The evidence must be “(1) relevant to a

material issue; (2) similar in kind and not overly remote in time to the crime charged;

(3) supported by sufficient evidence; and (4) higher in probative value than

prejudicial effect.” United States v. Strong, 415 F.3d 902, 905 (8th Cir. 2005). We

review a district court’s decision to admit such evidence for an abuse of discretion,

and will reverse only when the evidence “clearly had no bearing on the case and was

introduced solely to prove the defendant’s propensity to commit criminal acts.” Id.

at 904 (internal quotation omitted). 

Walker contends that he did not place his knowledge and intent at issue,

because he defended against the charge by arguing that he simply was not present at

the house when the guns were found. Knowing possession of a firearm, however, is

an element of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1), and Walker placed his knowledge of the

firearm’s presence in the headboard of the bed at issue by pleading not guilty to the

crime and requiring the government to prove his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

United States v. Chesney, 86 F.3d 564, 572 (6th Cir. 1996). Evidence that a defendant

possessed a firearm on a previous occasion is relevant to show knowledge and intent,

Strong, 415 F.3d at 905, and Walker’s prior conviction for armed robbery addresses

the material issue of his knowledge of the presence of the firearm and his intent to

possess it. 

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Walker also claims the prior robbery conviction is too remote in time and is not

sufficiently similar to the felon-in-possession charge, because “the mere possession

of the weapon, standing alone, is not illegal under the state robbery first degree

statute.” (Appellant’s Br. at 17). When admitted to show intent, “the prior acts need

not be duplicates, but must be sufficiently similar to support an inference of criminal

intent.” Strong, 415 F.3d at 905 (internal quotation omitted). Walker’s prior

conviction for first degree robbery is similar in kind to his current offense, as each

involved his possession of a firearm in connection with a criminal act. See id. 

To determine if a crime is too remote in time to be admissible under Rule

404(b), we apply a reasonableness standard, evaluating the facts and circumstances

of each case. United States v. Adams, 401 F.3d 886, 894 (8th Cir. 2005). Whether the

conviction is close in time to the charged offense is “one factor indicating the

relevancy of the evidence, but there is no specific number of years beyond which prior

bad acts are no longer relevant to the issue of intent.” United States v. Shoffner, 71

F.3d 1429, 1432 (8th Cir. 1995) (internal quotation omitted). Although approximately

18 years elapsed between Walker’s robbery offense in December 1985 and the instant

offense conduct in January 2004, it is “[a]n important circumstance” that Walker was

incarcerated from 1986 through February 1996. Adams, 401 F.3d at 894. Because he

had been out of prison for only eight years before committing the instant offense, the

total number of years separating the prior offense and the charged offense did not

“significantly diminish the probativeness of the evidence.” Id (internal quotation

omitted). Although we generally have been “reluctant” to uphold admission of

evidence of prior acts occurring more than 13 years prior to the charged offense,

Strong, 415 F.3d at 905, we have approved the admission of prior firearm convictions

under Rule 404(b) where 16 years separated the prior offense and charged offense, id.

at 906, and we have upheld admission of a prior robbery offense committed 20 years

before the offense on trial. United States v. Williams, 308 F.3d 833, 836-37 (8th Cir.

2002). See also Adams, 401 F.3d at 894 (upholding admission of 1986 drug

conviction in trial of offense committed in 2001); United States v. HernandezAppellate Case: 05-3881 Page: 5 Date Filed: 12/18/2006 Entry ID: 3260033
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Guevara, 162 F.3d 863, 873 (5th Cir. 1998) (upholding admission of prior conviction

for alien smuggling that was “nearly eighteen years old”). As in Strong and Adams,

we conclude that the prior conviction here is relevant to Walker’s knowledge of the

firearm in the instant situation, and, particularly in view of the ten-year period of

incarceration between offenses, it is not so remote in time as to render the district

court’s decision an abuse of discretion. 

The government provided sufficient evidence of Walker’s prior convictions

through the testimony of Special Agent Copenhagen, who identified a certified copy

of the conviction. Strong, 415 F.3d at 906. The district court’s determination that the

probative value of the evidence outweighed any prejudice is afforded substantial

deference, United States v. Franklin, 250 F.3d 653, 659 (8th Cir. 2001), and a limiting

instruction diminishes the danger of unfair prejudice arising from the admission of the

evidence. Strong, 415 F.3d at 906. In this case, the court offered an extensive

limiting instruction, admonishing the jury that “[y]ou may not convict a person simply

because you believe he may have committed similar acts in the past” and to “consider

the evidence of prior acts only on the issue of intent or knowledge.” (T. Tr. III at 10).

Although Walker claims on appeal that “the prejudicial effect of this evidence

was compounded by the admission of the guilty plea transcript showing that Walker

struck a security guard and a police officer in the commission of the 1985 robberies,

and gave a statement to the police blaming the offenses on his brother,” (Appellant’s

Br. at 19), the record offers no indication that the state court transcript was ever

admitted into evidence. The trial transcript reflects that the only details of the

conviction heard by the jury were contained in the testimony of Special Agent

Copenhagen, who stated that Walker was convicted of robbery in the first degree in

Missouri state court in 1986, and that he was armed during the commission of the

offense. It was not an abuse of discretion for the district court to conclude that the

probative value of this evidence outweighed any unfair prejudice, and to admit the

evidence under Rule 404(b).

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The judgment of the district court is affirmed.

MELLOY, Circuit Judge, dissenting.

I believe that United States v. Strong, 415 F.3d 902 (8th Cir. 2005), with a

sixteen-year interval and a tenuous factual connection between the defendant’s prior

crime and the charged offense, represents the outer limits of Rule 404(b) admissibility.

I would not extend those limits to cover the eighteen-year time frame between

Walker’s prior criminal conduct and the charged offense. Therefore, I respectfully

dissent from the majority opinion.

To be admissible for the purpose of proving knowledge or intent under Rule

404(b), this court has long required that the prior crime, wrong, or act be “similar in

kind and reasonably close in time to the crime charged,” United States v. Turner, 104

F.3d 217, 222 (8th Cir. 1997), or at least “not overly remote in time to the crime

charged.” United States v. Green, 151 F.3d 1111, 1113 (8th Cir. 1998). In United

States v. Engleman, 648 F.2d 473, 478-80 (8th Cir. 1981), we reviewed a district

court’s admission of evidence of a prior, uncharged crime that occurred thirteen years

before the charged offense. Engleman’s crimes were identical with regard to motive:

in both the prior and the charged offense, he and the chosen victims’ wives arranged

the murders, and they shared the proceeds from the victims’ life-insurance policies.

Id. at 477. Indeed, in the second murder, Engleman convinced his collaborator to join

him by saying that “he knew the scheme would work because he had done it before.”

Id. Given these facts, we ruled that the district court did not abuse its discretion in

admitting evidence of the prior murder because of “the similarities of the events and

the length of time each crime required in planning and execution.” Id. at 479.

In the twenty-four years between the Engleman and Strong decisions, we were

“reluctant to go beyond Engleman’s thirteen-year time frame,” United States v.

McCarthy, 97 F.3d 1562, 1573 (8th Cir. 1996), and, with few exceptions, “decline[d]

to extend our holding regarding the remoteness of the thirteen-year-old crime in

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Engleman beyond the facts of that case.” United States v. Mejia-Uribe, 75 F.3d 395,

398 (8th Cir. 1996).

 

The facts of this case present a far less compelling justification for admission

of the prior evidence than the facts in Engleman. Here, the only similarities between

the past and charged offense were that both crimes involved gun possession. This

hardly makes them distinctive. The past crime has little practical bearing on Walker’s

intent and knowledge in the present case, especially when compared to the facts in

Engleman. I recognize that Strong may represent a deviation from our post-Engleman

precedent on facts substantially similar to the case at hand. It retained the principles

of that line of cases, however, and did not purport to change our test for 404(b)

admissibility; it merely held that evidence of a sixteen-year-old crime was not too

remote to pass that test. I would hold that Strong represents the outmost edge of

admissibility of past crimes of this age, absent a connection between the past and

charged offenses that is at least as close as Engleman. If we are to say that our

requirement that the past crime be “reasonably close in time to the crime charged”

means anything at all, then it must bar the admission of Walker’s eighteen-year-old

past crime in this case.

I also do not believe Walker’s past incarceration has any impact on the

remoteness of his prior crime in this case. The majority opinion, relying upon United

States v. Adams, 401 F.3d 886, 894 (8th Cir. 2005), argues that the probative value

of the evidence was preserved in part because Walker spent ten of those eighteen

years in prison. I believe this argument fails to take account of the interrelationship

between the time spent in prison and the degree of similarity regarding the past and

charged offenses. In Adams, the district court admitted evidence of a 1986 drugtrafficking conviction involving the same type of drug, same means, and similar

physical evidence as the charged offense for conspiracy to distribute drugs. Id.

Furthermore, the charged conduct occurred only four years after the defendant was

released from prison for the prior offense, id., which suggests that the defendant

simply reinitiated the drug-trafficking conspiracy after incarceration using the

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knowledge gained through his past drug-trafficking experience. Thus, given the

similarity in conduct and the relatively brief period between the defendant’s release

and his subsequent engagement in the same type of conspiracy, we ruled that the

district court did not abuse its discretion in admitting evidence of the prior crime. Id.

This is a much different case, with the fact of the defendant’s gun possession

standing as the only similarity between the prior and charged offenses. In addition,

the defendant here was out of prison for eight years before committing the charged

offense, and there is no suggestion of any logical connection between the crimes. This

is not a case where Walker continued the same criminal pattern with the same modus

operandi after release from prison. As such, it is unclear how Walker’s ten years in

incarceration make the prior offense less remote (as it relates to Walker’s intent to

possess the gun) than if Walker had spent those ten years walking freely. Therefore,

under these facts, I believe Walker’s incarceration ought to have no bearing upon the

analysis of whether his past crime was too remote for admissibility.

For the foregoing reasons, I would reverse the judgment of the district court. 

______________________________

 

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