Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca8-05-03731/USCOURTS-ca8-05-03731-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Ladarius Venice Cook
Appellee
United States of America
Appellant

Document Text:

United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE EIGHTH CIRCUIT

___________

No. 05-3731

___________

United States of America, *

*

Plaintiff - Appellant, *

* Appeal from the United States

v. * District Court for the

* Eastern District of Missouri.

Ladarius Venice Cook, *

*

Defendant - Appellee. *

___________

Submitted: April 18, 2006

Filed: July 31, 2006

___________

Before LOKEN, Chief Judge, LAY and BYE, Circuit Judges.

___________

LOKEN, Chief Judge.

A warrant search of the home where Ladarius Cook lived with his girlfriend

yielded ten grams of cocaine base, ten grams of powder cocaine, two digital scales,

and a handgun found either on or in a bedroom night stand that also contained men’s

underwear. After Cook’s arrest, he waived his Miranda rights and told police that the

drugs and gun belonged to his girlfriend. Cook was indicted for possession with intent

to distribute five or more grams of cocaine base, possession of a firearm in furtherance

of a drug trafficking crime, and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. See 18

U.S.C. §§ 922(g)(1), 924(c)(1); 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1). Just before trial, the district

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The Honorable Catherine D. Perry, United States District Judge for the Eastern

District of Missouri.

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court1

 granted Cook’s motion in limine and excluded evidence of his four prior drug

convictions as too remote under Rule 404(b) of the Federal Rules of Evidence and

unfairly prejudicial under Rule 403. The government appeals this interlocutory ruling,

as 18 U.S.C. § 3731 allows. We affirm. 

I.

At the outset, it is important to clarify the record on appeal and our standard of

review because this is a rather rare interlocutory appeal of a pretrial evidentiary ruling.

The record consists of the fact materials and the legal arguments before the district

court when it ruled. At that time, the court had heard no evidence but had the benefit

of a magistrate judge’s lengthy Report and Recommendation following an evidentiary

hearing on Cook’s motion to suppress. The background facts revealed in that Report

are relevant to this appeal. Regarding the Rule 404(b) evidence at issue, we are not

provided any memoranda filed with the district court in connection with the parties’

cross motions in limine. Therefore, the record consists of the transcript of the motion

argument, which includes the government’s substantial oral offer of proof, and copies

of the documents reflecting Cook’s prior convictions that the government proposes

to introduce at trial. 

We review district court rulings under Rule 404(b) and Rule 403 for abuse of

discretion. See, e.g., United States v. Jones, 255 F.3d 916, 919 (8th Cir. 2001). This

includes orders excluding evidence under these rules. See King v. Ahrens, 16 F.3d

265, 270 (8th Cir. 1994) (such a ruling is entitled to “great deference”). We reject the

government’s unsupported suggestion that de novo review is appropriate because this

is an interlocutory appeal. We see no good reason why our standard of review should

differ because the evidentiary ruling was made and appealed before trial. Accord

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United States v. Brooks, 145 F.3d 446, 454 (1st Cir. 1998); United States v. Adrian,

978 F.2d 486, 492 (9th Cir. 1992).

II. 

Police officers conducted surveillance of Cook’s residence for two months

before the warrant search and observed Cook leave the home on at least four

occasions to engage in “hand-to-hand transactions” at nearby locations. At the

hearing on the cross motions in limine, the government disclosed that it would offer

testimony describing this surveillance and predicted that testimony would be

“thoroughly challenged” as to whether the described activity happened and “whether

it indicates what the police officers believe it indicated” -- illegal drug sales. The

government also disclosed that it would offer the physical evidence seized in the

warrant search, Cook’s post-arrest statement, and an expert’s opinion that the police

found a distribution quantity of cocaine base on the night stand. 

To bolster this case, the government proposed to offer Cook’s four prior drug

convictions as evidence that he possessed with intent to distribute the crack cocaine

found on the night stand. These were (1) an April 13, 1998, conviction for delivery

of cocaine on three occasions, September 25, October 3, and October 24, 1996; (2) an

April 13, 1998, conviction for possession with intent to distribute cocaine on May 29,

1997; (3) an April 13, 1998, conviction for possession and delivery of marijuana on

July 15, 1997; and (4) an August 10, 2000, conviction for possession of marijuana on

September 20, 1999. For the three distribution convictions, the government would

offer a certified copy of the conviction, the police reports, and testimony by the

undercover police officer who purchased or attempted to purchase cocaine or

marijuana from Cook. For the marijuana possession conviction, only a certified copy

of the conviction would be introduced. The government argued that the many Eighth

Circuit cases affirming the admission of past drug convictions compelled the district

court to admit evidence of all four convictions under Rule 404(b). The district court

nonetheless granted Cook’s motion in limine, explaining:

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I know that the Eighth Circuit is very, I guess, lenient on 404(b)

evidence, and that is the controlling law . . . . I have analyzed this

particular case, though, and these particular convictions. You have two

that are . . . seven and eight years ago that involve crack cocaine. Then

you have two involving marijuana, the most recent one is simply felony

possession, it’s not even . . . distribution, from what . . . you’ve said to

me here today . . . . [B]ecause it is [all] so remote in time, I think it is of

limited probative value, and so I think the danger of unfair prejudice and

the concern that the jury will consider it as propensity evidence . . .

outweighs the limited probative value that it has, so I am going to grant

the motion to exclude the conduct that gave rise to the four prior

convictions listed in the Government’s 404(b) evidence. 

The government requested reconsideration, again proposing to use the same evidence

of all four convictions. The district court adhered to its ruling. The government then

appealed, which automatically stayed commencement of the trial.

III.

Rule 404(b) provides that evidence of a prior bad act such as a conviction may

not be offered solely to prove the defendant’s criminal propensity but is admissible

if it is relevant to a material issue, such as intent, and if it is established by a

preponderance of the evidence, more probative than prejudicial, and similar in kind

and close in time to the charged offense. Jones, 255 F.3d at 919. The requirement to

balance probative value and prejudice is found in Rule 403. As the government

stressed to the district court and on appeal, we construe Rule 404(b) as a rule of

inclusion and have frequently upheld the admission of prior drug convictions in cases

where the defendant denied committing the charged drug offense. See, e.g., United

States v. Love, 419 F.3d 825, 828 (8th Cir. 2005). A defendant may not escape the

introduction of evidence of past crimes solely by stipulating to one element of the

crime at issue. See United States v. Johnson, 439 F.3d 947, 952 (8th Cir. 2006).

Though all Rule 404(b) evidence is inherently prejudicial, the test under Rule 403 is

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whether its probative value is substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair

prejudice. See United States v. Noland, 960 F.2d 1384, 1387 (8th Cir. 1992). 

We begin our review of the district court’s discretionary ruling with Cook’s

conviction for possession of marijuana in September 1999. A prior offense need not

involve the same illegal drug as the charged offense. See Llach v. United States, 739

F.2d 1322, 1327 (8th Cir. 1984). But here, this prior mere possession offense was six

years remote and it was functionally dissimilar to the charged distribution offense. In

these circumstances, we have no difficulty concluding that the district court did not

abuse its discretion in concluding that this conviction’s very minimal probative value

was substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice. See United States v.

Gordon, 987 F.2d 902, 908-09 (2d Cir. 1993); United States v. Mothershed, 859 F.2d

585, 590 (8th Cir. 1988).

As the government’s motion in limine only sought admission of its entire

package of Rule 404(b) evidence, our conclusion that the marijuana possession

conviction was properly excluded ends the appeal. In a footnote toward the end of its

appeal brief, the government chides the district court for “evaluat[ing] the

Government’s proffered evidence as an all or nothing proposition, rather than consider

less prejudicial options.” But the court’s obligation was to rule on the motions

presented. Even in its motion for reconsideration, government counsel never asked

the court to rule on any proffer except the entire package. Without question, there

may be significant give-and-take in resolving Rule 404(b) disputes because alternative

proof or a modified presentation of the evidence may accommodate the government’s

need for probative evidence and the danger of unfair prejudice to the defendant. See

Fed. R. Evid. 404(b) advisory committee notes to 1972 Proposed Rules and 1991

Amendments. If counsel cannot resolve the issue, the court may decide to admit only

some of the proffered evidence and may limit inquiry into prejudicial details. 2

Weinstein’s Federal Evidence § 404.23[5][a] (2d ed. 2006). But that is a process left

to the discretion of the trial court. On an interlocutory appeal, we only review the

rulings the court in fact made.

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Because Rule 404(b) issues recur frequently, we will also comment on the

remainder of the district court’s ruling. We agree with the government that Cook’s

earlier convictions for distributing cocaine and marijuana on five occasions in 1996

and 1997 were relevant to material issues such as knowledge and intent and were not

so remote as to be inadmissible on that ground. See, e.g., United States v. Foster, 344

F.3d 799, 801-02 (8th Cir. 2003), cert. denied, 541 U.S. 1031 (2004). But the

government did not propose to introduce only the fact of the convictions. It wanted

to use the police reports, which may or may not have presented difficult hearsay

issues, plus the testimony of the undercover officers who engaged in the earlier drug

transactions. This testimony was no doubt offered to bolster the testimony of the

officers who would describe Cook’s “hand-to-hand transactions” that led to issuance

of the search warrant. 

In exercising its discretion under Rule 404(b) and Rule 403, the district court

may properly consider whether the government’s intended method of proof would be

more prejudicial than merely offering a certified copy of a conviction. See United

States v. Walker, 428 F.3d 1165, 1170 (8th Cir. 2005), cert. denied, 126 S. Ct. 1385

(2006). More importantly, perhaps, in this case the government’s expansive Rule

404(b) evidence presented the prospect of mini-trials over the events underlying three

prior convictions for five relatively remote drug transactions, all for the purpose of

bolstering background evidence in this case. This posed a substantial risk of

distracting the jury from its central task of determining whether it was Cook who

possessed the distribution quantity of crack cocaine found on the night stand. As the

Ninth Circuit concluded when faced with a similar situation in United States v.

Perkins, 937 F.2d 1397, 1401 (9th Cir. 1991), “The district court did not abuse its

discretion in focusing the trial on the offense at issue, and not allowing the parties to

stray and discuss the details of several extraneous robberies.” We again note that the

government did not ask the court to rule on a lesser quantum of Rule 404(b) evidence.

We simply decide that the ruling the court made was not an abuse of its discretion.

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The October 5, 2005, order of the district court excluding the evidence

described in the government’s Notice of Appeal is affirmed.

______________________________

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