Opinion ID: 578719
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Caraway Incident

Text: 19 The district court ruled that the testimony about the chase and arrest of Sterrell Thomas in Caraway, Arkansas, was admissible under Rule 404(b). Before allowing the testimony the district court gave a limiting instruction to the jury, stating that the evidence was being received only to go to motive, intent or plan or mode of operation. Trial Transcript at 251-52. Jetton objected to this evidence at trial and now claims on appeal that the district court prejudicially erred in allowing the testimony. 20 As stated above, district court decisions about the admissibility of evidence are reviewed by this court under an abuse of discretion standard. Drew, 894 F.2d at 969. This is a difficult standard for Jetton to meet, but nevertheless we agree that the evidence should not have been admitted and that its admission cannot be considered harmless error. 21 We fail to see the probative value of the Caraway incident. One could hardly infer, from the testimony about the collision in Caraway, a motive, intent, or plan or mode of operation by Jetton to cause a collision with Morgan. 2 The only similarity between the Caraway incident and Morgan's collision is that both involved a motorcyclist and Jetton driving a patrol car. In the Caraway incident, for example, Jetton was driving behind Thomas, chasing Thomas around city streets; in Morgan's incident, Jetton met Morgan on a rural highway and allegedly swerved into Morgan's oncoming vehicle in order to stop him. There was also no evidence that Jetton intentionally collided with Thomas in Caraway; in fact, the only evidence on this point was that the collision was not intentional. (Southwell testified that she did not see the chase or accident.) In addition to being so dissimilar, the Caraway incident also occurred at least three years before the collision between Jetton and Morgan. 22 Assuming, however, that evidence about the Caraway incident was otherwise admissible, we are still convinced that Southwell's account of Jetton's purported mistreatment of Thomas had no probative value with regard to the claim of excessive force through use of the police car and had a prejudicial effect against Jetton. The evidence, therefore, should have been excluded under Rule 403.