Opinion ID: 614603
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: References to Waste

Text: The government originally indicted King for willfully injecting liquid waste without a permit. However, a superseding indictment alleged only that King willfully injected water without a permit. The district court entered a pretrial order precluding any references, in evidence presented to the jury, to wastewater, manure, or waste material, on the ground that such references could be prejudicial to King. Despite the pretrial order, three government witnesses briefly referred to waste in their testimony. In addition, the government displayed a diagram on a screen for a few seconds on which the source of the water was labeled waste pond. The district court found that the three references and the brief display were inadvertent. After the first reference to waste, the court gave a limiting instruction. King did not request limiting instructions after the other references or after the display. In its final instructions to the jury, the district court instructed the jury not to consider evidence that it had been instructed to ignore. A joint stipulation by the parties, presented to the jury, stated that the injections consisted of surface water from creeks. The district court held that its limiting instruction and the stipulation cured any possible prejudice that might have been caused by the three references and brief display. The district court did not abuse its discretion in so holding.