Opinion ID: 491556
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Exclusion of Evidence Regarding Prosecution for Assault in the Third Degree

Text: 39 Ulmer argues that the district court erred in excluding all evidence of his subsequent prosecution, at the bequest of the Corporation, for assault in the third degree. Issuance of this second charge followed the prosecuting attorney's dismissal of the peace disturbance charge. As discussed above, the district court excluded evidence relating to this second prosecution because it lay outside the scope of Ulmer's pleadings which, according to the court, were limited to the Corporation's actions in prosecuting him for peace disturbance. Ulmer claims that because his second amended complaint states the criminal charge of malicious prosecution was dismissed in January 1985, the date the assault charges were dismissed (the peace disturbance charges being dismissed two years previously), he adequately pleaded his claim for malicious prosecution for third-degree assault. 40 The district court was correct in determining Ulmer's complaint did not adequately plead malicious prosecution for assault in the third degree. The complaint does not mention this offense and refers to the peace disturbance charge when it states the criminal charge against him was dismissed in January of 1985. 41 Nevertheless, evidence that the Corporation instigated prosecution against Ulmer for assault in the third degree was relevant to Ulmer's claim he was maliciously prosecuted for peace disturbance and thus its exclusion was error. Considering that the Corporation instigated this second charge a few weeks after the prosecutor dismissed the peace disturbance charge and that the charge was based upon the same incident as the peace disturbance charge, Ulmer's behavior upon arrest by Richard Putnam, evidence of the prosecution was probative of whether the Corporation had reasonable grounds upon which to prosecute Ulmer for peace disturbance in the first place or whether it prosecuted him solely out of malice. See Lovejoy v. Goodrich, 798 F.2d 1201, 1204 (8th Cir.1986) (evidence may not be excluded only because it is not pleaded). 42 Appellant's remaining arguments for reversal lack merit.