Opinion ID: 202335
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Admissibility of Evidence Relating to Drug Use

Text: 34 This Court reviews preserved challenges to a district court's evidentiary rulings regarding relevance and unfair prejudice for abuse of discretion. United States v. Richardson, 421 F.3d 17, 38-39 (1st Cir.2005). Our review of the admission of testimony not objected to at trial is for plain error. United States v. Medina, 427 F.3d 88, 91 (1st Cir.2005). 35 Here, Barron's testimony that before the arrest he saw Charles concentrating upon and trying to tie a baggie consistent with crack cocaine packaged in a retail distribution amount was not objected to, hence its admission is reviewable on appeal only for plain error. Evidence that, subsequently, after the arrest, Charles was found to possess a baggie with traces of crack cocaine was objected to. Hence we review the admission of the later evidence under an abuse of discretion standard. Because, however, both pieces of evidence clear the discretionary hurdle, we need not tarry over the easier question of whether admission of Barron's unobjected-to testimony amounted to plain error, which it clearly did not. 36 Charles argues that evidence he possessed drugs was not relevant to the elements of the crime for which he was accused. To commit a violation of 18 U.S.C. § 111(a), the defendant must (1) forcibly; (2) assault, resist, oppose, impede, intimidate, or interfere with; (3) a designated federal officer; (4) while engaged in or on account of the performance of official duties. In addition, the defendant must (5) have the intent to do the acts specified. See United States v. Arrington, 309 F.3d 40, 44 (D.C.Cir.2002). Charles points out that the court instructed the jury that a person is not allowed to resist arrest, regardless of whether the arrest is lawful or unlawful. This shows, he says, the irrelevance of evidence of Charles's involvement in illegal drug activity. The government responds that the evidence was highly relevant and not overly prejudicial, both because it went to proving an element of the crime (that the officers were performing their official duties in arresting Charles when they were attacked) and because it tended to disprove Charles's argument that, in violently resisting, he was simply acting in self-defense. The district court had instructed the jury that the drug possession evidence went only to the agents' belief that drug distribution was going on, not to any demonstration of inherent guilt on Charles's part. 37
38 As noted, Charles argues that the drug evidence was improperly admitted because it was not relevant to the case at hand. Relevant evidence is defined as 39 evidence having any tendency to make the existence of any fact that is of consequence to the determination of the action more probable or less probable than it would be without the evidence. 40 Fed.R.Evid. 401. Evidence that pertains `to a chain of events forming the context . . . and set-up of the crime, helping it to complete the story of the crime on trial . . . [is admissible in appropriate cases] . . . where it possesse[s] contextual significance.' United States v. Sabetta, 373 F.3d 75, 83 (1st Cir.2004) (quoting United States v. Ladd, 885 F.2d 954, 959 (1st Cir.1989)). In Sabetta, this Court upheld the admissibility of statements by a friend of the defendant who had wanted to use the defendant's gun as relevant to the issue of whether the defendant had been in possession of a firearm. The defendant argued that the fact that his friend wanted to use the gun had no relevance to whether the defendant possessed a gun. The district court found it relevant, writing, It's all part of the whole procedure that was taking place. Sabetta, 373 F.3d at 83. Here, Barron's testimony that he saw Charles trying to tie the baggie forms a part of the agents' explanation of why they approached Charles and why they undertook to arrest him. It is, moreover, directly relevant to one element of the crime, i.e., that the officers were acting in their official capacity. The evidence of the later discovery of the crack-dusted baggie on Charles's person corroborates the officers' observations, and it also undercuts Charles's argument that during the altercation he was acting only in self-defense rather than trying to avoid arrest for possession of drugs. Thus we hold that both the earlier testimony furnished by Barron and the post-altercation discovery of the baggie on Charles's person constituted relevant evidence under Fed.R.Evid. 401. 41
42 In addition to arguing the drug evidence was irrelevant, Charles also claims that it was excessively prejudicial. Although Charles on appeal cites Rule 404(b), he does not make a specific claim that the evidence admitted did not serve a Rule 404(b) purpose; he instead argues that its prejudicial nature outweighed its probative value, an inquiry common to both Rule 403 and Rule 404(b) claims. 43 This Court accords a district court great deference in the balancing of probative value against unfair prejudice. United States v. Flemmi, 402 F.3d 79, 86 (1st Cir.2005). The government argues both that the evidence was highly relevant to the narrative of the incident and also was not unfairly prejudicial because the court gave a detailed limiting instruction when the baggie was admitted, reminding the jury that Charles had not been charged with a drug crime and that any involvement he might have had with drugs did not mean he was guilty of assault. See United States v. Gilbert, 181 F.3d 152, 161 (1st Cir.1999) (affirming balancing of probative value against prejudice where district court had given a limiting instruction). Further, the government stated in its closing argument, this is not a drug case. It told the jury the drug evidence was relevant to whether the agents were truthfully testifying that they were doing their duty when they approached Charles, and it mentioned the evidence again when addressing Charles's argument of self-defense. 44 We have said that, `[o]nly rarely — and in extraordinarily compelling circumstances — will [this Court], from the vista of a cold appellate record, reverse a district court's on-the-spot judgment concerning the relative weighing of probative value and unfair effect.' Flemmi, 402 F.3d at 86 (citation omitted). There is no reason to reverse the district court's decision here. 1