Opinion ID: 625013
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Admission of Images

Text: A district court’s evidentiary rulings are reviewed only for abuse of discretion. United States v. Brannan, 562 F.3d 1300, 1306 (11th Cir. 2009). An erroneous evidentiary ruling will not result in reversal where the error was harmless, meaning it did not substantially influence the outcome of the trial and 11 the jury’s verdict was supported by sufficient untainted evidence. United States v. Dickerson, 248 F.3d 1036, 1048 (11th Cir. 2001). Evidence is relevant if it has “any tendency” to make the existence of a material fact “more probable or less probable.” Fed. R. Evid. 401. The district court may nonetheless exclude such evidence if its probative value is substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice to the defendant. Fed. R. Evid. 403. Rule 403 is an extraordinary remedy, which courts should employ “only sparingly since it permits the trial court to exclude concededly probative evidence.” United States v. Smith, 459 F.3d 1276, 1295 (11th Cir. 2006) (quotation omitted). Accordingly, we view the disputed evidence “in a light most favorable to its admission, maximizing its probative value and minimizing its undue prejudicial impact.” Id. (quotation omitted). We have also recognized that, in the context of child pornography cases, “the nature of the crime itself, and therefore the nature of the evidence tending to prove it, is emotionally charged” and Rule 403 should not be used to deprive the prosecution of “its most probative evidence.” Id. at 1296. Although the government generally may not offer evidence of the defendant’s “other crimes, wrongs, or acts” to prove the defendant’s bad character and to suggest that the defendant also committed the charged offense, such evidence is admissible if it is relevant to other material issues in the case. Fed. R. 12 Evid. 404(b); United States v. Calderon, 127 F.3d 1314, 1330 (11th Cir. 1997). Specifically, the evidence must be (1) relevant to an issue other than the defendant’s character, (2) sufficient to support a finding that the defendant actually committed the extrinsic act, and (3) the probative value of the evidence must not be substantially outweighed by unfair prejudice. Calderon, 127 F.3d at 1330. At issue is the court’s admission of Exhibit 126—the video chat between Macaluso and an unidentified male. Viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to its admission, the district court did not abuse its discretion in admitting the exhibit. The evidence was probative of a disputed, material issue and was not unfairly prejudicial. Exhibit 126 was perhaps the strongest and most direct evidence that Macaluso created the images and, therefore, used the hard drive. This evidence was particularly probative of usership because it showed Macaluso engaged in live, one-on-one communication, making it unlikely that another person controlled the images and transferred them to the hard drive. Additionally, the district court did not abuse its discretion in admitting the other images of child pornography. The images were similar to the ones created by the victims and thus tended to show that the user of the hard drives was the same individual. Although such images are inherently inflammatory, we cannot 13 conclude that the district court abused its discretion by admitting them.