Opinion ID: 624033
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Evidentiary Ruling Error

Text: Morris asserts that the district court erred by not allowing the jury to view the live CyberStudy website thereby denying him his Fifth and Sixth Amendment right to a complete defense. We review a district court's evidentiary rulings for clear abuse of discretion, reversing only when an improper evidentiary ruling affected the defendant's substantial rights or had more than a slight influence on the verdict. United States v. Watson, 650 F.3d 1084, 1088 (8th Cir.2011) (quoting United States v. Shields, 497 F.3d 789, 792 (8th Cir.2007)). At the beginning of the trial, Louper-Morris requested permission to introduce the 2010 version of the online CyberStudy tutorial during her testimony. The district court deferred the ruling until Louper-Morris was to testify. The district court again raised the issue before Louper-Morris's opening statement. [9] It instructed counsel that any demonstration of the tutorial should be done through screen shots that can be moved to on a shot by shot basis, much like clicking onto another site on the Internet. The district court expressed concern about the jury's access to exhibits and opined that the screen shots would enable the jury to review the exhibit at a later time. Thus, the district court excluded admission of the live website. The United States argued that the screen shots would not be representative of the website during the relevant time period, 2000-2002. The district court noted the concern and stated that the issue would be taken up later. Neither Louper-Morris nor Morris sought admission of a screen-shot exhibit. The district court did not abuse its discretion in precluding admission of the live 2010 CyberStudy website. First, the district court was clearly concerned about the jury's access to exhibits, which is a legitimate reason to change the format of the evidence. Second, Morris has not demonstrated how a screen-shot exhibit is inferior to live website or how a screen-shot exhibit is prejudicial to him. Third, we cannot ignore the fact that once the district court ruled to allow only the screen-shot exhibit, Appellants abandoned their efforts to proffer any representation of the CyberStudy website for the jury's viewing. Finally, Appellants sought admission of the 2010 website, which, as the United States pointed out at trial and on appeal, would have limited probative value of the 2000-2002 website. In light of the overwhelming evidence against Appellants and the limited relevance of the 2010 CyberStudy website, the district court did not abuse its discretion in denying admission of the live 2010 website.