Opinion ID: 765997
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Gibbs's Conviction

Text: 113 The government introduced evidence at trial about the 718use of violence in the conspiracy. For example, it introduced testimony that Gibbs, who suspected that Maurice Grannum had attempted to kidnap him, sent Earl Packer Hunte and Derrick Parks to shoot Grannum, and that once Gibbs suspected that Sydnor had shot him, he sent Earl Brown and Frank Fluellen on a mission to kill Sydnor. Two police officers also testified that the attempt to shoot Grannum did occur on the date and time Gibbs and Parks had agreed upon. (The bullets passed into the police officers' apartment.) Although the defense did not object to the admission of this evidence at trial, Gibbs now complains that this evidence should have been excluded because (i) the admission of the evidence served no other purpose than to portray him as ruthless and violent; (ii) the government did not offer the evidence under any one theory of admissibility, as required by Rule 404(b); and (iii) the government failed to show that the probative value of the evidence outweighed its prejudicial effect. 114 We review a district court's decision to admit evidence for abuse of discretion. See Government of V.I. v. Edwards, 903 F.2d 267, 270 (3d Cir. 1990). Because the defendant did not request a limiting instruction with regard to the evidence of violence at trial, we review the District Court's jury instructions for plain error. See Price, 13 F.3d at 724; see also Henderson v. Kibbe, 431 U.S. 145, 154 (1977) (noting that [i]t is the rare case in which an improper instruction will justify reversal of a criminal conviction when no objection has been made in the trial court.). 115 Rule 404(b), which proscribes the admission of evidence of other crimes when offered to prove bad character, does not apply to evidence of uncharged offenses committed by a defendant when those acts are intrinsic to the proof of the charged offense. As a prominent commentator has explained: 116 In cases where the incident offered is a part of the conspiracy alleged in the indictment, the evidence is admissible under Rule 404(b) because it is not an 'other' crime. The evidence is offered as direct evidence of the fact in issue, not as circumstantial evidence requiring an inference as to the character of the accused. Such proof . . . may be extremely prejudicial to the defendant but the court would have no discretion to exclude it because it is proof of the ultimate issue in the case. 117 22 Charles A. Wright & Kenneth W. Graham, Federal Practice and Procedure § 5239, at 450-51 (1978). 118 A number of courts likewise have held that Rule 404(b) does not limit the admission of evidence of the defendant's participation in acts of violence as direct proof of a conspiracy. In United States v. Miller, 116 F.3d 641 (2d Cir. 1997), cert. denied, 118 S. Ct. 2063 (1998), for example, the court held that proof of murders by the defendants did not fall under 404(b) even though the murders were not charged in the indictment; rather, the court held that the murders were relevant to show the existence and nature of the conspiracy. See id. at 682; see also United States v. Chin, 83 F.3d 83, 87-88 (4th Cir. 1996) (holding that testimony challenged under 404(b) regarding contract killing scheme emphasized the violent and dangerous context of a heroin deal, and was inextricably intertwined with defendant's crime of selling heroin and conducting an ongoing criminal enterprise). We endorse this reading of Rule 404(b). Since the government introduced evidence of Gibbs's use of violence to further the illegal objectives of the cocaine conspiracy by removing threats to himself (since threats to Gibbs meant threats to the trafficking enterprise), the District Court did not abuse its discretion in permitting this evidence to come in. 21