Opinion ID: 222568
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 7

Heading: Danforah's Past Activity

Text: In addition, Langford argues that the district court abused its discretion in refusing to admit evidence of prior bad acts to impeach the credibility of Remon Danforah, a clothing store owner who testified that he received more than $50,000 in payment for clothing Blount and LaPierre had purchased for Langford. Most of the time, Langford would pick out his clothes and run up a tab at Danforah's. LaPierre and Blount would then pay down that tab. At trial, Langford argued that Danforah was scamming Mr. Blount and getting paid for clothing Mr. Langford never acquired. Blue Br. at 29-30. In support of this theory, defense counsel impeached Danforah on his sloppy bookkeeping practices. Langford, however, sought to go further, with evidence that in the late eighties (long before the transactions at issue in this case), Danforah got together with his relatives at a hotel every Wednesday night to gather money to send to Yassir Arafat, formerly the head of the Palestine Liberation Organization. The district court excluded the evidence because it was not based on any convicted criminal conduct, and although it was arguably an uncharged prior wrong, it did not bear on the credibility of the witness, would be highly prejudicial, and the probative value would be outweighed by the prejudice or impact regardless. The district court added that defense counsel had done an excellent job of impeaching the witness' bookkeeping ability, so that nobody on the jury ... thinks he has kept any records correctly in his store. The district court did not abuse its discretion. The proffered testimony had precious little, if any probative value, and there was real danger of unfair prejudice. We cannot say the district court abused its discretion in weighing the probative value of the evidence against the danger of unfair prejudice, and refusing to admit this evidence. See Fed.R.Evid. 403.