Opinion ID: 693376
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Preservation of Ruotolo's Appellate Claim

Text: 22 Generally, in order to preserve an evidentiary claim for appeal, a party must make a timely objection at trial. Fed.R.Evid. 103(a)(1). To be timely, an objection ... must be 'made as soon as the ground of it is known, or reasonably should have been known to the objector.'  Hutchinson v. Groskin, 927 F.2d 722, 725 (2d Cir.1991) (quoting United States v. Check, 582 F.2d 668, 676 (2d Cir.1978)); see also United States v. Pujana-Mena, 949 F.2d 24, 33 (2d Cir.1991) (discussing considerations in determining timeliness of trial objections). Ruotolo concedes that his counsel took no exception whatsoever to the allegedly prejudicial testimony at trial. He contends, however, that this point was properly preserved for appellate review by virtue of his pre-trial motion for severance. In that motion, which Ruotolo filed in October 1988, he argued that: (1) only three of the fourteen counts in the indictment involved allegations against him; (2) as a result, most of the evidence that the government would produce at trial would be irrelevant with respect to the charges against him; and (3) such evidence would have a spillover effect and thereby unjustly tar him in the eyes of the jury. On that basis, Ruotolo requested the district court to sever his trial from that of his co-defendants. Because Ruotolo's co-defendants all pleaded guilty before trial, however, the district court denied his motion as moot. 23 Having flagged for the district court the potential for unfair contamination by evidentiary fallout (albeit, three years before trial and in the quite different context of a severance motion), Ruotolo maintains that he preserved his appellate claim as a matter of law. This argument shows stretchmarks. In effect, Ruotolo asks us to treat his motion for severance as a motion in limine to preclude the introduction of arguably irrelevant and prejudicial evidence. But even if we were to view his severance motion in that light, the circumstances of this case would require us to find that Ruotolo had failed to preserve his objection. 24 In cases involving the admission of relevant yet potentially prejudicial testimony, we have held that defendants may not rely upon an in limine objection to preserve their claim for appeal. See United States v. Weichert, 783 F.2d 23, 25 (2d Cir.) (per curiam), cert. denied, 479 U.S. 831, 107 S.Ct. 117, 93 L.Ed.2d 64 (1986). Because an appellate court [cannot] review a trial court's balancing of probative value and prejudice without reference to the witness's actual testimony, a defendant must both confront and challenge an adverse evidentiary decision at trial  'to raise and preserve for review' the correctness of this ruling. Id. (quoting Luce v. United States, 469 U.S. 38, 43, 105 S.Ct. 460, 464, 83 L.Ed.2d 443 (1984)); see also United States v. Griffin, 818 F.2d 97, 105 (1st Cir.) (holding that to raise and preserve for review the claim of improperly constructing the rule 403 balance, a party must obtain the order admitting or excluding the controversial evidence in the actual setting of the trial), cert. denied, 484 U.S. 844, 108 S.Ct. 137, 98 L.Ed.2d 94 (1987). 25 Here, however, the claim is that the evidence was totally irrelevant. And with respect to evidentiary questions that are not contextually bound, courts have held that a 26 motion in limine may preserve an objection when the issue (1) is fairly presented to the district court, (2) is the type of issue that can be finally decided in a pre-trial hearing, and (3) is ruled upon without equivocation by the trial judge. 27 United States v. Mejia-Alarcon, 995 F.2d 982, 986 (10th Cir.) (holding that in limine motion preserved defendant's objection to admissibility of prior crime conviction under Fed.R.Evid. 609(a)(2)) (citing cases from the Third, Eighth and Ninth Circuits), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 114 S.Ct. 334, 126 L.Ed.2d 279 (1993); cf. Ginett v. Computer Task Group, Inc., 11 F.3d 359, 361 (2d Cir.1993) (pre-trial in limine motion preserved objection to jury instruction where objecting party clearly set forth his position in the motion and after being fully apprised of the party's position, the district court flatly rejected it). 28 But even treating the present case as falling within this second category of in limine motions does not help Ruotolo's claim. As noted above, because all of Ruotolo's co-defendants pleaded guilty prior to trial, the district court denied his motion for severance as moot and thus never reached the merits. Because the evidentiary issue was not ruled upon without equivocation by the trial judge, Ruotolo failed to meet the third requirement for properly preserving his claim through an in limine motion. After the district court dismissed Ruotolo's severance motion as moot, he did not attempt to present even obliquely a specific relevancy objection for the court's consideration. Perforce, the district court's pre-trial ruling on this issue was not unequivocal--it was non-existent.