Opinion ID: 788983
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Admission of Videotaped Interviews of Defendants

Text: 12 St. Joseph County initiated an investigation of Moreland's death, and the defendants were interviewed several times by investigators from the Special Crimes Unit. The interviews were videotaped, and the tapes were used in a federal civil rights prosecution against the defendants, who were acquitted. The defendants objected to the plaintiffs' use of the videotapes on hearsay grounds and pursuant to Rule 403 of the Federal Rules of Evidence. The district court allowed portions of the videotapes to be played for the jury, with occasional pauses for live witness testimony. The defendants argue on appeal that the videotapes were unfairly prejudicial and should have been excluded under Rule 403, especially because the district court refused to admit evidence of the acquittals. They also appear to suggest that the district court's limiting instruction was inadequate. 13 We review the district court's decision to admit or exclude evidence for abuse of discretion, and the same standard applies to our review of the district court's limiting instruction. United States v. Fawley, 137 F.3d 458, 464 (7th Cir.1998). Because the trial court is in the best position to make decisions regarding jury guidance and evidentiary matters, the appellate court must give special deference to the rulings of the trial court. Id. The defendants argued in the district court that the videotaped interviews should be excluded because the interrogators' questions to Dieter and Sawdon — some of which incorporated information gathered by investigators looking into Moreland's death — were hearsay. They now concede that the interrogators' questions were not hearsay because they were offered to provide context for the defendants' statements in the interviews and were not offered for their truth. United States v. Woods, 301 F.3d 556, 561 (7th Cir.2002) (informant's side of recorded conversation with defendant provided context for the recorded conversation and was not hearsay). The defendants argue instead that the interrogators' questions were at times inflammatory and so laden with information from other sources in the investigation as to be unfairly prejudicial under Rule 403. This prejudice, they assert, was compounded by the district court's refusal to admit evidence of the acquittals. 14 Having viewed the videotapes in their entirety, we find no abuse of discretion. The jury saw what was actually the third interview with Sawdon, recorded two days after Moreland's death. In this interview, which Sawdon himself requested, Sawdon and the investigating officer, Sgt. Richmond, discuss Sawdon's admission that two days earlier he had prepared a misleading report about Moreland's death. Sawdon appears concerned about the repercussions of his false report, and Richmond tries to get him to come clean with the details of the night Moreland died. But apart from the false report, Sawdon does not actually admit to any wrongdoing. He blames Dieter for being too rough with Moreland but is not sure whether Dieter truly injured him. Much of the interview focuses on Sawdon's state of mind, as he is extremely depressed about what might happen to him. Richmond appears impatient but is generally friendly in the interview (or was trying to appear so); he thanks Sawdon for coming clean about the false report and expresses concern for Sawdon's emotional well-being. When Richmond leaves the room, Sawdon breaks down crying. 15 Two videotaped interviews with Dieter were admitted, and they are markedly different than Sawdon's. After listening at length to Dieter's account of the night in question, Richmond accuses him of lying, pointing out that Dieter's story is contradicted by the accounts of numerous witnesses. At one point Richmond, visibly upset, abruptly leaves the room and is replaced by another investigator, evidently a friend of Dieter's family, who adopts a conciliatory tone but expresses suspicion that Dieter is not being truthful. Dieter's account of what he did to Moreland changes as the interviews progress. For example, at first he says that he turned Moreland over as Moreland lay on the floor, but after questioning admits to dropping a handcuffed Moreland to the ground from a height of roughly three feet and then falling on top of him with his full weight. The tone of the interviews is confrontational, and Dieter is evasive or defensive throughout. When Dieter is left alone in the interview room, he sits impassively, showing no emotion. 16 The videotapes were surely prejudicial, especially to Dieter, but only unfairly prejudicial evidence is subject to exclusion. Kelsay v. Consolidated Rail Corp., 749 F.2d 437, 443 (7th Cir.1984). Evidence is unfairly prejudicial under Rule 403 if it will induce the jury to decide the case on an improper basis, commonly an emotional one, rather than on the evidence presented. United States v. Vretta, 790 F.2d 651, 655 (7th Cir.), cert. denied, 479 U.S. 851, 107 S.Ct. 179, 93 L.Ed.2d 115 (1986). In weighing the probative value of the challenged evidence against the danger of unfair prejudice under Rule 403, the district court is engaged in a comparison of intangibles and is thus afforded a special degree of deference: `[o]nly in an extreme case are appellate judges competent to second-guess the judgment of the person on the spot, the trial judge.' United States v. Glecier, 923 F.2d 496, 503 (7th Cir.), cert. denied, 502 U.S. 810, 112 S.Ct. 54, 116 L.Ed.2d 31 (1991) (quoting United States v. Krenzelok, 874 F.2d 480, 482 (7th Cir.1989)). 17 The danger of unfair prejudice was not so extreme here that the district court's decision to admit the videotaped interviews is called into question. As a record of the defendants' respective versions of the events leading up to Moreland's death, the tapes are highly probative of their actions, state of mind, and credibility. The interviews are not so dramatic, confusing, or misleading as to induce the jury to disregard the other evidence or to decide the case on an improper basis. The district court indicated its willingness to give the defendants substantial leeway to introduce evidence concerning Richmond's interrogation techniques in order to ameliorate any prejudicial effect of those techniques, but the defendants passed up the opportunity. 18 We also reject the defendants' argument that the admission of the videotaped interviews was unfairly prejudicial because the jury knew they were connected to a criminal investigation but was not allowed to hear evidence that the defendants had been acquitted of the criminal charges brought against them. Evidence of acquittal in a criminal action is generally irrelevant and inadmissible in a civil case involving the same incident since it constitutes a `negative sort of conclusion lodged in a finding of failure of the prosecution to sustain the burden of proof beyond a reasonable doubt.' Borunda v. Richmond, 885 F.2d 1384, 1387 (9th Cir.1989). See also Donald v. Rast, 927 F.2d 379, 381 (8th Cir.1991); Royal Exchange Assurance v. Fraylon, 228 F.2d 351, 354 (4th Cir.1955). The district court did not abuse its discretion in excluding the acquittal evidence, and the videotaped interviews were not rendered unfairly prejudicial under Rule 403 because of the absence of this evidence. 19 Finally, the defendants appear to suggest that the district court's limiting instruction was inadequate, but this argument is not developed. The court instructed the jury as follows: As you were informed at the outset of this trial, two defendants on trial here [Dieter and Sawdon] were the subject of criminal proceedings. Neither that fact nor the result of those proceedings have any relevance to this case. The defendants have identified no authority, in this circuit or elsewhere, casting doubt on the propriety of this kind of instruction, and we have been unable to find any ourselves.