Opinion ID: 1443005
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Exclusion of Evidence of Conviction

Text: The first ruling DeFelice asks us to examine is the district court's decision to exclude one of Kunz's convictions from evidence. The State wanted to introduce a 2005 conviction for retail theft into evidence, even though it had already succeeded in putting many other convictions before the jury. DeFelice contends that the retail theft conviction is especially probative because it happened very close to trial and thus supposedly illustrated a consistent pattern of criminality. This is propensity by another name, however (DeFelice calls it full flavor), and propensity is a forbidden basis for admitting evidence. See United States v. Wright, 901 F.2d 68, 70 (7th Cir.1990); see also FED.R.EVID. 404(b). Given the prior convictions for residential burglary already in evidence, the district court was entitled to conclude that the retail theft evidence was cumulative or inadmissible propensity evidence. DeFelice also argues that the conviction should have been admitted either as a crime involving falsehood, see FED.R.EVID. 609(a)(2), or for impeachment. Looking first at impeachment, here again the district court enjoys broad discretion. DeFelice cites Green v. Bock Laundry Machine Co., 490 U.S. 504, 109 S.Ct. 1981, 104 L.Ed.2d 557 (1989), and Campbell v. Greer, 831 F.2d 700 (7th Cir.1987), for the proposition that evidence of past convictions submitted under FED.R.EVID. 609(a)(1) is not subject to the considerations of prejudice set forth in FED.R.EVID. 403. He does not mention that Rule 609 was amended after Green and Campbell to incorporate expressly the balancing of probative value against prejudice that Rule 403 embodies. The district court was thus fully entitled to take Rule 403 into account. Whether, in the final analysis, the court's reasoning was predicated on cumulativeness or propensity, we find no indication that the court abused its discretion or that its ruling prejudiced DeFelice. DeFelice also argues that the district court should have admitted Kunz's prior conviction as a crime involving falsehood under Rule 609(a)(2), which does not incorporate Rule 403. Although DeFelice is correct that Illinois considers theft to be a crime of dishonesty for the purposes of its version of Rule 609(a)(2), People v. Spates, 77 Ill.2d 193, 32 Ill.Dec. 333, 395 N.E.2d 563, 567-69 (1979), he is incorrect to assume that this designation is binding on this courtit is not. See United States v. Cameron, 814 F.2d 403, 405 (7th Cir. 1987). This circuit generally does not count retail theft as a crime of dishonesty. See United States v. Amaechi, 991 F.2d 374, 379 (7th Cir.1993). If DeFelice had presented some independent reason to override Amaechi and construe Kunz's conviction as a crime involving dishonesty, we could have evaluated that argument. See United States v. Rodriguez-Andrade, 62 F.3d 948, 952 (7th Cir.1995). He did not, however, and we thus cannot conclude that the district court abused its discretion by failing to follow Rule 609(a)(2). What DeFelice would really like to do is to portray Kunz as a witness who is predisposed against police officers and who has a propensity to misbehave. But FED. R.EVID. 404 generally forbids the use of past acts, even of criminality, to prove a criminal, dishonest character in a civil case. None of the exceptions to that rule applies here. The jury had ample evidence before it that alerted it to Kunz's prior encounters with the law. Whether the court excluded the evidence because it raised an inference of propensity forbidden by Rule 404 or because it was cumulative and thus excludable under Rule 403, we see no abuse of that discretion.