Opinion ID: 2718597
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Admissibility of Other-Act Evidence

Text: Rule 404(b) prohibits the admission of evidence of other crimes, wrongs, or acts for the purpose of proving a person’s character or propensity to behave in a certain way, but permits the use of this evidence for other purposes: (1) Prohibited Uses. Evidence of a crime, wrong, or other act is not admissible to prove a person’s character in order to show that on a particular occasion the person acted in accor- dance with the character. (2) Permitted Uses; … This evidence may be admissible for another purpose, such as proving motive, opportunity, intent, preparation, plan, knowledge, identity, absence of mistake, or lack of accident. FED. R. EVID. 404(b). Our circuit has long used a four-part test to determine when other-act evidence is admissible: To determine if such evidence is admissible, the district court must engage in a four-pronged 8 No. 12-1104 analysis and evaluate whether (1) the evidence is directed toward establishing a matter in issue other than the defendant’s propensity to commit the crime charged, (2) the evidence shows that the other act is similar enough and close enough in time to be relevant to the matter in issue, (3) the evidence is sufficient to support a jury finding that the defendant committed the similar act, and (4) the probative value of the evidence is not substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice. United States v. Zapata, 871 F.2d 616, 620 (7th Cir. 1989) (citing United States v. Shackleford, 738 F.2d 776, 779 (7th Cir. 1984) for parts (1), (2), and (4) of the test and Huddleston v. United States, 485 U.S. 681 (1988), for part (3)). Multipart tests are commonplace in our law and can be useful, but sometimes they stray or distract from the legal principles they are designed to implement; over time misapplication of the law can creep in. This is especially regrettable when the law itself provides a clear roadmap for analysis, as the Federal Rules of Evidence generally do. We have noted this problem in the Rule 404(b) context before. Especially in drug cases like this one, other-act evidence is too often admitted almost automatically, without consideration of the “legitimacy of the purpose for which the evidence is to be used and the need for it.” United States v. Miller, 673 F.3d 688, 692 (7th Cir. 2012); see also United States v. Jones, 455 F.3d 800, 812 (7th Cir. 2006) (Easterbrook, J., concurring) (“Allowing a prosecutor routinely to introduce drug convictions in the case in chief No. 12-1104 9 without demonstrating relevance to some concrete dispute between the litigants creates needless risk that a conviction will rest on the forbidden propensity inference.”). Moreover, as we explain here, some aspects of our test lack an adequate basis in the rules. Our four-part test for evaluating the admissibility of otheract evidence has ceased to be useful. We now abandon it in favor of a more straightforward rules-based approach. This change is less a substantive modification than a shift in paradigm that we hope will produce clarity and better practice in applying the relevant rules of evidence. 1. Rules 401 & 402 (Relevance) and 104 (Relevance Conditioned on a Fact) All evidentiary questions begin with Rule 402, which contains the general principle that “[r]elevant evidence is admissible” and “[i]rrelevant evidence is not.” Rule 401 defines relevant evidence as that which is both probative (having “any tendency to make a fact more or less probable than it would be without the evidence”) and material (the fact must be “of consequence in determining the action”). The second and third factors in our four-part test generally correlate to the basic relevance inquiry under Rules 401 and 402, but the rules do not apply with the rote inflexibility that the test implies. Step three of the test directs the district court to evaluate whether the evidence of the proffered other act is sufficient to support a jury finding that the defendant committed it. Step two asks if the other act is both recent and similar 10 No. 12-1104 enough to the conduct charged in the case to be relevant (i.e., “of consequence in determining the action”). See Zapata, 871 F.2d at 620. Step three—the “sufficiency” inquiry—flows from Rule 104(b), which addresses relevance conditioned on a fact: “When the relevance of evidence depends on whether a fact exists, proof must be introduced sufficient to support a finding that the fact does exist.” FED. R. EVID. 104(b).2 In Huddleston v. United States, the Supreme Court considered whether the admission of other-act evidence requires a preliminary finding by the court that the act has been proved by a preponderance of the evidence. 485 U.S. at 682. The Court held that it does not. Id. at 689. Relying on the default principle that relevant evidence is admissible unless a rule specifies otherwise, the Court concluded that nothing in the text or history of Rules 104 or 404(b) requires the judge to find that the proponent has proved the other act before the evidence may be admitted. Id. at 687–89. Although a preliminary finding by the judge is not required as a condition of admissibility, the Court emphasized that other-act evidence may not be admitted unless the evidence is sufficient for the jury to find by a preponderance of the evidence that the other act was committed. Id. at 689–90. This requirement remains in full force as a condition of relevance. 2 The text of Rule 104(b) was slightly different at the time of Huddleston v. United States, 485 U.S. 681 (1988), but the change to the current language was intended to be purely stylistic, so we quote the current text. FED. R. EVID. 104 advisory committee’s notes (2011 amendments). No. 12-1104 11 Step two of the test, which requires an inquiry into the similarity and timing of the other act, is loosely connected to the basic principles of relevance found in Rules 401 and 402. See United States v. Foster, 652 F.3d 776, 785–86 (7th Cir. 2011) (explaining that “the comparison of [the defendant’s] prior acts to the charged crimes” is “directed at establishing the relevancy of the 404(b) evidence”) (citing United States v. Lloyd, 71 F.3d 1256, 1264–65 (7th Cir. 1995)). But the strength of this inquiry varies depending on the particular theory of admissibility. For example, one permissible purpose for the introduction of other-act evidence is to prove a defendant’s identity through a “distinctive manner of operation, or modus operandi.” United States v. Simpson, 479 F.3d 492, 497–98 (7th Cir. 2007), abrogated in part on other grounds by United States v. Boone, 628 F.3d 927, 933 (7th Cir. 2010). A prior act will be relevant to this purpose when it “‘bears a singular strong resemblance to the pattern of the offense charged’ with the similarities between the two crimes ‘sufficiently idiosyncratic to permit an inference of pattern.’” Id. at 498 (quoting United States v. Thomas, 321 F.3d 627, 634–35 (7th Cir. 2003)). Sometimes the prior bad act may be too dissimilar to be relevant to show a distinctive pattern, leaving only the forbidden propensity inference. Id. On the other hand, the need to check for similarity and recency may be substantially diminished or nonexistent depending on the particular purpose for which the evidence is offered. See United States v. Torres, 977 F.2d 321, 326 (7th Cir. 1992); United States v. Beasley, 809 F.2d 1273, 1277 (7th Cir. 1987). In some cases the relative similarity of the other act to 12 No. 12-1104 the charged offense may be unimportant as a test of relevance. See, e.g., Foster, 652 F.3d at 785–86 (holding that the similarity of the other-act evidence to the charged offense was “of exceedingly minimal significance” when evidence of a prior check-cashing scheme was introduced to show a criminal relationship between the defendant and his accomplice in an armed bank robbery); United States v. Shriver, 842 F.2d 968, 974 (7th Cir. 1988) (same with respect to motive). Recognizing this, we have repeatedly said that the “similarity” requirement for admitting other-act evidence is not “unduly rigid,” Foster, 652 F.3d at 785, but instead is “loosely interpreted and applied,” United States v. Vargas, 552 F.3d 550, 555 (7th Cir. 2008). Our discussion thus far should illustrate the problem of treating the “similarity” and “timing” factors as formal boxes to check in the admissibility analysis. It’s far too tempting to stop at superficial comparisons without meaningfully analyzing how the similarity and recency of the prior bad act affect its relevance in the unique circumstances of the case. And the similarity and timing of the other act may not bear on the relevance question at all. We think it best to return to a framework that weighs the relevance of other-act evidence directly. To restate the principle in positive terms: The extent to which a proffered “other crime, wrong, or act” is close in time and similar to the conduct at issue in the case may have a bearing on its relevance, which is the starting point for all evidence questions, but the importance of testing for similarity and recency will depend on the specific purpose for which the other-act evidence is offered. The proponent of the other-act No. 12-1104 13 evidence should address its relevance directly, without the straightjacket of an artificial checklist. 2. Rule 404(b) Rule 404(b) excludes relevant evidence of other crimes, wrongs, or acts if the purpose is to show a person’s propensity to behave in a certain way, but other-act evidence may be admitted for “another purpose” including, but not limited to, “proving motive, opportunity, intent, preparation, plan, knowledge, identity, absence of mistake, or lack of accident.” FED. R. EVID. 404(b). The rule is straightforward enough, but confusion arises because admissibility is keyed to the purpose for which the evidence is offered, and other-act evidence is usually capable of being used for multiple purposes, one of which is propensity.3 See Beasley, 809 F.2d at 1279–80 (“Almost 3 A common misconception about Rule 404(b) is that it establishes a rule of exclusion subject to certain exceptions. That’s not quite right. The text of the rule does not say that propensity evidence is inadmissible except when it is used to prove motive, opportunity, intent, etc. Rather, it says that propensity evidence—other-act evidence offered to prove a person’s character and inviting an inference that he acted in conformity therewith—is categorically inadmissible. FED. R. EVID. 404(b)(1). But the rule also acknowledges that there may be “another” use for other-act evidence—i.e., a different, nonpropensity use. FED. R. EVID. 404(b)(2). So it’s technically incorrect to characterize the purposes listed in subsection (2) as “exceptions” to the rule of subsection (1). The Rules of Evidence do contain some true exceptions to the rule against propensity evidence, but they’re found elsewhere—notably in Rules 412 through 415, which are limited to sexual-assault cases. In contrast, the purposes enumerated in subsection (2) of Rule 404(b) simply (continued...) 14 No. 12-1104 any bad act evidence simultaneously condemns by besmirching character and by showing one or more of ‘motive, opportunity, intent, preparation, plan, knowledge, identity, or absence of mistake or accident’ … .”). In the criminal context, and especially in drug cases, few defendants are new to criminal activity and the range of possible defenses is fairly limited, so at least three of the permitted purposes listed in the rule—knowledge, intent, and identity—are routinely in play. Because other-act evidence can serve several purposes at once, evidentiary disputes under Rule 404(b) often raise the following question: Does a permissible ultimate purpose (say, proof of the defendant’s knowledge or intent) cleanse an impermissible subsidiary purpose (propensity)? On the surface the rule seems to permit this. But if subsection (b)(2) of the rule allows the admission of other bad acts whenever they can be connected to the defendant’s knowledge, intent, or identity (or some other plausible non-propensity purpose), then the bar against propensity evidence would be virtually meaningless. We have made this point before. See, e.g., United States v. McMillan, 744 F.3d 1033, 1038 (7th Cir. 2014); Miller, 673 F.3d at 696 (explaining that “if applied mechanically,” the permitted purposes listed in the rule “would overwhelm the central principle” of the rule against propensity evidence (quoting Beasley, 809 F.3d at 1279)). 3 (...continued) identify situations in which the rule of subsection (1) by its terms does not apply. No. 12-1104 15 To resolve this inherent tension in the rule, we have cautioned that it’s not enough for the proponent of the otheract evidence simply to point to a purpose in the “permitted” list and assert that the other-act evidence is relevant to it. Rule 404(b) is not just concerned with the ultimate conclusion, but also with the chain of reasoning that supports the nonpropensity purpose for admitting the evidence. United States v. Reed, 744 F.3d 519, 524–25 (7th Cir. 2014); United States v. Lee, 724 F.3d 968, 976–77 (7th Cir. 2013); Miller, 673 F.3d at 697–98. In other words, the rule allows the use of other-act evidence only when its admission is supported by some propensity-free chain of reasoning. Lee, 724 F.3d at 978 (“When one looks beyond the purposes for which the evidence is being offered and considers what inferences the jury is being asked to draw from that evidence, and by what chain of logic, it will sometimes become clear … that despite the label, the jury is essentially being asked to rely on the evidence as proof of the defendant’s propensity to commit the charged offense.”); Miller, 673 F.3d at 697–99; United States v. Jones, 389 F.3d 753, 757 (7th Cir. 2004), vacated on other grounds by Jones v. United States, 545 U.S. 1125 (2005). This is not to say that other-act evidence must be excluded whenever a propensity inference can be drawn; rather, Rule 404(b) excludes the evidence if its relevance to “another purpose” is established only through the forbidden propensity inference. Spotting a hidden propensity inference is not always easy. See Jones, 389 F.3d at 757. For this reason, although we have long required the record to reflect a “principled exercise of discretion” by the district court, Beasley, 809 F.2d at 1279, we 16 No. 12-1104 have more recently emphasized the importance of identifying the non-propensity theory that makes the other-act evidence relevant and specifically asking how the evidence tends to make a particular fact of consequence more or less probable. For example, in United States v. Ciesiolka, 614 F.3d 347, 355 (7th Cir. 2010), we noted that it was critical to “delineate precisely the legitimate ends to which the evidence could be applied.” In Miller we explained that the court should ask “more specifically how” the other-act evidence is relevant to a permitted purpose in order to help expose impermissible uses of otheract evidence for pure propensity purposes. 673 F.3d at 699. In United States v. Richards, 719 F.3d 746 (7th Cir. 2013), we said that the “district court[] must consider specifically how the prior conviction tends to serve the non-propensity exception.” Id. at 759 (internal quotation marks and alterations omitted). And in Lee we explained that the court must “consider the chain of logic by which the jury is being asked to glean the defendant’s knowledge, intent, etc., from proof of his prior misdeeds.” 724 F.3d at 976–77. The principle that emerges from these recent cases is that the district court should not just ask whether the proposed other-act evidence is relevant to a non-propensity purpose but how exactly the evidence is relevant to that purpose—or more specifically, how the evidence is relevant without relying on a propensity inference. Careful attention to these questions will help identify evidence that serves no permissible purpose. No. 12-1104 17 3. Rule 403 Finally, even if other-act evidence is relevant without relying on a propensity inference, it may be excluded under Rule 403, which applies “with full force” in this context, Miller, 673 F.3d at 696, and gives the district court discretion to exclude relevant evidence if its probative value is “substantially outweighed by a danger of … unfair prejudice,” FED. R. EVID. 403. Other-act evidence raises special concerns about unfair prejudice because it almost always carries some risk that the jury will draw the forbidden propensity inference.4 See Lee, 724 F.3d at 976 (describing the “inherent risk of prejudice that such evidence poses to the defendant.”). Rule 403 does much of the heavy lifting in the admissibility analysis by excluding other-act evidence that may be slightly probative through a non-propensity theory but has a high likelihood of creating unfair prejudice by leading a jury to draw conclusions based on propensity. See Miller, 673 F.3d at 697 (explaining that under Rule 403 “all bad acts evidence must be balanced for probative value and unfair prejudice”); United States v. Chapman, 692 F.3d 822, 827 (7th Cir. 2012) (“The admission of [other-act] evidence always carries with it some risk of unfair prejudice to the defendant, but the critical issue is whether that risk is sufficiently outweighed by other factors.”). 4 Rule 403 also gives the court discretion to exclude relevant evidence if its probative value is substantially outweighed by the danger of “confusing the issues, misleading the jury, undue delay, wasting time, or needlessly presenting cumulative evidence.” FED. R. EVID. 403. Other-act evidence may implicate these concerns as well, but the more common problem is the risk of unfair prejudice. 18 No. 12-1104
One important issue in Rule 403 balancing in this context is the extent to which the non-propensity factual proposition actually is contested in the case. For example, if a defendant offers to concede or stipulate to the fact for which the evidence is offered, additional evidence may have little probative value. See, e.g., Old Chief v. United States, 519 U.S. 172, 191–92 (1997) (holding that a defendant’s stipulation to a prior felony conviction removes its probative value in a prosecution for unlawful possession of a firearm by a felon). Of course, there are various degrees of factual disagreement in a trial, and stipulations are at one end of that spectrum. See generally 2 EDWARD J. IMWINKELRIED, UNCHARGED MISCONDUCT EVIDENCE §§ 8:10–15 (2004) (reviewing various forms of disagreement and their effect on the admissibility of other-act evidence). Because each case is unique, Rule 403 balancing is a highly context-specific inquiry; there are few categorical rules. See Miller, 673 F.3d at 696–97. The general guiding principle is that the degree to which the non-propensity issue actually is disputed in the case will affect the probative value of the otheract evidence. See United States v. Causey, 748 F.3d 310, 318 (7th Cir. 2014); Lee, 724 F.3d at 976; Miller, 673 F.3d at 696–97. On the other hand, there are a few discrete circumstances in which we can say as a categorical matter that other-act evidence is substantially more prejudicial than probative. The Supreme Court’s decision in Old Chief is one example. There, the defendant was charged with unlawful possession of a firearm by a felon and offered to stipulate to his status as a felon to prevent the jury from learning the details of his prior No. 12-1104 19 conviction. The government rejected his offer to stipulate, and the district court permitted the prosecutor to introduce the prior conviction over the defendant’s Rule 403 objection. 519 U.S. at 177–78. The Supreme Court reversed. Id. at 192. The Court began by acknowledging the “familiar, standard rule that the prosecution is entitled to prove its case by evidence of its own choice, or, more exactly, that a criminal defendant may not stipulate or admit his way out of the full evidentiary force of the case as the Government chooses to present it.” Id. at 186–87. But when a defendant’s status as a felon is an element of the offense and he offers to stipulate to that fact, the evidence of his prior conviction loses its probative value, leaving only a substantial risk of unfair prejudice. Id. at 191–92. In this specific situation, a district court abuses its discretion in admitting the details of the prior conviction. Id. Our circuit also requires special caution when other-act evidence is offered to prove intent, which though a permissible non-propensity purpose is nonetheless “most likely to blend with improper propensity uses.” Miller, 673 F.3d at 698. In cases involving general-intent crimes—e.g., drug-distribution offenses (as distinct from drug conspiracies or possession of drugs with intent to distribute)—we have adopted a rule that other-act evidence is not admissible to show intent unless the defendant puts intent “at issue” beyond a general denial of guilt. See, e.g., United States v. Hicks, 635 F.3d 1063, 1070–71 (7th Cir. 2011); Shackleford, 738 F.2d at 781, overruled in part on other grounds by Huddleston v. United States, 485 U.S. 681. Our most complete explanation of this rule comes from Shackleford: 20 No. 12-1104 We have previously distinguished between situations in which intent is in issue because the government must show specific intent as an essential element of the crime and when intent is only a formal issue that can be inferred from the act. When the crime charged requires proof of specific intent, we have held that, because it is a material element to be proved by the govern- ment, it is necessarily in issue and the govern- ment may submit evidence of other acts in an attempt to establish the matter in its case-in- chief, assuming the other requirements of Rules 404(b) and 403 are satisfied. … On the other hand, we have stated that when intent is only a formal issue, so that proof of the proscribed act gives rise to an inference of intent, then unless the government has reason to believe that the de- fense will raise intent as an issue, evidence of other acts directed toward this issue should not be used in the government’s case-in-chief and should not be admitted until the defendant raises the issue. 738 F.2d at 781 (emphasis added). The specific-intent/general-intent distinction in the Rule 404(b) context is sometimes misunderstood. The critical point is that for general-intent crimes, the defendant’s intent can be inferred from the act itself, so intent is not “automatically” at issue. The paradigm case involves a charge of distribution of drugs, see Hicks, 635 F.3d at 1070–71, a general-intent No. 12-1104 21 crime for which the government need only show that the defendant physically transferred the drugs; the jury can infer from that act that the defendant’s intent was to distribute them. Hence our rule that “[b]ecause unlawful distribution [of drugs] is a general intent crime, in order for the government to introduce prior bad acts to show intent, the defendant must put his intent at issue first.” Id.; see also United States v. Manganellis, 864 F.2d 528, 539 (7th Cir. 1988). In contrast, we have repeatedly rejected a similar rule for specific-intent crimes because in this class of cases “intent is automatically at issue.” United States v. Conner, 583 F.3d 1011, 1022 (7th Cir. 2009) (collecting cases). Unfortunately, this line of precedent too frequently has been seen as a rule of automatic admission for other-act evidence in cases of specificintent crimes. See Lee, 724 F.3d at 981; Miller, 673 F.3d at 698–99. We firmly rejected that notion in Miller, emphasizing that other-act evidence is always subject to Rule 403 balancing. 673 F.3d at 696–98. We explained that although “[i]ntent can be ‘automatically at issue’ because it is an element of a specific intent crime,” other-act evidence offered to prove intent “can still be completely irrelevant to that issue, or relevant only in an impermissible way.” Id. at 697–98. We have reiterated these themes in other recent cases. See, e.g., Lee, 724 F.3d at 976 (“Simply because a subject like intent is formally at issue when the defendant has claimed innocence and the government is obliged to prove his intent as an element of his guilt does not automatically open the door to proof of the defendant’s other wrongful acts for purposes of establishing his intent.”); United States v. Earls, 704 F.3d 466, 471 (7th Cir. 2012) (“Rule 404(b) 22 No. 12-1104 does not provide a rule of automatic admission whenever bad acts evidence can be plausibly linked to another purpose … . The Rule 402 requirement of relevance and the unfair prejudice balancing inquiries of Rule 403 still apply with full force.” (internal quotation marks omitted)). To summarize then, when intent is not “at issue”—when the defendant is charged with a general-intent crime and does not meaningfully dispute intent—other-act evidence is not admissible to prove intent because its probative value will always be substantially outweighed by the risk of unfair prejudice. In contrast, when intent is “at issue”—in cases involving specific-intent crimes or because the defendant makes it an issue in a case involving a general-intent crime— other-act evidence may be admissible to prove intent, but it must be relevant without relying on a propensity inference, and its probative value must not be substantially outweighed by the risk of unfair prejudice. And again, the degree to which the non-propensity issue actually is contested may have a bearing on the probative value of the other-act evidence. Before moving on, we pause to note a point raised by the government that one of our recent cases could be read to suggest a generally applicable rule that other-act evidence may not be admitted unless the defendant “meaningfully dispute[s]” the non-propensity issue for which the evidence is offered. Richards, 719 F.3d at 759 (citing Miller, 673 F.3d at 697). Richards never actually held that, but for clarity’s sake, we reiterate that there is no such categorical rule or prerequisite, and we decline to adopt one now. Nothing in the Rules of Evidence supports imposing such a universal prerequisite to No. 12-1104 23 the admission of other-act evidence. Indeed, the advisory committee explicitly disapproves of any general requirement of this sort. See FED. R. EVID. 401 advisory committee’s notes (1972) (“The fact to which the evidence is directed need not be in dispute. … [T]he ruling should be made on the basis of such considerations as waste of time and undue prejudice (see Rule 403), rather than under any general requirement that evidence is admissible only if directed to matters in dispute.”); FED. R. EVID. 404 advisory committee’s notes (1972) (“No mechanical solution is offered.”). Moreover, as we have noted, the Supreme Court has specifically endorsed “the accepted rule that the prosecution is entitled to prove its case free from any defendant’s option to stipulate the evidence away.” Old Chief, 519 U.S. at 189. The Court held in Old Chief that “if … there [is] a justification for receiving evidence of the nature of prior acts on some issue other than status (i.e., to prove motive, opportunity, intent, preparation, plan, knowledge, identity, or absence of mistake or accident … ), Rule 404(b) guarantees the opportunity to seek its admission.” Id. at 190 (internal quotation marks omitted). Though not a fixed requirement, we reiterate that the district court should consider the degree to which the nonpropensity issue actually is contested when evaluating the probative value of the proposed other-act evidence. Because other-act evidence almost always carries a risk of unfair prejudice, sensitivity to the real factual disputes in the case is critical to meaningful Rule 403 balancing. 24 No. 12-1104