Opinion ID: 152144
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Cheryl Kay Brown

Text: 7 Case: 08-41058 Document: 00511191836 Page: 8 Date Filed: 08/02/2010 No. 08-41058 Brown’s sole issue on appeal is whether the district court erred in allowing testimony about her and her coconspirators’ drug use. Specifically, Brown argues that the testimony concerning drug use was “extrinsic” to the stolen mail conspiracy because the mail theft could have occurred without drug use. As such, she urges that this testimony improperly characterized her as a “drug dealer and a person who traded stolen property for drugs” and was thus unduly prejudicial. We find no error on this issue. “To determine whether ‘other acts’ evidence was erroneously admitted, we must first decide whether the evidence was intrinsic or extrinsic.” United States v. Rice, 607 F.3d 133, 141 (5th Cir. 2010). “Other act evidence is intrinsic when the evidence of the other act and the evidence of the crime charged are inextricably intertwined or both acts are part of a single criminal episode or the other acts were necessary preliminaries to the crime charged.” Id. (quotation marks omitted). “Intrinsic evidence is admissible to complete the story of the crime by proving the immediate context of events in time and place, and to evaluate all of the circumstances under which the defendant acted.” Id. “Intrinsic evidence does not implicate [Federal Rule of Evidence] 404(b), and consideration of its admissibility pursuant to that rule is unnecessary.” Id. (citation, alterations, and quotation marks omitted). Here, the Government’s presentation of drug use evidence helped “paint the picture,” id., of the relationship between the coconspirators and the objectives of the conspiracy by showing that the conspiracy’s impetus was the desire to obtain funds to purchase drugs. See, e.g., id. (presentation of previous robbery attempts helped the Government to show the conspiracy’s objectives and mode of operations); United States v. Royal, 972 F.2d 643, 647–48 (5th Cir. 1992) (evidence of prior drug convictions not extrinsic in a drug conspiracy conviction because “it allowed the jury to understand the nature of the relationship between the [coconspirators] and evaluate whether it was likely that the 8 Case: 08-41058 Document: 00511191836 Page: 9 Date Filed: 08/02/2010 No. 08-41058 [d]efendant[s] would have conspired”). As such, the drug use evidence presented here was “intrinsic,” and we discern no error on this issue.