Opinion ID: 2266102
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Whether the exclusions were an abuse of discretion

Text: The city asserts that the exclusions were appropriate and were based on an earlier ruling on a motion in limine. In that ruling, the superior court excluded all information about the district attorney's investigation and the Police Standards Council's investigation. The court found those investigations irrelevant, or if marginally relevant, then too potentially misleading. The court reasoned that whether the district attorney or the Police Standards Council ultimately took action was irrelevant to Schofield's decision to resign, since those agencies' investigations were discretionary and would come after Schofield's decision to resign. Schofield, however, argues this was an abuse of discretion because Putman's comments, coming right before Schofield's resignation, were highly relevant to the issue of whether he felt forced to resign and unlikely to mislead since they did not actually contain information about the district attorney's and the Police Standards Council's investigations. Alaska Evidence Rule 403 governs such exclusions: Although relevant, evidence may be excluded if its probative value is outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice, confusion of the issues, or misleading the jury, or by considerations of undue delay, waste of time, or needless presentation of cumulative evidence. Trial courts have broad discretion in applying this balancing test. [7] Generally it makes sense to exclude information concerning the results of any investigation by the district attorney or the Police Standards Council because those investigations would have occurred after, and independent of, Schofield's decision to resign i.e., they could not have compelled him to resign and are thus irrelevant. But that logic is not germane to the statements that were excluded in this case. Here, many of the excluded statements were uttered right before Schofield resigned and do not pertain to the results of the investigations, just the threat of an investigation. Further, the statements were relevant and presented little danger of unfair prejudice or potential to mislead. Because Schofield claimed he resigned to avoid a potentially career-ending investigation, it was relevant that Putman insinuated to Schofield that Schofield's record would be sent to the district attorney and the Police Standards Council, and that those agencies would likely undertake investigations if Schofield did not tender his resignation. This is particularly true because the excluded portions of the October 25 conversation came directly before Schofield tendered his resignation to Putman. And the statements' relevance is not outweighed by their potential to mislead. It is true that the ultimate results of the investigations could mislead the jury because the agencies might use different records and processes than a court uses. But the statements in question would not require any discussion of the results of the investigations by the district attorney or the Police Standards Council. Rather, they simply show that Schofield was threatened by, or made aware of, their potential. Because the excluded statements go to the core of Schofield's claim that he resigned to protect his police certification, there is significant probative value to the statements. And because the statements do not discuss the ultimate outcome of the investigations of the district attorney's or the Police Standards Council's investigations, the possibility of confusion from their admission into evidence is minimal. We conclude that it was an abuse of discretion to exclude the statements.