Opinion ID: 71441
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Failure to Repeat an Instruction to the Jury

Text: 20 The district court initially permitted the government to introduce evidence of the seizure of money from Campbell during a 1988 search at an airport in St. Louis. Nevertheless, the court later ruled this evidence inadmissible under Rule 404(b) and instructed the jury to ignore the evidence. Campbell argues that the district court abused its discretion when it refused to repeat the instruction during the court's charge to the jury. 21 [T]he timing of [a limiting] instruction is best left to the trial judge's discretion because he is better able to determine whether such an instruction would unduly emphasize the evidence in the minds of the jurors. United States v. Dabish, 708 F.2d 240, 243 (6th Cir.1983). Where a contemporaneous limiting instruction has been given to the jury, the court retains discretion to determine whether the instruction needs repeating at the end of trial. United States v. Ashby, 864 F.2d 690, 694 (10th Cir.1988), cert. denied, 494 U.S. 1070, 110 S.Ct. 1793, 108 L.Ed.2d 794 (1990). In the instant case, the court gave a limiting instruction when it excluded the evidence. It quite properly might have believed that repeating the instruction would unduly emphasize the 1988 search in the airport. Moreover, because the law assumes that jurors follow their instructions, see Richardson v. Marsh, 481 U.S. 200, 206, 107 S.Ct. 1702, 1706, 95 L.Ed.2d 176 (1987); United States v. Chandler, 996 F.2d 1073, 1088 (11th Cir.1993), cert. denied, 512 U.S. 1227, 114 S.Ct. 2724, 129 L.Ed.2d 848 (1994), the repetition of a limiting instruction was unnecessary. The court's refusal to repeat the instruction was not an abuse of discretion.