Opinion ID: 526743
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Timing of Mention or Admission of the Similar Acts Evidence

Text: 68 Before any similar acts evidence can be admitted, the district court must consider whether the evidence is relevant to a disputed issue and weigh its probative value against the danger of unfair prejudice. Huddleston, 485 U.S. at ----, 108 S.Ct. at 1501-02; Fed.R.Evid. 403. In light of the importance of this careful analysis, we have on more than one occasion found that 69 if the evidence is offered to prove the defendant's knowledge or intent, the offer of similar acts evidence should await the conclusion of the defendant's case and should be aimed at a specifically identified issue. This enables the trial judge to determine whether the issue sought to be proved by the evidence is really in dispute and, if so, to assess the probative worth of the evidence on this issue against its prejudicial effect. 70 Figueroa, 618 F.2d at 939; see also United States v. Danzey, 594 F.2d 905, 912-14 (2d Cir.) (distinguishing use of such evidence to prove identity), cert. denied, 441 U.S. 951, 99 S.Ct. 2179, 60 L.Ed.2d 1056 (1979); Benedetto, 571 F.2d at 1249; United States v. Leonard, 524 F.2d 1076, 1092 (2d Cir.1975), cert. denied, 425 U.S. 958, 96 S.Ct. 1737, 48 L.Ed.2d 202 (1976). We have recognized an exception to this general rule in cases where there was no doubt that the issue of intent would be disputed in the case. See United States v. Caputo, 808 F.2d 963, 968 (2d Cir.1987); United States v. Reed, 639 F.2d 896, 906-07 (2d Cir.1981). 71 As described supra, we believe that Colon's amended defense theory could have sufficed to remove the issue of intent from the case. Colon's putting forth this theory therefore raised uncertainty as to whether intent would be really in dispute. Figueroa, 618 F.2d at 939; Benedetto, 571 F.2d at 1249. Under these circumstances, the district court should have prevented the government from mentioning the evidence of prior heroin sales in its opening statement. Further, admission of the evidence should have awaited the conclusion of Colon's defense case. 2 72 We understand the frustration likely felt by the district court in the face of Colon's ambiguous and shifting theory of defense. Colon abruptly changed his entire theory of defense just as the government was about to give its opening statement. Nevertheless, we find the district court's subsequent statement to defense counsel that if you can't make your mind up before the opening, I have to take the position that the issue will be in the case to be inconsistent with our case law. If Colon could not make up his mind what his defense would be, and if there was a possibility that the defense he would ultimately adopt would remove the issue of intent from the case, then the proper course was to await Colon's decision before permitting the similar acts evidence to enter the case by means of an opening statement or a witness' testimony. 73 We also recognize that Colon may have lost any chance of keeping the issue of intent out of the case when he testified. Colon's testimony can hardly be characterized as unequivocal[ ] reli[ance] on his claim that he remembered nothing about the incident. See Ortiz, 857 F.2d at 904. On cross-examination, albeit in response to very leading questions, Colon acknowledged that [p]erhaps it was possible that he did speak to Detective White. He also said that [m]aybe someone could have asked him where to buy drugs. Thus, the government may be correct in asserting that Colon's testimony could have opened the door to the introduction of the similar act evidence. 74 The problem is that by the time Colon opened the door, the proverbial horses had already left the barn. Evidence of his prior involvement in heroin sales had long since been mentioned in the government's opening and admitted through the testimony of Agent Foruria during the government's case-in-chief. It is true that in Benedetto, 571 F.2d at 1250, we found that a defendant had opened the door to impeachment with prior acts evidence under Fed.R.Evid. 607, even though the evidence had already been admitted before the defendant testified. We recognized, however, that it would have been advisable to defer the admission of the prior acts evidence until the government's rebuttal case. We declined to find reversible error only in view of the totality of the circumstances present in that case. Id. Under the circumstances present here, we will not take Colon to have opened the door to the admission of evidence that had already been admitted. 75 Mention of the similar acts evidence in the government's opening and admission of it during the government's case-in-chief are particularly troubling here in light of Colon's claim that had the evidence not been admitted, he would have elected not to testify. The record leaves no doubt that defense counsel recognized that Colon's case would be badly damaged by admission of the similar acts evidence. Counsel fought hard to have the evidence excluded, and he specifically asked that the government not be permitted to mention the similar acts in its opening. It is quite possible that the choice of defense strategy was dependent upon whether the similar acts evidence would be admitted. With the damaging similar acts evidence already admitted, counsel may have felt that there was no alternative but to have Colon testify. It is plausible that Colon might not have testified if admission of the evidence had been delayed. 76 When Colon did testify, his defense was badly shaken by cross-examination. Colon's own counsel, in summation, felt obliged to acknowledge that Mr. Colon's testimony on the witness stand ... was terrible.... [T]he [Assistant] U.S. Attorney made a jackass out of him. Apart from raising serious questions about Colon's credibility, the cross-examination delved into the circumstances of Colon's prior involvement in heroin sales. The cross-examination provided the government with much of the basis for its summation argument to the jury, an argument which emphasized the similarity between the two prior drug sales and the crime charged in this case. 77 We cannot know what course the trial would have taken had the district court properly delayed any reference to the damaging similar acts evidence until after the defense presented its case. Had he not felt the need to battle against the similar acts evidence from the start, Colon might have been able to present a coherent defense that would have precluded the admission of the evidence. Under these circumstances, we find that the district court's permitting mention of the evidence in the government's opening and admission of the evidence during the government's case-in-chief constituted reversible error.