Opinion ID: 2960846
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Testimony Regarding Stories

Text: Before trial, the government moved in limine to introduce stories found on Evans’s media devices about adult men engaging in sexual acts with minors. The district court denied the motion on the grounds that “at this time, the stories are probative only of Evans’s prurient interest in children,” adding that it would reconsider the government’s motion if Evans “open[ed] the door” during trial. Early in the trial, the government renewed its motion to introduce evidence of the stories, asserting “that the defendant opened the door in his opening by indicating that this -6- was a virus that was responsible for all of this material.” The district court again denied the motion. At the close of the government’s case, the government moved a third time to admit evidence of the stories, asserting that “the stories . . . located on the two hard drives are relevant to show identity as well as lack of mistake or intent.” This time, the district court found that Evans had opened the door to this evidence based on his cross-examination of the government’s witnesses and ruled the stories admissible. We review this ruling for an abuse of discretion. Battle, 774 F.3d at 511. The district court properly denied the government’s motion to introduce the stories both before trial and at the start of the government’s case in chief. At that point, the evidence was nothing more than propensity evidence, suggestive only of Evans’s “predisposition and inherent tendency to commit the crimes charged.” United States v. Johnson, 439 F.3d 884, 889 (8th Cir. 2006) (holding that two similar stories found in printed hard copy in the defendant’s home were inadmissible propensity evidence). After Evans cross examined the government’s witnesses, however, the district court determined he had opened the door to admission of this evidence by asserting that he did not know the images and videos of child pornography were on his media devices. See United States v. Bagola, — F.3d —,  (8th Cir. 2015) (explaining that the doctrine of “opening the door” allows a party to introduce otherwise inadmissible evidence to “clarify or rebut” an issue first raised by the opposing party). The court noted that “if you take a look at all the evidence, the stories and the images, what you find is that they’re organized on various hard drives in quite a systematic fashion.” Thus, the court concluded, the government could properly offer evidence of the stories to show “an absence of mistake,” because these materials were “organized in a way that shows more than sort of a casual attention to these items.” -7- We are not persuaded that Evans “opened the door” to the admission of this evidence. Evans’s defense was that he had no knowledge of the images and videos of child pornography on his media devices and that a computer virus of some sort must be to blame. Evidence that the images and videos were highly organized on the media devices may counter this defense; as the district court noted, such organization suggests Evans gave more than “casual attention” to the materials. The fact that sexually explicit stories were among these highly organized materials, however, does not have similar evidentiary value. Introducing evidence that these stories were stored in the same systematic fashion on the media devices as the images and videos “does nothing to further the government’s claim [that Evans] knew the [media devices] contained prohibited material.” Johnson, 439 F.3d at 889. Thus, even after Evans asserted his lack of knowledge, evidence of the stories on Evans’s hard drive remained merely propensity evidence that showed, if anything, Evans’s predisposition to possess child pornography. To this extent, therefore, the stories were inadmissible. See Fed. R. Evid. 404(b). However, it appears from the government’s representation to the court at trial that some of the stories were located in a folder that also contained Evans’s personal documents.7 Unlike the stories located and organized with the images and videos, 7 In its original motion in limine, the government argued that “defendant saved the narratives onto some of the same devices in which he stored his child pornography. For instance, the bulk of the child pornography was found on two external hard drives . . . . These same hard drives also contained the bulk of the narratives involving the sexual abuse of children . . . .” Thus, the initial argument appears to have included the representation that the images and videos and the narrative stories were stored together. At trial, however, the government was more specific: “On one of the hard drives the stories are kept together with some of the defendant’s personal documents separated from that child pornography. Now in some cases it is with child pornography but in other cases it’s stored together with those -8- evidence of stories that were located with personal documents may be admissible to show absence of mistake or accident. This is because the location of the stories reflects on the truth of Evans’s defense. As noted, the existence of stories located with the rest of the child pornography materials and organized in the same systematic fashion sheds no light on whether Evans knew about the images and videos. But, if the stories were located in the same folder as some of Evans’s personal files, and if Evans accessed that folder, such evidence would tend to suggest Evans was aware of the stories on his media devices. And that would tend to refute his defense that he had no knowledge of any inappropriate materials that may have been downloaded onto his media devices by a computer virus. Yet the government did not make this distinction clear. In arguing for the non-propensity admission of the stories, the government did not articulate what type of personal documents the stories may have been stored with, or explain how their specific location refuted Evans’s defense that he did not knowingly possess child pornography. Furthermore, although Evans testified, the government did not limit its cross examination questions8 to address only personal documents.” 8 The relevant testimony included the following exchange: Q. Mr. Evans, are you aware that there were stories detailing the sexual abuse between adult men and children found on two of your hard drives? A. No, Ms. Puhl, I was not. Q. You weren’t aware of that? A. No, I was not. Q. You weren’t aware that some of these stories, narratives, are found in an old “Documents” folder with other personal documents of yours? A. I have no idea, Ms. Puhl. Q. A story entitled “Floyd Liked the Young Ones” is found with -9- those stories that were located with personal documents such that the jury could understand the non-propensity purpose of this evidence at trial. The record therefore does not clearly reflect a legitimate, non-propensity purpose for admitting the stories into evidence. Despite our concerns, we conclude that any error that did result from the admission of the stories was harmless. See United States v. Worman, 622 F.3d 969, 976 (8th Cir. 2010) (“An evidentiary ruling is harmless if the substantial rights of the defendant were unaffected, and the error had no, or only a slight, influence on the verdict.”). The jury never heard the content of the stories, as the government’s questioning was limited to the presence of the stories on Evans’s media devices, the title of one of these stories, and the proximity of some of the stories to his personal timesheet Robert Evans. A. I don’t know anything about those files. Q. So it just happens that the same person who’s putting child pornography on your hard drives changing those names and putting them on external hard drives is also putting stories detailing the sexual abuse of young kids on your hard drives as well? A. I would think that anybody that’s capable of putting those things on my computer could have put anything on my computer, Ms. Puhl. I have no idea. Q. On hard drive 6B, Mr. Evans, those stories are labeled in a file folder entitled “Stories.” A. I don’t know, Ms. Puhl. Q. You didn’t create that folder? A. Not that I remember ever creating that folder. Similar follow-up questions were asked during brief redirect and recross examination of Evans. -10- documents. Furthermore, the government’s reference to this evidence was brief, consisting of only eight questions, plus four asked by Evans’s attorney on redirect. Finally, the stories were not mentioned during closing argument, which limited any possible effect on the jury’s decision-making process. There was also ample properly-admitted evidence that Evans knowingly possessed child pornography. The jury heard about his 56 media devices containing thousands of images and videos depicting child pornography. They also heard testimony that Evans allegedly altered the file names of child pornography images and videos after downloading them to make it look like the files depicted adult pornography instead. They knew that Evans lived alone in the apartment where the media devices were stored at the time of the search. Evans himself testified that he had earned degrees in business data processing and computer science and had significant experience with computers, including jobs as a computer programmer and manager of software projects. He also attempted to build computers for his own personal use. A reasonable jury could conclude that such a computer-savvy person would not fail to notice that a virus (or a person other than himself) had caused a download of such a large number of images and videos onto his media devices. Given the properly-admitted evidence at trial, we cannot say the brief discussion of these stories influenced the jury’s verdict. Any error in admitting this line of questioning was therefore harmless. See Worman, 622 F.3d at 976.