Opinion ID: 57242
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Driver’s License Evidence

Text: We review a refusal to grant a mistrial for abuse of discretion. United States v. Ramirez, 426 F.3d 1344, 1353 (11th Cir. 2005) (per curiam). If a district court gives a curative instruction, we will reverse only if the evidence is so highly prejudicial as to be incurable by the trial court's admonition. United States v. Delgado, 321 F.3d 1338, 1347 (11th Cir. 2003) (quotations omitted). McFarland’s objection with respect to admission of testimony regarding the false Florida driver’s license was ultimately sustained. The court denied McFarland’s motion for mistrial on the ground that it had given a sufficient curative instruction to the jury. McFarland did not then 1 and does not now argue how the instruction was insufficient to cure any harm caused by the evidence. We find that a passing mention that McFarland possessed a false Florida driver's license in the context of all the other testimony and evidence in this case as to her specific conduct in connection with the fraud is not so highly prejudicial as to be incurable by the trial court's admonition. We find no abuse of discretion. The cumulative effect of multiple errors may require reversal of an 1 McFarland asserts that her lawyer argued the curative instruction was insufficient at trial, Appellant’s Brief at 46-47, but the portion of the trial transcript she cites for that assertion does not reflect any such argument, nor does any other portion as far as we can see. See R8 at 935. 10 appellant’s conviction where, in combination, those errors prejudice a defendant’s right to a fair trial. Ramirez, 426 F.3d at 1353. Of the three issues McFarland raises, however, only one actually resulted in evidence wrongly admitted: the driver’s license testimony. Accordingly, there can be no cumulative error, and, as previously discussed, any harm from the driver’s license testimony was cured by the judge’s instruction to the jury.