Opinion ID: 222568
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Langford's Clothes Donations

Text: Langford next says that the district court abused its discretion in generally refusing to allow him to offer testimony that Langford had donated clothing on a number of occasions to Pastor Ocie Oden. While the district court permitted Langford to introduce testimony that on one occasion Langford had given Pastor Oden an Oxxford suit, the same suit brand Blount had purchased for Langford, it would not permit additional testimony that Langford had given the Pastor a large number of other suits. The district court had rejected this evidence as improper character evidence. Langford does not argue that this proffered evidence was anything more than an attempt to introduce evidence of his generous and philanthropic character. At no point, however, did Langford argue, or even suggest, that his purported philanthropy bore in any way on his veracity or law-abidingness. As the district court recognized, [w]hat [Langford] planned on doing with the items he received from Mr. Blount was not the issue. The issue was whether [Langford] was influenced by receipt of the items. Langford's argument that his donation of clothes suggests that he placed a low subjective value on the payments from Blount is highly speculativeinstead, he could obtain just as much value from donating them as from keeping them. Quite simply, the district court did not abuse its discretion in ruling that this evidence was inadmissible character evidence under Fed.R.Evid. 404(a), which, after all only permits evidence of a defendant's character trait where it is pertinent. And in any event, the district court did allow other, more relevant evidence of Langford's generosity, since the Pastor was permitted to testify that Langford gave him an Oxxford suit, the same brand given to Langford by Blount. Moreover, Blount also testified that Langford had given him gifts too.