Opinion ID: 2098657
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Maryland arrest

Text: Appellants also challenge the admission of evidence relating to their arrest in Maryland. In arguing to the trial court at a pre-trial hearing that this evidence should be excluded, counsel for Lewis asserted that the facts of the Maryland arrest were not relevant because they were too remote in time from the events in this case. Counsel for Price also sought to exclude any evidence about the handgun recovered from the car in Maryland as being unfairly prejudicial. The trial court concluded, however, that the evidence of the Maryland arrest and the gun were not unfairly prejudicial but probative. The court ruled that the jury could consider the evidence in deciding whether or not it's likely that they had that gun at the time of the underlying incident. Later, after the jury was selected, Lewis' counsel renewed her objection, arguing that the evidence would mislead and confuse the jury, and Price's counsel urged the court to monitor very closely the limits of the testimony elicited by the government. An evidentiary ruling by a trial judge on the relevancy of a particular item is a `highly discretionary decision' that will be upset on appeal only upon a showing of `grave abuse.' Roundtree v. United States, 581 A.2d 315, 328 (D.C.1990) (citations omitted). If it is clear that the trial court has weighed the probative value of the challenged evidence against its potential for prejudice, we will generally reverse a decision to admit the evidence only if its probative value is substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice.... ( William) Johnson v. United States, 683 A.2d 1087, 1090 (D.C.1996) (en banc). In particular, it has long been settled, in this jurisdiction and elsewhere, that prior bad acts of a defendant that are criminal in nature and independent of the crime charged are not admissible to prove predisposition to commit the charged crime.... Id. at 1092; see Drew v. United States, 118 U.S.App.D.C. 11, 15-16, 331 F.2d 85, 89-90 (1964). However, trial courts are allowed to admit such evidence in some circumstances, provided that it is not unfairly prejudicial. Notably, a court may admit evidence of a weapon recovered at a time and place other than the scene of the crime at issue when there is some connection between the weapon and either the defendant or the crime, or both, King v. United States, 618 A.2d 727, 729 (D.C.1993), so long as the connection is not conjectural or remote. Burleson v. United States, 306 A.2d 659, 662 (D.C. 1973). In this case, although the trial court recognized that evidence of the gun recovered in the course of the Maryland arrest might be devastating, the fact that Gibson told the police that the gun recovered in Maryland looked just like the one used in the robbery supported its admission. See Hollingsworth v. United States, 531 A.2d 973, 982 (D.C.1987) (upholding, in an armed robbery case, the admission of a gun recovered from the defendant in an unrelated arrest a month later when the victim identified the gun as the one used in the robbery). [5] Moreover, the record shows that the court carefully restricted the amount of evidence introduced concerning the circumstances of appellants' arrest in Maryland. [6] We think the court should be commended for its careful balancing of the pertinent factors for and against the admission of the gun; we certainly do not discern any abuse of discretion that would warrant reversal. In addition, we note that the jury did not find appellants guilty of either armed robbery or PFCV, which strongly suggests that the jury did not give undue weight to the evidence of the Maryland arrest and the recovery of the gun.