Opinion ID: 626819
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Whether the Evidence was Offered for a Proper Purpose

Text: The first Huddleston inquiry is whether the evidence was offered for a proper purpose. The government argues there are two proper purposes justifying the admission of the evidence: first, that it was relevant to prove identity, and second, that it supported the reliability and the credibility of the detectives' testimony, in part by corroborating it. Identity is conceded by both parties as a proper purpose under Rule 404(b), but whether the testimony could properly be offered to support reliability and credibility is disputed. The government contends that [t]he fact that the Detectives previously knew Scott spoke loudly to the reliability and credibility of their observations, as the jury could infer that the Detectives, knowing who they were watching, were able to focus more closely on what they were watching. This theory was also advanced during the government's summation: If you have ever seen a friend, a coworker, or a neighbor down the street, you watch what they are doing, you know right away that it's them. It's a lot easier to follow the action, to follow what they are doing, if it's someone you recognize, someone you know. We find this argument to be entirely unpersuasive. First, Scott's identity was not in dispute, see infra, and second, there is no evidence in this record even remotely suggesting that an officer watching what he believes to be a hand-to-hand drug sale would generally have any reason to focus extensively on the identity of the perpetrator rather than the action itself. An officer on patrol who believes he is witnessing a crime and that an arrest is imminent has no immediate need to identify the suspect. Detective Moran admitted as much at trial when he testified that he and Detective Geary did not test the drugs recovered from the tree for fingerprints or for DNA [b]ecause on an observation sale of narcotics, when you see the crime occur in your presence, there's no reason to get fingerprints, because I already know who committed the crime.  (emphasis added). We reject the notion that freeing the detectives' brains from a task we have no reason to believe they were engaged in made their observations somehow more credible or reliable. In addition to the lack of rationale arising out of police procedure, neither does the government proffer any credible explanation sounding in common sense or science about why a person is better able to follow the action or to physically see an event because he is familiar with a person involved. There is only one reason a person is better able tell what someone he knows is doing, which is that he knows what someone he is familiar with is likely to be doing. The government's summation underscored this when the prosecutor stated, [the recognition is] important here because the detectives saw not just a drug dealer, but someone they recognized, someone they recognized engage in a drug transaction. (emphasis added). It may be true that the detectives' knowledge of Scott made them more reliable because it helped them to identify as a drug transaction what might have otherwise been ambiguous, but that fact goes to criminal propensity alone, precisely what Rule 404(b) prohibits. Even our `inclusionary approach,' LaFlam, 369 F.3d at 156 (2d Cir.2004), to Rule 404(b) evidence cannot support the admission of such propensity evidence. Nor can we say the recognition testimony bolstered the credibility of the detectives by explaining their actions, something our cases support as a proper purpose for other act evidence. In United States v. Bermudez, we held admissible an officer's testimony that he overheard the defendant make drug-related comments because it explained why the officers' attention was focused on [the defendant] as opposed to any number of other individuals in the high crime area. 529 F.3d 158, 163 (2d Cir.2008). We determined that without this explanation for singling out the defendant, the officers' entire testimony would be suspect. Id. There is no such rationale here. The detectives testified that they were on patrol in a drug-prone location when they witnessed a hand-to-hand drug sale. Detective Moran further testified that the area was pretty desolate except for the group surrounding Scott at the time of the stop. The jury needed to hear no further explanation for why the detectives were drawn to the scene. In the same vein, the government also argues that the recognition testimony corroborated the detectives' other testimony. We have consistently held [other act evidence] admissible to corroborate crucial prosecution testimony. United States v. Everett, 825 F.2d 658, 660 (2d Cir.1987). But this allowance for corroboration is not unlimited: [T]o avoid potential prosecutorial abuse, we have required the proponent of the evidence to demonstrate a close relationship between the proffered evidence and the evidence to be corroborated. Id. The corroboration must be also be direct and the matter corroborated ... significant. Id. (internal quotation mark omitted). Here, the government has presented no explanation for what exactly was corroborated by the fact that the detectives had seen Scott before, much less demonstrated the required close relationship. We find no disputed fact that the recognition testimony could possibly have corroborated. It cannot corroborate the detectives' accounts of the crime itself, because it is not relevant to them. It cannot even serve, more generally, to corroborate either detective's testimony by suggesting overall truthfulness since the two accounts of police interactions do not match up (nor is there a reason for them to). Even if we were to accept the government's argument that under our case law, it is acceptable to introduce other act evidence to corroborate... overall testimony (which is not at all what Everett teaches), there is no such corroboration here, except to the impermissible extent it suggests that, since Scott had been up to no good before, the detectives were right to think that he was up to no good again. The Government ... must do more than disclaim an intention of proving that the defendant is a bad man. For what prosecutor in his right mind will ever offer that improper justification? Instead, the prosecutor must show that the evidence is relevant, and there is no presumption that it is. United States v. O'Connor, 580 F.2d 38, 40 (2d Cir.1978). The government here has failed to show to how the recognition testimony was relevant to corroborating the detectives' other testimony. We therefore reject this suggested purpose.