Opinion ID: 775590
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Exclusion of Angwin's Proposed Habit Evidence

Text: 39 Angwin next asserts that the district court erred by excluding testimony regarding his training and experience in the Coast Guard Auxiliary as habit evidence under Federal Rule of Evidence 406. According to Angwin, that evidence would have shown that his reactions when the aliens entered the motorhome and at the USBP checkpoint were consistent with his training and experience in the Auxiliary, which, he claims, had taught Angwin to take the least confrontational course of action in potentially dangerous situations. Angwin interprets the district court's remarks in excluding the evidence as doing so because the defendant intended to introduce multiple examples of his training as opposed to one example. In Angwin's view, that was a misapplication of Rule 406. 40 A district court's evidentiary rulings during trial are typically reviewed for an abuse of discretion. See Old Chief v. United States, 519 U.S. 172, 174 n. 1, 136 L. Ed. 2d 574, 117 S. Ct. 644 (1997); United States v. Fleming, 215 F.3d 930, 938 (9th Cir. 2000). We will only reverse if an erroneous evidentiary ruling more likely than not affected the verdict. See United States v. Hankey, 203 F.3d 1160, 1167 (9th Cir.), cert. denied, 530 U.S. 1268, 120 S. Ct. 2733, 147 L. Ed. 2d 995 (2000). However, evidentiary rulings which raise predominantly legal questions regarding the interpretation of the Federal Rules of Evidence are reviewed de novo. See United States v. Mateo-Mendez, 215 F.3d 1039, 1042 (9th Cir.), cert. denied, 531 U.S. 983, 148 L. Ed. 2d 444, 121 S. Ct. 437 (2000). 41 A district court's ruling on whether proffered evidence qualifies as habit evidence under Federal Rule of Evidence 406 is highly fact-specific. See Mathes v. The Clipper Fleet, 774 F.2d 980, 984 (9th Cir. 1985) (noting that examples of conduct submitted for the purpose of establishing habit must be carefully scrutinized to ensure that they are numerous enough to justify an inference of systematic conduct). Because factual matters predominate in determining whether certain evidence sought to be introduced at trial qualifies as habit under Rule 406, we will employ an abuse of discretion standard. 42 Rule 406 provides: Evidence of the habit of a person or of the routine practice of an organization, whether corroborated or not and regardless of the presence of eyewitnesses, is relevant to prove that the conduct of the person . . . on a particular occasion was in conformity with the habit . . . Fed. R. Evid. 406. Habit describes one's regular response to a repeated specific situation. Fed. R. Evid. 406 advisory committee note (describing conduct that qualifies as habit as semi-automatic). In deciding whether certain conduct constitutes habit, courts consider three factors: (1) the degree to which the conduct is reflexive or semi-automatic as opposed to volitional; (2) the specificity or particularity of the conduct; and (3) the regularity or numerosity of the examples of the conduct. 3 See Weil v. Seltzer, 277 U.S. App. D.C. 196, 873 F.2d 1453, 1460 (D.C. Cir. 1989); Simplex, Inc. v. Diversified Energy Sys., Inc., 847 F.2d 1290, 1293-94 (7th Cir. 1988). The burden of establishing that certain conduct qualifies as evidence of habit falls on the party wishing to introduce the evidence. See Weil, 873 F.2d at 1461. Rule 406 is an exception to the general exclusion of character evidence under the Federal Rules, so courts are somewhat cautious in admitting the evidence. 43 Angwin asserts that the district court excluded Angwin's proffered evidence regarding his training with the Auxiliary on the ground that Angwin wanted to present multiple examples of his conduct. In Angwin's view, the district court's rationale for excluding the evidence is diametrically opposed to the basis on which habit evidence is probative, which is that the conduct is done so repeatedly that it is reflexive or instinctual and therefore suggestive that the person acted in conformity with the habit during the event in question. Angwin is correct as a matter of applying the rule; the more frequently that someone has engaged in certain conduct, the more likely it is that the conduct will qualify as evidence of habit. However, Angwin has misinterpreted the district court's ruling and has failed to establish that his conduct constituted evidence of habit. 44 First, the district court did not reject Angwin's proffered evidence on the ground that Angwin wanted to show too many examples of his conduct and training. Instead, the court found that his training simply was not sufficiently parallel to his conduct on the day of the crime. The district court's comment that Angwin's Auxiliary training was not parallel implies that the court was skeptical about the probative value of the evidence, not that the court misinterpreted Rule 406. In other words, as the United States explains, the district court was not objecting to the quantity of Angwin's evidence but its quality. Because Angwin's experience in rescuing distressed boats at sea is not particularly similar to the factual context of his crime, see infra, the district court did not abuse its discretion in finding that Angwin's proffered evidence of habit was not relevant. 4 45 Second, even if the district court did employ a flawed understanding of the rule, the record is inadequate for Angwin to meet his burden of showing that his training and experience in the Auxiliary qualified as evidence of habit. Angwin's proffered evidence of his training was not sufficiently reflexive and specific to constitute habit evidence. His response to dangerous situations--prudently taking the least confrontational course of action--is hardly reflexive or semi-automatic. The defendant testified that he considered a variety of factors in deciding what to do once the aliens approached the motorhome, including the ages and physical condition of the Latino men who threatened him, the proximity of nearby towns as opposed to the USBP checkpoint, and other criteria. See Appellee's Br. at 33 n. 14. By its very nature, such calculation is volitional, a deliberate assessment[]of a crisis before choosing a safe route of escape. Id. at 32-33. While specialized training might in some instances become habit, acting with particular care is distinguished from habit in the advisory notes to Rule 406. See Fed. R. Evid. 406 advisory committee note (distinguishing character for care and a person's tendency to act prudently from a regular practice of meeting a particular kind of situation with a specific type of conduct). 46 In addition, Angwin's proffered conduct lacks the specificity required of habit evidence. Merely indicating that he takes a non-confrontational course of action in dangerous situations in general does not describe his conduct with sufficient particularity to be probative of whether he acted in conformity with that general practice on this particular occasion. Thus, the district court did not abuse its discretion in excluding Angwin's proffered conduct evidence, as his training and experience in the Auxiliary did not qualify as evidence of habit under Rule 406. 47 Even if the district court should have admitted the evidence, its failure to do so was still harmless error. Since an error in interpreting the rules of evidence is not of constitutional magnitude, the United States must show only that the prejudice resulting from the error was more probably than not harmless. See United States v. Mett, 178 F.3d 1058, 1066 (9th Cir. 1999). Angwin makes little effort to argue that he suffered prejudice from the district court's ruling, and given the substantial evidence of guilt, see Section II. A. 2 supra, the United States has shown that the error more probably than not did not affect the verdict. 48