Opinion ID: 3064640
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Government’s “Prior Acts” Evidence

Text: [7] Crowe also argues that the district court erred in admitting testimony concerning a prior incident in February of 2006 in which Crowe struck Eagleman on the head with a bottle, injuring him, as “prior acts” evidence under Fed. R. Evid. 404(b) relevant to the issue of Crowe’s intent. Yet even if this court were to conclude that the district court erred in ruling that evidence admissible, any such error proved to be harmless. In acquitting Crowe on the voluntary manslaughter charge set forth in the indictment, the jury rejected the Government’s theory concerning Crowe’s intent or state of mind.11 Instead, the jury found Crowe guilty of the lesser included offense of involuntary manslaughter, which they were instructed was “the unlawful killing of a human being without 11 The Government argued that on New Year’s Eve in 2006, Crowe had experienced “a flash of anger” that resulted in the stabbing death of Eagleman, and that, like the February 2006 incident, Crowe had struck at Eagleman because she was angry at him, not because she feared for her life. 4858 UNITED STATES v. CROWE malice aforethought and without an intent to kill.” It thus proves unlikely that the admission of Rule 404(b) evidence concerning the February 2006 incident affected the jury’s verdict. See United States v. Chu Kong Yin, 935 F.2d 990, 994 (9th Cir. 1991) (“A nonconstitutional evidentiary error will be reversed for an abuse of discretion only if the court’s ruling more likely than not affected the verdict.”). Crowe has failed to demonstrate a reasonable probability that a different result would have obtained absent the Rule 404(b) testimony and, thus, has failed to demonstrate that the alleged error affected her substantial rights. See United States v. Dominguez Benitez, 542 U.S. 74, 83 (2004).12