Opinion ID: 2994631
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Admission of Kolavo Testimony

Text: As we noted earlier, Christine Kolavo testified at trial on Molnar’s behalf. Kolavo was a former employee whom Booth had supervised. She recounted an incident in which Booth had followed her out to her car and asked for her telephone number. Kolavo refused to give it to him and then reported the come on to Assistant Principal Vega. Vega then offered to supervise Kolavo directly. Kolavo did not make any report to the general school administration. The defendants argued that Kolavo’s testimony was irrelevant and prejudicial; Molnar responded that it tended to show either Booth’s retaliatory intent or his discriminatory motive, that it impeached Booth’s testimony that he had never asked out a person under his supervision and would not do so, and that it gave East Chicago notice of Booth’s conduct. The district court, whose decision here we review only for abuse of discretion, admitted it, and did not give an instruction telling the jury it could be considered only for impeachment. We are not impressed with the argument that this evidence gave East Chicago notice about Booth’s behavior, especially because Kolavo herself did not alert the administration to the incident. Nor does it show anything about retaliatory intent, either with respect to Kolavo herself or with respect to Molnar. Discriminatory motive, or more accurately modus operandi, comes closer to the mark. Rule 404(b) allows the admission of evidence of other acts if it tends to prove facts like intent, preparation, and absence of mistake. Booth’s effort to establish a sexual relationship with Kolavo (which was the way she saw it) suggests that he intended to do the same with Molnar and that he was not accidentally engaged in behavior that could be misconstrued. This was not the entirety of what Molnar needed to prove, but the request for sexual favors was a piece of the evidentiary puzzle, and as such, evidence tending to make the existence of that fact more probable was admissible. See also Fed. R. Evid. 401. In addition, and perhaps even more clearly, the evidence was admissible for impeachment purposes. The fact that no limiting instruction to that effect was given was the defendants’ own fault, as they never requested one. Finally, even if the Kolavo evidence would have been better left out (that is, even if the district court’s decision to allow it was an abuse of discretion), we find that the error was harmless. See Fed. R. Evid. 103; 28 U.S.C. sec. 2111. Both defendants took advantage of ample opportunities at trial to argue that Booth’s actions toward Kolavo were not discriminatory and that East Chicago did not derive any notice from them. Furthermore, the evidence did not report shocking behavior; it was about a simple social request that the listener found inappropriate and that was rebuffed. The jury was thus able to place this one piece of evidence in its proper perspective.