Opinion ID: 1197520
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Limiting Instruction Regarding Craig's DUI Convictions

Text: The local is on stabler ground in challenging the district court's limiting instruction regarding Craig's misdemeanor DUI convictions as erroneous, but it fails because it cannot show prejudice. Two federal rules of evidence govern the admission of Craig's misdemeanor DUI convictions. Rule 609 prohibits their admission to attack Craig's character for truthfulness, Fed.R.Evid. 609(a); see United States v. Papia, 560 F.2d 827, 845 (7th Cir.1977), while Rule 404 permits their admission for other purposes, Fed. R.Evid. 404(b), including to attack the credibility of a witness' testimony by means other than attacking the witness' general character for truthfulness, which is prohibited by Rule 609. See United States v. Lindemann, 85 F.3d 1232, 1243 (7th Cir.1996) (describing five different ways to impeach a witness). So evidence of Craig's convictions was admissible, for example, to impeach Craig by contradicting the substance of his testimony or showing that he had an impaired ability to recall the event about which he was testifying. Id. Had the district court so limited evidence of Craig's convictions, we would find no error although the instruction limited evidence of Craig's singular crime, whereas there was evidence that his crimes numbered three. The court found that all three were relevant to whether [Craig] was even truthful or able to recall, App. B. at 8, so it does not matter which of the three DUI convictions the instruction referenced. The first offered an entirely different reason for Craig's absence from the power plant from the one he had given. Serafinn, 2007 WL 1670360, at . As for the other two, the local does not explain how the district court erred in finding them admissible for proper impeachment purposes. Specifically, it does not claim that they failed to contradict anything Craig said and failed to call into question Craig's ability to recall. It is not the responsibility of this court to make arguments for the parties, Vaughn v. King, 167 F.3d 347, 354 (7th Cir.1999), and even were we so inclined neither party provided us a copy of the trial transcript. So we are unable to find that the district court abused its discretion in finding that all three DUI convictions were admissible for proper impeachment purposes not barred by Rule 609. But the district court abused its discretion by admitting the evidence for additional impeachment purposes that were improper. The instruction limited the jury to considering the convictions in deciding whether Timothy Craig's testimony is truthful. This broad category of considering a witness' testimony for truthfulness subsumes, as we have described, various possible impeachment methods, some of which were proper and others that were not. The instruction allowed the jury to find Craig's testimony untruthful not only for the proper reason that evidence of his convictions contradicted his statements or called his memory into question, but also for the improper reason that evidence of his convictions called into question his general character for truthfulness. This impermissible use of evidence is exactly what Rule 609 prohibits. But even if the jury instruction was patently incorrect, [the local] still must establish that it was prejudiced by the improper instruction. Gile v. United Airlines, Inc., 213 F.3d 365, 375 (7th Cir. 2000). We will not order a new trial unless, considering all the instructions, the evidence and the arguments, it appears that the jury was misled and its understanding of the issues was seriously affected to the prejudice of the complaining party. EEOC v. AIC Security Investigations, Ltd., 55 F.3d 1276, 1283 (7th Cir. 1995) (quoting McGeshick v. Choucair, 9 F.3d 1229, 1232 (7th Cir.1993)). The local offers two reasons for why it was prejudiced by the limiting instruction. First, it claims the instruction drew attention to Craig's convictions, thereby casting the local ... (of which Craig was a member, and Serafinn was not) in the same unfavorable light. Appellant's Br. at 32. But this claim fails because [w]e assume that jurors follow[ed] the trial court's instructions, Bae v. Peters, 950 F.2d 469, 481 (7th Cir.1991) (citing Francis v. Franklin, 471 U.S. 307, 324 n. 9, 105 S.Ct. 1965, 85 L.Ed.2d 344 (1985)), specifically admonishing the jury not to consider Craig's convictions for any purpose other than to impeach Craig's testimony. The local also claims prejudice because Craig's convictions should have been admitted for the relevant, non-impeachment purposes of showing Craig's ineligibility for referral at the power plant and the local's selective enforcement of the referral rules for Craig and against Serafinn. But Serafinn, not the local, wanted the jury to consider the evidence for the separate [non-impeachment] purpose. Serafinn, 2007 WL 1670360, at . Indeed, the local spends a large chunk of its brief arguing why the evidence was relevant, but devotes nary a sentence to why the evidence was relevant to its own case. See, e.g., Appellant's Br. at 32-40. Nor does it explain how the instruction was anything other than advantageous to its case to the detriment of Serafinn. Without being able to show prejudice to its own case, no new trial is warranted.