Opinion ID: 377984
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: The Attempted Introduction of Inadmissible Evidence

Text: 19 During the course of the prosecutor's questioning of Mathews, the following exchange took place: 20 Q. Directing your attention to 1972, did you have an occasion to have a conversation with Mr. Walker concerning the event about which you just mentioned? 21
22 Mr. Martin: Your Honor, I object to anything that happened in 1972 as being outside the scope of this indictment and totally irrelevant. 23 The Court: What do you say? 24 Mr. Kerr: Number One, the indictment charges that the conspiracy began on or before October, 1977, and I'm also offering this as a prior similar act of an identical nature. 25 Mr. Martin: It has no bearing to any matter before this jury. 26 The Court: Isn't that a little remote, 1972? 27 Mr. Kerr: Your Honor, it's only five years before the . . .Mr. Martin: Now, your Honor . . . 28 The Court: Why don't you approach the bench? 29 A bench conference was then held outside the hearing of the jury during which the district court sustained the objection and denied appellant's motion for a mistrial. Immediately after the bench conference the district court instructed the jury to completely disregard the question by the prosecutor, to pay no attention to it, and not to speculate as to what the answer might have been. 30 Appellant argues that despite the court's instruction to the jury to disregard the prosecutor's question, Walker's motion for a mistrial should have been granted because the prosecutor allegedly attempted to introduce inflammatory evidence of a remote extraneous offense. 31 In United States v. Klein, 546 F.2d 1259, 1263 (5th Cir. 1977) we held that evidence withdrawn from the jury with a direction by the court that it be disregarded may not be the basis of reversible error unless the remark is so highly prejudicial as to be incurable by the trial court's admonition. Such was not the case here in view of the district court's immediate instruction to disregard totally the question. 32