Opinion ID: 622422
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Decision Partially Denying Motion In Limine

Text: Jean-Laurent next challenges the District Court’s decision granting defendants’ in limine motion to preclude him from calling a fellow inmate, Louis Ramon, as a witness at trial. We review a district court’s decision to admit or preclude evidence for “abuse of discretion.” See Pescatore v. Pan Am. World Airways, Inc., 97 F.3d 1, 16 (2d Cir. 1996); cf. Sims v. Blot, 534 F.3d 117, 132 (2d Cir. 2008) (“A district court has abused its discretion if it based its ruling on an erroneous view of the law or on a clearly erroneous assessment of the evidence, or rendered a decision that cannot be located within the range of permissible decisions.” (internal quotation marks, citations, and modifications omitted)). A new trial is warranted if the court’s abuse of discretion clearly prejudiced the outcome of the trial. See Hygh v. Jacobs, 961 F.2d 359, 365 (2d Cir. 1992). We will grant a new trial only if we are “convinced that the jury has reached a seriously erroneous result or that the verdict is a miscarriage of justice.” Pescatore, 97 F.3d at 17 (internal quotation marks omitted). Here, although the precise reason for the District Court’s decision to preclude Jean-Laurent from calling Ramon at trial is not clear, we may affirm that decision on any ground appearing in the record. Freedom Holdings, Inc. v. Cuomo, 624 F.3d 38, 49 (2d Cir. 2010). Ramon’s testimony would have been relevant had he witnessed the strip search and assault of Jean-Laurent in the staircase, but Jean-Laurent’s contention that Ramon witnessed these events is belied by the record. Jean-Laurent testified during his deposition that, though Ramon was initially present when the defendants led him to the stairwell, the defendants immediately “dragged [Ramon] out of the staircase,” at which point Jean-Laurent was “in the staircase alone.” In addition, he conceded at a pretrial conference on the in limine motion that Ramon was not an eyewitness to the events. 6 Further, in his motion in limine, Jean-Laurent suggested that he intended to elicit Ramon’s testimony with respect to “assaultive conditions” to which the defendants had subjected Ramon immediately prior to assaulting Jean-Laurent. Such evidence of alleged “similar acts” has a high potential for causing undue prejudice. See Huddleston v. United States, 485 U.S. 681, 691 (1988). As a result, the District Court would not have abused its discretion in concluding that the probative value of his testimony was substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice under Federal Rule of Evidence 403, or that his testimony was inadmissible as evidence of a similar act offered to prove character under Fed. R. Evid. 404(b). Accordingly, we affirm without reaching the question of prejudice or Jean-Laurent’s remaining challenges to the preclusion of Ramon’s testimony.