Opinion ID: 543684
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Hill's Comments to Roach on the Ride Back

Text: 15 The defense made a rather murky proffer of evidence regarding comments which Roach claimed Hill made to him during the ride back from the interrogation. According to Roach, Hill expressed fear of an associate to whom he owed money regarding past drug use, and also expressed fear of his father-in-law and wife. Hill allegedly indicated that he was afraid the associate or his father-in-law might find out he had been down at the Sheriff's Office, and might suspect that he had talked to the police. The defense had earlier suggested, but could not proffer any significant evidence, that Hill and Hill's father-in-law were jointly involved in the theft from Farmer's business. 4 The claimed relevance of this proffered evidence to whether Hill had a motive to fabricate his account of the interrogation, or whether someone other than Farmer beat him, appears to rest on an exceedingly tenuous chain of speculation. We have no difficulty concluding that any conceivable relevance was vastly outweighed by the potential for unfair prejudice, see Fed.R.Evid. 403, and that the district court therefore had discretion to exclude this evidence. Any error was plainly harmless in any event. 5 16