Opinion ID: 72120
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Relevance of the Extrinsic Evidence

Text: Evidence is relevant “if it makes the existence of any fact at issue more or less probable than it would be without the evidence.” United States v. Williams, 900 F.2d 823, 826 (5th Cir. 1990). But whether extrinsic evidence is relevant under Rule 404(b) “is a function of its similarity to the charged offense.” Beechum, 582 F.2d at 911 (quotation marks and citation omitted). “[S]imilarity, and hence relevancy, is determined by the inquiry or issue to which the extrinsic offense is addressed.” Id. For example, if the issue is intent, then the extrinsic evidence of a prior act is relevant if it required the defendant have the same state of mind or intent as the charged offense; if the issue is knowledge then extrinsic act evidence must “be of such a nature that its commission involved the same knowledge required for the offense charged.” Id. at 911, 912 n.15. 2 “Rule 404(b) is only implicated when the offered evidence is extrinsic; evidence intrinsic to the charged offense does not implicate the rule.” United States v. Crawley, 533 F.3d 349, 353-54 (5th Cir. 2008). “‘Other acts’ evidence is intrinsic when it is inextricably intertwined with the charged offense, when both acts are part of the same criminal episode, or when the ‘other act’ was a necessary preliminary step toward the completion of the charged crime.” Id. at 354. None of the parties argue that the evidence at issue was intrinsic. 13 No. 08-41362 “[S]imilar act evidence is relevant only if the jury can reasonably conclude that the act occurred and that the defendant was the actor.” Huddleston v. United States, 485 U.S. 981, 689 (1988) (citing Beechum, 582 F.2d at 911). This court has held that evidence of a prior drug smuggling attempt using the defendant’s trailer was not admissible under Rule 404(b) to show the defendant’s knowledge of drugs hidden in his trailer, where there was no evidence that the defendant committed the prior smuggling offense. United States v. GonzalezLira, 936 F.2d 184, 190 (5th Cir. 1991); but see id. at 193 (evidence of defendant’s trailer’s involvement in the prior smuggling operation should be admissible under Rule 406(b) to demonstrate defendant’s “knowledge and absence of mistake”) (Garwood, J., concurring). Because the prior act must be similar to that at issue in the charged offense, both the Supreme Court and this court have required that the prior offense be a bad act in order to be relevant to prove criminal intent. For example, in Huddleston v. United States, the Supreme Court held that at the defendant’s trial for selling stolen videotapes, where the contested issue was whether the defendant knew that the videotapes were stolen, the defendant’s prior sales of televisions that he likely knew were stolen was relevant only because the Government presented evidence showing that the televisions had in fact been stolen. 485 U.S. at 689, 691. In Beechum, this court held that evidence that the defendant had, for ten months, wrongfully possessed credit cards belonging to other people was relevant to whether the defendant intended to turn in a silver dollar stolen that day from the mail. 582 F.2d at 916. The court reasoned that the wrongful possession of the credit cards required the same intent, or state of mind, as the wrongful possession of the silver dollar. Id. However, Rule 404(b) covers “other crimes, wrongs, or acts,” and this court stated in United States v. Williams that “‘[o]ther act’ extrinsic evidence need not be evidence of other wrongful acts but may be evidence of any extrinsic acts 14 No. 08-41362 relevant to the criminal act charged.” Williams, 900 F.2d at 826 n.2. In Williams, a package of cocaine bearing a fictitious return address was delivered by mail to an address in New Orleans on March 7. Id. at 825. The defendant then arrived at that address to recover the package. Id. The defendant was arrested and indicted with drug trafficking, although he insisted that he expected the package to contain a shipment of jogging suits for resale. Id. At trial, the Government had sought to introduce evidence of nineteen prior, similar packages that had been mailed to various addresses in New Orleans. Id. at 825. Relying on Huddleston, the district court granted the defendant’s motion to exclude the evidence regarding the other mailings on the basis that the presence of cocaine in the prior mailings was not supported by sufficient evidence. Id. at 826. This court applied the Beechum analysis and concluded that extrinsic evidence of the nineteen prior packages was admissible under Rule 404(b). Id. at 825-27. On the relevance prong, the court reasoned that the evidence of the prior mailings would be relevant to the defendant’s knowledge of the contents of the March 7 package and intent to perpetrate the crime if: “1) there existed a pattern of mailings similar to the March 7 mailing, and 2) the defendant was involved in those mailings.” Id. at 826. “If a jury could reasonably find those conditional facts by a preponderance of the evidence, then the extrinsic evidence of the prior mailings would contribute to a showing of knowledge and intent through demonstration of a modus operandi.” Id. The court held that the district court erred by requiring that, to establish the relevancy of extrinsic evidence, the Government had to offer evidence of the presence of cocaine in the prior mailings. Id. at 826. The court explained that: Even if the prior mailings did not contain cocaine, they may still be relevant to show modus operandi. They might, for example, have been used to test whether packages with fictitious return addresses would be delivered without incident. Because we find that the presence of cocaine was not a fact upon which relevancy of the 15 No. 08-41362 extrinsic evidence is conditioned, and because we find sufficient evidence to support jury findings that there existed a pattern of mailings similar to the March 7 mailing and that defendant was involved in those prior mailings,3 we find that the relevancy prong of the Beechum test is met in this case. Id. Under the abuse of discretion standard, the court reversed the district court’s exclusion of the evidence of the prior mailings of similar packages. Id. at 827. Under the circumstances of the instant case, Williams controls. As Edica and Zonia argue, here there was no evidence presented at trial that any of their prior border-crossing trips involved marijuana and the ICE agent and CBP officer testified that they had no reason to believe that the trailer was loaded with drugs on prior occasions. But as the Government argues, it presented sufficient proof for a jury to find by a preponderance of the evidence that both Edica and Zonia had towed the trailer across the border and through the checkpoint, and “the pertinent conditional facts in this case do not include whether the [trailer] contained [marijuana].” Id. The extrinsic evidence of the defendants’ prior travel with the trailer—regardless of whether it was loaded with marijuana on each occasion—contributed “to a showing of knowledge and intent through demonstration of a modus operandi.” Id. The modus operandi evidence was relevant because it tended to show that Edica and Zonia lied to the ICE agents about their relationship with Pancho, that this was not an isolated incident in which they borrowed the trailer from Pancho, and that Edica was not “merely present” but was a regular and willing participant in hauling the trailer.