Opinion ID: 2786493
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Accuracy of Killiany's Remeasurements

Text: Jones first asserts that the district court erred in denying his motion in limine and permitting the defendants to offer testimony regarding the accuracy of Killiany's remeasurements. The district court resolved this motion orally, prior to opening statements, and questioned why the defense should not be permitted to assert that Killiany was doing this for an appropriate reason. The court concluded that the explanation would not be precluded but invited Jones to impeach it or suggest that [accuracy] is not the real reason he [remeasured]. As described above, the defense emphasized this explanation throughout the trial. 7 The defendants are correct to point out that, generally, [a]n unsuccessful motion in limine does not preserve an evidentiary objection, and a party must again object if and when the challenged evidence is proffered at trial, O'Rourke v. City of Providence, 235 F.3d 713, 727 (1st Cir. 2001), unless the in limine ruling is final and unconditional, Crowe, 334 F.3d at 133. But, although Jones filed motions in limine, in each case detailed here his objections were not resolved until trial, at which point he properly objected. Thus, Jones's evidentiary objections are properly preserved. -28- Jones's objection is essentially one of relevance. He relies on our statement in Jones I that whether Killiany's measurements were more or less accurate than the initial measurements is not at issue, 678 F.3d at 88, to suggest that such evidence likely misled the jury and prejudiced Jones. But he takes our statement out of context. In Jones I we merely rebutted the district court's conclusion that Jones's claim presented a question of good faith, scientific disagreement not cognizable by the FCA--namely whether, in fact, Killiany's second measurements were more or less scientifically justifiable than his first. We did not indicate that evidence tending to show Killiany remeasured his scans in an effort to make them more accurate was wholly irrelevant. Nor could we have done so. Evidence is relevant if it has any tendency to make a fact of consequence in determining the action more or less probable, Fed. R. Evid. 401, and [t]rial courts are afforded wide latitude in determining whether evidence crosses this low threshold, United States v. Williams, 717 F.3d 35, 41 (1st Cir. 2013). As established above, the defense's alternative explanation for Killiany's second set of data was that he remeasured certain MRI scans in order to more accurately reflect the volume of the EC in each subject. This explanation had obvious import in determining whether the data submitted to the NIA was false and whether Killiany and Albert knew it to be false. It was not an abuse of discretion for the court to -29- permit witnesses to testify about this alternative explanation, nor was such evidence unduly prejudicial, confusing, or misleading. See Fed. R. Evid. 403.