Opinion ID: 2291534
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: The effectiveness of limiting instructions.

Text: As we have observed in our earlier discussion, see p. 11, supra, the utility of a limiting instruction in the context of other crimes evidence has been widely questioned. The court in Drew expressed the view that the likelihood that juries will draw from other crimes evidence an improper inference of criminal predisposition is high. 118 U.S.App.D.C. at 15, 331 F.2d at 89. [19] The naive assumption that prejudicial effects can be overcome by instructions to the jury ... all practicing lawyers know to be unmitigated fiction. Krulewitch v. United States, 336 U.S. 440, 453, 69 S.Ct. 716, 723, 93 L.Ed. 790 (1949) (Jackson, J. concurring). To quote Judge Gewin's memorable articulation in Dunn v. United States, 307 F.2d 883, 886 (5th Cir.1962) (in reference to an instruction to the jury to disregard an inflamatory opening statement by the prosecutor): one cannot unring a bell; after the thrust of the saber it is difficult to say forget the wound; and finally, if you throw a skunk into the jury box, you can't instruct the jury not to smell it. Stated more simply, a drop of ink cannot be removed from a glass of milk. Government of Virgin Islands v. Toto, supra, 529 F.2d at 283. There is empirical support for the proposition that limiting instructions about other crimes are less than uniformly efficacious. One study suggests that when a defendant's criminal record is known and the prosecution's case has contradictions, the defendant's chances of acquittal are 38% compared with 68% otherwise. KALVIN AND ZEISEL, THE AMERICAN JURY, 160 (1966), quoted in McCORMICK, supra, § 190 at 557 n. 6. [20] A scholar who conducted juror interviews in Chicago concluded that jurors were almost universally unable or unwilling to understand or follow the court's instruction to consider prior convictions only for impeachment purposes, and almost invariably used a defendant's record to conclude that he was a bad man and hence more probably guilty of the crime for which he was standing trial. LEMPERT AND SALTZBURG, A MODERN APPROACH To EVIDENCE, 220 n. 54 (1982), citing Note, Other Crimes Evidence at Trial, 70 YALE L.J. 763 (1961). Accordingly, there is reason for concern that adherence to a limiting instruction in this context may not be easily or universally secured. It remains an unalterable fact that members of the jury, supposedly of nobler root, will lend excessive weight to a record of misdeed and crime. Ali v. United States, supra, 520 A.2d at 310, quoting Slough, Other Vices, Other Crimes, 20 KAN.L.REV. 411, 426 (1972). This approach, can, however, only take us so far. The jury is presumed to follow the trial judge's instructions. Hairston v. United States, 497 A.2d 1097, 1102 (D.C. 1985). Moreover, as the prosecutor forcefully argued on appeal in this case, this is a crucial assumption, Tennessee v. Street, 471 U.S. 409, 415, 105 S.Ct. 2078, 2082, 85 L.Ed.2d 425 (1985), for our theory of trial depends on the jury's ability to do so. Opper v. United States, 348 U.S. 84, 95, 75 S.Ct. 158, 165, 99 L.Ed. 101 (1954). Nor is this principle without application to other crimes issues. D.C.Code § 14-305 (1981) requires trial judges in this jurisdiction to allow witnesses who testify, including criminal defendants, to be impeached with convictions of a felony or a misdemeanor which involves dishonesty or false statements. [21] In spite of this court's recognition of serious concerns on the part of judges and scholars that an instruction to consider prior convictions only in connection with the defendant's credibility cannot or will not be fully effective, the constitutionality of § 14-305 has been repeatedly upheld. Dixon v. United States, 287 A.2d 89 (D.C. 1972), cert. denied, 407 U.S. 926, 92 S.Ct. 2474, 32 L.Ed.2d 813 (1972); Davis v. United States, 313 A.2d 884, 885 (D.C.1974); Hill v. United States, 434 A.2d 422, 429 (D.C.1981), cert. denied, 454 U.S. 1151, 102 S.Ct. 1020, 71 L.Ed.2d 307 (1982). Accordingly, limiting instructions can and in some cases must be provided, and we are constrained to assume that when they contain realistic rather than theoretical distinctions, and when they are clearly and understandably delivered, they will reduce, if not dissipate, the danger of unfairness and prejudice. In weighing probative value against prejudicial effect, courts should inquire as to whether the risk of prejudice has been or can be meaningfully reduced by the trial judge's instructions. In the course of this analysis, the question arises first whether the distinction propounded in the limiting instruction can make any sense to a jury of lay people. Not all instructions are equal in this regard. A direction to the jury that a prior conviction shall be considered only in connection with the defendant's credibility, and not in relation to his guilt or innocence of the charged offense, is at least readily understood, if not easily followed. [22] An instruction that a defendant's prior drug sale may be considered in connection with his intent to sell drugs on the occasion for which he is on trial, but not as showing his guilt of the current offense in any other way, [23] appears to require a degree of refinement which, if theoretically achievable, is probably well beyond the ken of the average juror. A second appropriate area of inquiry is whether the limiting instruction has been phrased in terms which a jury is likely to understand. In this connection, we commend our trial court's attention to the substance, though not the form, [24] of the federal trial judge's instruction to the jury in Enriquez v. United States, supra, 188 F.2d at 315-316 n. 2. That instruction contained a direction to the jurors that they must first determine, without considering the prior bad act at all, whether the defendant did the act charged. The judge further instructed that if, and only if, the jury finds that the defendant did the acts, then it may consider the prior misconduct, but only in connection with the intent which the defendant did the act for which he is on trial. Although this message may perhaps be read into District of Columbia Jury Instruction 2.49, [25] we think that an explicit direction to the jurors that they must first decide the issue of possession without considering Thompson's earlier sale at all, and only then that they may consider the prior sale as showing intent, would have enhanced in some measure the likelihood that the jury could have and would have used the evidence appropriately.