Opinion ID: 556408
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Admissibility of the SIC Report

Text: 42 Defendants also claim, apart from the issues of the timing and conduct of the trustworthiness hearing, that the district court erred in finding that selected excerpts from the SIC Report were admissible. They allege that the selected portions of the Report admitted by the district court were irrelevant, untrustworthy and prejudicial, thereby violating rules 402, 403 and 803(8)(C) of the Fed.R.Evid. 43 A trial court has broad discretion in determining whether proffered evidence should be admitted ... and in general in the 'absence of a significant showing of unfair prejudice, evidence with substantial probative value should not be excluded.'  Martell v. Boardwalk Enterprises, Inc., 748 F.2d 740, 747 (2d Cir.1984) (citation omitted). Defendants offer no persuasive grounds to sustain their argument that the district court abused its discretion in ruling that selected portions of the SIC Report were admissible. Judge Weinstein wrote a convincing, 85-page opinion, see note 1 supra, in which he thoroughly canvassed all the key considerations pertaining to admissibility--namely, relevance, trustworthiness, prejudice, and trial economy--and found the Report admissible. We simply cannot say that the court's ruling on admissibility constituted an abuse of discretion. 44 The judge's analysis of relevance carefully distinguished the present case from Janetka v. Dabe, 892 F.2d 187 (2d Cir.1989), upon which defendants rely. In that case, this court sustained a district court ruling excluding the same SIC Report because the plaintiff had failed as an initial matter to show that it was relevant to his case. Judge Weinstein noted that in Janetka, unlike the present case, the plaintiff did not produce a copy of the Report for the court, and, moreover, the procedural posture of the case was entirely different. 129 F.R.D. at 445. Furthermore, the judge noted that in this case, the SIC Report was relevant in view of the independent evidence introduced by plaintiffs suggesting that high-ranking County officials twice ratified the misconduct of individual police officers, thereby corroborating that the individual police misconduct was the result of an established practice or policy. Id. at 446. 45 In analyzing the trustworthiness of the Report, Judge Weinstein reviewed five separate factors--timeliness of the investigation, special skill or experience of the investigating officials, procedures governing any hearings, existence of motivation problems and finality of the findings--and found that the Report was trustworthy. We certainly cannot say that this finding was clearly erroneous. United States v. Workman, 860 F.2d 140, 144 (4th Cir.1988), cert. denied, 489 U.S. 1078, 109 S.Ct. 1529, 103 L.Ed.2d 834 (1989). Indeed, given the thoroughness of the judge's treatment of the relevant issues and the persuasiveness of his conclusion that the Report was admissible, we see no reason to add to his opinion. 46