Opinion ID: 614798
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Flirting Testimony

Text: Mireles finally argues that the Flirting Testimony was irrelevant character evidence because it “rests on the impermissible inference that previous misconduct demonstrates that [Mireles] is the kind of person who does not respect rules and therefore is likely to break them again in the future.” He also argues that the testimony was highly prejudicial because it “laid the groundwork for the government to tar [Mireles] as a womanizer who abused the public trust to improve his sex life.” The Government argues that the Flirting Testimony was relevant evidence that Mireles disregarded the immigration process “when it 9 Case: 10-30722 Document: 00511623473 Page: 10 Date Filed: 10/05/2011 No. 10-30722 came to Camargo-Garcia, contrary to his opening statement defense” that it “didn’t make sense” for a trained immigration officer do so. In United States v. Beechum,582 F.2d 898, 911 (5th Cir. 1978), this court established a two-prong test for determining if extrinsic evidence of a defendant’s prior acts is admissible under Rule 404(b). “First, it must be determined that the extrinsic offense evidence is relevant to an issue other than the defendant’s character.” Id. The test for relevancy at this step is identical to the test under Rule 401. Id.6 Extrinsic evidence can be relevant to “motive, opportunity, intent, preparation, plan, knowledge, identity, or absence of mistake or accident.” FED. R. EVID. 404(b). “Second, the evidence must possess probative value that is not substantially outweighed by its undue prejudice and must meet the other requirements of rule 403.” Beechum, 582 F.2d at 911. We first address whether the Flirting Testimony was relevant to anything besides character. “It is widely recognized that a party who raises a subject in an opening statement ‘opens the door’ to admission of evidence on that same subject by the opposing party.” United States v. Chavez, 229 F.3d 946, 952 (10th Cir. 2000) (citing cases). In United States v. Casto, this court held that the defense had “opened the door” for discussion of a guilty plea by referring to a codefendant’s credibility during opening statements. 889 F.2d 562, 567 (5th Cir. 1989). This court held that, “[i]n this situation, it is the prosecution’s privilege to defuse potential attacks on his witness’s credibility during direct examination.” Id. During opening statements, Mireles’s attorney stated: It really doesn’t make sense, does it, that a trained immigration officer would do the things that [the Government] is going to try to prove to you that Mr. Mireles did. If he’s a trained immigration 6 Under Rule 401, “‘[r]elevant evidence’ means evidence having any tendency to make the existence of any fact that is of consequence to the determination of the action more probable or less probable than it would be without the evidence.” FED. R. EVID. 401. 10 Case: 10-30722 Document: 00511623473 Page: 11 Date Filed: 10/05/2011 No. 10-30722 officer, he knows that he’s not allowed to cohabit with an illegal alien. He can date an alien. He can date a legal alien. . . . We read this statement as a lack-of-motive argument: Mireles did not know about Carmargo-Garcia’s illegal status because (1) he dated her, (2) he knew that dating illegal aliens was against CBP regulations, and (3) he would not break CBP regulations. Although Mireles’s attorney did not say so explicitly, the implication is that Mireles would not break CBP regulations because he would risk losing his job by doing so. Mireles’s statement, therefore, “opened the door” to admission of evidence concerning his motivation to avoid breaking CBP regulations.7 The Flirting Testimony directly refuted this inference—Mireles was willing to risk his job by breaking CBP regulations with Camargo-Garcia because he had already risked his job by breaking CBP regulations in the past. The Government gave this exact reason for admitting the evidence, telling the district court during a bench conference that Mireles “opened the door . . . by suggesting that this guy, that he had no reason, but . . . . [t]his guy just simply, he didn’t care about his job, so it made perfect sense . . . for him to do this because there are instances where . . . . [h]e didn’t honor the regulations.” The Flirting Testimony was therefore relevant to something other than Mireles’s alleged character for breaking rules. Because the Flirting Testimony was relevant to something besides Mireles’s alleged character for rule-breaking, we next address whether the 7 On appeal, Mireles argues that “[i]n effect, the government tries to paint the opening statement as a good-character argument – Merlin is not the kind of person who would disregard his training – so that it can justify its own use of bad character evidence: the flirtation with an entrant.” We recognize that an alternate motivation for not wanting to break CBP regulations is a CBP officer’s good character for following rules. And, although a party may expand the realm of relevant non-character evidence by “opening the door,” Rule 404(a) only allows the Government to present character evidence to rebut evidence of an accused’s character. FED. R. EVID. 404(a). Under a plain reading of Rule 404(a), the Government could not present bad character evidence to rebut a potential good character argument during opening statement because argument by an attorney during opening statements is not evidence. See Foradori v. Harris, 523 F.3d 477, 513 (5th Cir. 2008). 11 Case: 10-30722 Document: 00511623473 Page: 12 Date Filed: 10/05/2011 No. 10-30722 prejudicial nature of the testimony outweighs its probative value. “[W]hat counts as the Rule 403 ‘probative value’ of an item of evidence, as distinct from its Rule 401 ‘relevance,’ may be calculated by comparing evidentiary alternatives.” Old Chief v. United States, 519 U.S. 172, 184 (1997). Here, the Government presented no alternative evidence showing that Mireles had previously broken CBP rules and regulations. Thus, the Flirting Testimony had relatively high probative value. Finally, although the Flirting Testimony had the potential to cause unfair prejudice by painting Mireles in an unfavorable light, we conclude that the district court did not abuse its discretion in allowing the Government to present the testimony. This court stated in Beechum that prejudice is “likely to be less when the extrinsic activity is not of a criminal nature.” Beechum, 582 F.2d at 915 n.20. “[T]he discretionary policy against undue prejudice would seem to require exclusion only in those instances where the trial judge believes that there is a genuine risk that the emotions of the jury will be excited to irrational behavior, and that this risk is disproportionate to the probative value of the offered evidence.” Id. The fact that Mireles had flirted with one woman in violation of CBP procedures is not the type of information that poses a risk that the jury would be “excited to irrational behavior.” Although the Government could use the testimony in conjunction with the K-1 Evidence to paint Mireles as a womanizer,8 this potential prejudice did not “substantially outweigh,” and was not “disproportionate” to, the probative value of the evidence such that the district court’s decision to admit the evidence was an abuse of discretion. We 8 The Government did exactly this, stating that Mireles took his CBP oath seriously “except when it came to his sex life,” that he abandoned Camargo-Garcia “in Metairie, and he’s hitting on a woman at the border back in Progreso,” and that he got Camargo-Garcia and her kids “out of that house . . . to make room for Paola.” We consider these remarks to be entirely inappropriate. 12 Case: 10-30722 Document: 00511623473 Page: 13 Date Filed: 10/05/2011 No. 10-30722 decline to reverse Mireles’s conviction based on the admission of the Flirting Testimony.