Opinion ID: 4200472
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Board Meeting Minutes

Text: During Cossey’s direct examination, the government introduced the minutes from ThermoEnergy’s emergency board meetings on May 28, June 5, and July 31, 2009. As foundation, Cossey testified it was a regular practice of ThermoEnergy to keep minutes taken at meetings of the board of directors, and the minutes were prepared by ThermoEnergy’s outside corporate counsel. Cossey verified the minutes were correct and accurate based on his personal recollection. The government moved to admit the first set of minutes, and Melton objected, arguing the evidence “invade[d] the province of the jury by saying that they’ve uncovered evidence of illegal acts on the part of Mr. Melton.” The May 28 and June 5 minutes both stated the accounting firm had discovered evidence of disbursements that may have been “illegal acts on the part of . . . Melton,” and the July 31 minutes stated Melton “has committed material violations of law.” The government offered to redact references to legal conclusions but maintained the exhibits were admissible under the business-records exception to hearsay. See Fed. R. Evid. 803(6). The district court dismissed the jury and heard further argument from the parties. The government again asserted the exhibits were admissible, to which the district court responded, “No doubt about it being part of a business record, but . . . there could be all kinds of things in a business record that’s admissible, but there’s some inadmissible portions of it.” The district court decided the evidence was “probably admissible,” and asked Melton’s counsel if he would like -8- a limiting instruction to be given to the jury. Melton’s counsel requested a limiting instruction, but did not ask for any redactions, and again argued the evidence should not be admitted because it contained prejudicial conclusions of law. The district court overruled the objection, assumed the parties held similar positions in regard to the other two sets of minutes, and ruled these exhibits admissible as well. Before publishing the first exhibit, the district court gave the following limiting instruction to the jury: [Exhibit] Number 9, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, will have some potential findings that there might have been violations of the law. That does not mean that there were violations of the law. You’ll decide whether there were violations of the law based on the specific indictment that’s brought here for you to consider. This shows what was brought to the attention of the Board and will explain in part some action they have taken. Though the district court did not repeat the instruction before publishing the next two exhibits, it referred the jury to the “[s]ame admonition with the alleged violations that may be mentioned in the exhibit.” The minutes were not redacted in any way. Melton argues, even if these minutes were admissible under the businessrecords exception to hearsay, the references to illegal acts were unduly prejudicial. See Fed. R. Evid. 403. We agree the minutes were admissible business records, but share Melton’s concern regarding their prejudicial effect. Yet, we “give[] broad deference to a district court’s determination under Rule 403,” and we “‘do not reweigh the value of the material against its potential for harm to the defendant, but determine only whether the district judge abused its discretion in admitting it.’” United States v. Loveless, 139 F.3d 587, 592 (8th Cir. 1998) (quoting United States v. Holmes, 822 F.2d 802, 806 (8th Cir. 1987)). The brief references to illegal conduct were only in a few sentences of the total nine pages of these three exhibits, and the -9- minutes contained relevant specific information regarding the actions and resolutions of ThermoEnergy’s board of directors. Importantly, although the government offered to redact those challenged references, the record shows Melton did not pursue the government’s offer to redact the references to illegal conduct. Without acceptance of the redaction, the district court provided a sufficient limiting instruction to the jury. See United States v. Walker, 470 F.3d 1271, 1275 (8th Cir. 2006) (“[A] limiting instruction diminishes the danger of unfair prejudice arising from the admission of the evidence.”); see also Loveless, 139 F.3d at 593. The district court did not abuse its discretion.