Opinion ID: 202248
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Co-conspirator's Guilty Plea

Text: 15 Thompson next contends that the district court erred in allowing the government to introduce, in its case in chief, the fact that Canney and Higgins had entered a guilty plea to the conspiracy charge, and in not providing a cautionary instruction that the jury should only consider the evidence as it pertained to the credibility of Canney and Higgins, not to Thompson's guilt. 16 Thompson incorrectly states that the court did not give a limiting instruction. In its final charge, the court stated: As for the guilty pleas of Jason Higgins and Justin Canney, you may consider their respective pleas in assessing their individual credibility, but you must not consider those guilty pleas as any evidence against Kurt Thompson. As Thompson lodged no objection to the admission of this evidence, but instead elicited the same evidence during cross-examination to attack the credibility of the government's witnesses, we find no error in its admission in evidence. See United States v. Dworken, 855 F.2d 12, 30 (1st Cir.1988) (noting that evidence of witness's guilty pleas is admissible to dampen the effect of an anticipated attack on the witness's credibility, provided jury is so instructed); see also United States v. Sullivan, 85 F.3d 743, 749 (1st Cir.1996) (finding no plain error in admitting certain testimony when, among other problems, the testimony was elicited by defense counsel on cross-examination) (citation omitted).