Opinion ID: 781722
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Failure to Redact Liberation Army Letter

Text: 210 Yousef also claims that we should find error in the District Court's failure to redact the letter. He implies that admission of the unredacted letter put before the jury evidence of a number of uncharged and unrelated crimes and threats — including threats against France, Britain, and Sweden, as well as threatened attacks against American nuclear facilities — in violation of Federal Rule of Evidence 404(b) (Rule 404(b)). 211 Although Yousef did not expressly argue before the District Court that the letter should be redacted pursuant to Rule 404(b), even if the issue had been properly presented to the District Court, we would find no error in the Court's failure to redact the letter. Rule 404(b) provides in relevant part that 212 [e]vidence of other crimes, wrongs, or acts is not admissible to prove the character of a person in order to show action in conformity therewith. It may, however, be admissible for other purposes, such as proof of motive, opportunity, intent, preparation, plan, knowledge, identity, or absence of mistake or accident. 213 While the letter provided evidence of other threats, its salient feature was the trumpeting of a motive for the crimes for which the defendants were indicted: retaliation against the United States for its support of Israel. Because Rule 404(b) expressly permits evidence that establishes motive, intent, or plan, and these permissible evidentiary uses of the letter outweighed any arguably impermissible use under Rule 403, we hold that the District Court did not abuse its discretion in admitting the letter without redaction. In any event, even if the letter had been improperly admitted without redaction, we conclude that any such error was harmless since the references to other targets were unimportant in relation to everything else the jury considered during the trial. United States v. Rea, 958 F.2d 1206, 1220 (2d Cir.1992) (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). 214