Opinion ID: 4678698
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Naidoo’s Expert Testimony

Text: Naidoo contends that his lack of motive to possess child pornography was central to his defense. Accordingly, he sought to introduce expert testimony that he had no sexual interest in children and thus lacked such a motive. However, Naidoo was precluded from doing so by the district court after it concluded that, under Federal Rule of Evidence 403, the probative value of such testimony was outweighed by the special risk of jury confusion. 4 Case: 20-60730 Document: 00515827551 Page: 5 Date Filed: 04/19/2021 No. 20-60730 Federal Rule of Evidence 403 provides that the court “may exclude relevant evidence if its probative value is substantially outweighed by a danger of . . . confusing the issues.” A district court’s decision under Federal Rule of Evidence 403 is reviewed with “‘an especially high level of deference to’ the district court, with reversal called for only ‘rarely and only when there has been a clear abuse of discretion.’” United States v. Dillon, 532 F.3d 379, 387 (5th Cir. 2008) (quoting United States v. Fields, 483 F.3d 313, 354 (5th Cir. 2007)). Similarly, a trial court is afforded “‘wide latitude’ and ‘broad discretion’ to exclude expert testimony.” United States v. Reed, 908 F.3d 102, 117 (5th Cir. 2018), cert. denied, 139 S. Ct. 2655 (2019) and 139 S. Ct. 2658 (2019) (quoting Williams v. Manitowoc Cranes, LLC, 898 F.3d 607, 625 (5th Cir. 2018)). Accordingly, we “will not disturb the court’s exercise of its discretion to exclude such testimony unless the exclusion was ‘manifestly erroneous’—that is, unless it ‘amounts to a complete disregard of the controlling law.’” Id. Any such error in admitting evidence under Rule 403 is subject to “harmless error review,” and reversal is not warranted “unless there is a ‘reasonable possibility that the improperly admitted evidence contributed to the conviction.’” United States v. Williams, 620 F.3d 483, 492 (5th Cir. 2010) (quoting United States v. Mendoza–Medina, 346 F.3d 121, 127 (5th Cir. 2003)). Naidoo has not shown that the district court manifestly erred in finding that the risk of jury confusion caused by Naidoo’s proffered expert testimony outweighed its probative value. The First Circuit has confronted a similar issue. See United States v. Pires, 642 F.3d 1 (1st Cir. 2011). The court recognized that, where the only issue is whether a defendant knowingly possessed child pornography, expert testimony on a defendant’s sexuality, though possessing some probative value, has “diminished relevance.” Id. at 11. Indeed, “[i]n enacting the federal child pornography statute, Congress proscribed certain conduct without regard to the underlying motive.” Id.; see 5 Case: 20-60730 Document: 00515827551 Page: 6 Date Filed: 04/19/2021 No. 20-60730 also United States v. Matthews, 209 F.3d 338, 351 (4th Cir. 2000) (explaining that § 2252 does not require that “a defendant act[] with a bad motive or evil intent,” such as to “satisfy some prurient interest”). Rather, 18 U.S.C. § 2252(a)(4)(B) prohibits an individual from “knowingly” possessing material containing a visual depiction of a minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct. The court further noted that “because of an expert’s stature qua expert, jurors may assign more weight to expert testimony than it deserves.” Pires, 642 F.3d at 12. Accordingly, expert testimony regarding the defendant’s sexuality could “confuse the jury and divert its attention from the central question in the case”—whether the defendant knowingly possessed child pornography. Pires, 642 F.3d at 12. Here, after considering the proffered testimony and performing the requisite balancing under Rule 403, the district court came to the same conclusion that the risk of jury confusion, in this particular case, outweighed the probative value of such evidence. Indeed, the district court reasoned that Naidoo’s proffered testimony had “some relevance” since an individual would “presumably be less likely to knowingly possess child pornography if he is not sexually attracted to minors.” The court found, however, that such probative value was limited in light of the requisite mens rea and expressed concern that the jurors would afford the expert testimony outsized weight. As in Pires, the court thus concluded that the expert testimony presented a special risk of jury confusion that substantially outweighed its probative value. Based on the foregoing, we cannot say that the district court’s decision to exclude the relevant expert testimony was manifestly erroneous. B. Admission of Images and Videos of Child Pornography Naidoo argues that the Government displayed an unnecessarily large volume of child pornography to the jury. Naidoo emphasizes that he offered to stipulate to the presence of child pornography on the relevant devices, and 6 Case: 20-60730 Document: 00515827551 Page: 7 Date Filed: 04/19/2021 No. 20-60730 contends that the Government needed only to prove that he possessed at least one image of child pornography on each of the three devices. We previously confronted the admissibility of child pornography under Rule 403 in United States v. Caldwell, 586 F.3d 338, 342 (5th Cir. 2009). In that case, we explained that a defendant’s stipulation “does not have the same evidentiary value as actually seeing the particular explicit conduct of the specific minors.” Id. at 343; see also Old Chief v. United States, 519 U.S. 172, 183 (1997) (“[A] defendant’s Rule 403 objection offering to concede a point generally cannot prevail over the Government’s choice to offer evidence showing guilt and all the circumstances surrounding the offense.”). Indeed, we reasoned that graphic evidence of child pornography “comes together with the remaining evidence to form a narrative to gain momentum to support jurors’ inferences regarding the defendant’s guilt.” Caldwell, 586 F.3d at 343. Moreover, “[j]urors have expectations as to the narrative that will unfold in the courtroom,” and “[i]f those expectations are not met, jurors may very well punish the party who disappoints by drawing a negative inference.” Id. Moreover, the use of representative samples of child pornography in these cases has been broadly upheld. See United States v. Rodriguez, 797 F. App’x 475, 480 (11th Cir. 2019) (collecting cases); see also United States v. Morales-Aldahondo, 524 F.3d 115, 120 (1st Cir. 2008) (explaining that part of the Government’s “full presentation” of its case included “the presentation of a sample of images, and the expert’s detailed description of how they were organized”). Accordingly, Naidoo’s contention that the district court should have accepted his stipulation or limited the Government to displaying one 7 Case: 20-60730 Document: 00515827551 Page: 8 Date Filed: 04/19/2021 No. 20-60730 image per device is unavailing.3 There is no question that the pornography shown was a limited portion of the thousands of images and hundreds of videos for which Naidoo was held accountable. Moreover, it is clear that the number of images contributed to the narrative strength of the Government’s case. In particular, an aspect of the Government’s “overall narrative” entailed demonstrating links between the devices in Naidoo’s possession by showing that some images appeared on more than one device. Caldwell, 586 F.3d at 343. The Government thus sought to rebut Naidoo’s attempt to cast blame for the images on his wife and to establish Naidoo’s knowledge—an issue which was not covered by Naidoo’s proposed stipulation. See, e.g., id. at 343 (noting that “the specific videos published . . . reflected how likely it was that the defendant knew that the video depicted child pornography (which knowledge the stipulation did not mention)”). Based on the foregoing, we find that the district court did not abuse its discretion by admitting into evidence the images and video clips of child pornography. C. Admission of Pornographic Stories Naidoo argues that the district court erred in allowing the Government to introduce evidence that Naidoo’s tablet device was used to visit a website containing written stories depicting minors involved in sexual 3 Naidoo also takes issue with the Government’s use of a video that it had determined was “extremely disturbing” and “one of the worst videos that the forensic examiner [had] ever encountered.” Even assuming that the admission of this particular video was in error, that error was harmless in light of the overwhelming evidence of Naidoo’s guilt. See Mendoza-Medina, 346 F.3d at 129 (finding erroneously admitted evidence to be harmless where the evidence against the defendant was “substantial”); see also Williams, 620 F.3d at 493 (declining to reverse error in applying Rule 403 “in light of the substantial evidence of [the defendant’s] guilt presented at trial”). 8 Case: 20-60730 Document: 00515827551 Page: 9 Date Filed: 04/19/2021 No. 20-60730 acts. Naidoo points out that the Government defended the Kristen stories as supporting that child pornography “was something [Naidoo] had interest in,” and thus contends that the evidence was used for character propensity purposes in violation of Federal Rule of Evidence 404(b). For its part, the district court found that the stories went to Naidoo’s “knowledge and intent” and thus admitted them.4 Finally, Naidoo argues that the district court reversibly erred by failing to read the stories before admitting them into evidence. Federal Rule of Evidence 404(b) prohibits the use of “[e]vidence of any other crime, wrong, or act” to prove “a person’s character in order to show that on a particular occasion the person acted in accordance with the character.” Fed. R. Evid. 404(b)(1). However, it permits such evidence “for another purpose, such as proving motive, opportunity, intent, preparation, plan, knowledge, identity, absence of mistake, or lack of accident.” Fed. R. Evid. 404(b)(2). This court applies a two-pronged inquiry to evaluate the admissibility of evidence 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. Second, the evidence must possess probative value that is not substantially outweighed by its undue prejudice 4 Contrary to Naidoo’s repeated assertions, the district court’s decision did not run contrary to its pre-trial ruling barring both sides from introducing “expert testimony about the defendant’s sexual predilections.” The district court made this distinction clear when it explained that there was “a difference between a medical opinion and an actual visitation on a website.” As the Kristen stories were not offered as “expert opinion” about Naidoo’s sexual predilections, the district court’s pre-trial ruling was not implicated. 9 Case: 20-60730 Document: 00515827551 Page: 10 Date Filed: 04/19/2021 No. 20-60730 and must meet the other requirements of Rule 403. United States v. Grimes, 244 F.3d 375, 384 (5th Cir. 2001) (quoting United States v. Beechum, 582 F.2d 898, 911 (5th Cir. 1978) (en banc)). We have previously confronted the admission of pornographic narratives in a child pornography possession case. In United States v. Grimes, we held that pornographic stories involving minors were “highly relevant” to the charge of possession of child pornography and “would help show that the possession of the photographs was unlikely an accident when a person was also downloading narratives that involved sexual contact between adults and minors.” 244 F.3d at 384 & n.18. However, we found reversible error on the second prong of the review outlined above. Id. at 385. Specifically, we found that the narratives were “of a different sexual nature from the photographs” and were “exceedingly prejudicial” because of their “inflammatory nature.” Id. at 384–85. In particular, we noted that, while the admitted images “depict[ed] no violence,” the stories were “vile in their graphic and violent nature.” Id. at 385 (explaining that the narratives described “young girls in chains, a young girl in handcuffs, and references to blood”). This precedent makes clear that, with regard to the first prong of our review, the Kristen stories were relevant to an issue other than Naidoo’s character. As this court has repeatedly held, even legal pornographic materials may “show that the possession of the [illegal] photographs was unlikely an accident.” Id. at 384 n.18; see also United States v. Layne, 43 F.3d 127, 134 (5th Cir. 1995). Moving to the second prong, Naidoo argues that the narratives in this case were unduly prejudicial because they depicted incestuous sexual activity involving minors and adults. However, Naidoo cannot show that the 10 Case: 20-60730 Document: 00515827551 Page: 11 Date Filed: 04/19/2021 No. 20-60730 narratives contained the kind of “exceedingly prejudicial” or “inflammatory” acts of violence that were at issue in Grimes. Grimes, 244 F.3d at 384. Indeed, subsequent to our decision in Grimes, we have explained that its ruling on the issue of prejudice was “the exception, not the rule” and emphasized that the narratives in that case “involved gruesome violence.” Caldwell, 586 F.3d at 345. Nor does Naidoo attempt to argue that the narratives were more prejudicial or “of a different sexual nature from the photographs” that were admitted. Grimes, 244 F.3d at 385. Therefore, he has not shown that the prejudicial nature of the stories outweighed their probative value. Moreover, the district court was careful to limit the amount of such evidence that was offered and included an appropriate instruction on the relevance of such evidence in the jury instructions.5 See Layne, 43 F.3d at 134. Based on the foregoing, the district court did not abuse its discretion by admitting the two pornographic narratives.