Opinion ID: 165632
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Exclusion of R. 404(b) Evidence of Other Incidents

Text: 59 Plaintiffs sought to admit evidence of three other occasions when Officer Sholtis allegedly arrested individuals without probable cause or used excessive force. The trial court granted Officer Sholtis's motion to exclude this evidence on the grounds that it was both irrelevant and highly prejudicial. Plaintiffs insist that their proffered evidence is relevant under Fed.R.Evid. 404(b) to show intent and absence of mistake as well as consciousness and state of mind. Aplt. Br. 55. These potential bases of relevance all tend to the same point, that Officer Sholtis intended to use excessive force on Plaintiffs because he demonstrated similar intent on previous occasions. 7 We review a trial court's exclusion of character evidence for abuse of discretion. See United States v. Lazcano-Villalobos, 175 F.3d 838, 846 (10th Cir.1999). 60 The Federal Rules of Evidence generally preclude the use of evidence of crimes or wrongs unrelated to the conduct at issue if that evidence is offered to prove a propensity to behave in a particular manner. If offered for a purpose other than to demonstrate propensity, evidence of acts unrelated to the one at issue may be admissible under Rule 404(b) if the evidence meets the four-part test of Lazcano-Villalobos, which requires that 61 (1) the evidence was offered for a proper purpose; (2) the evidence was relevant; (3) the trial court determined under Fed.R.Evid. 403 that the probative value of the evidence was not substantially outweighed by its potential for unfair prejudice; and (4) the trial court gave the jury proper limiting instructions upon request. 62 Id. at 845-46. Because Plaintiffs' federal claim for excessive force requires assessment of Officer Sholtis's conduct under an objective standard, Plaintiffs have failed to establish the relevance of evidence tending to shed light on aspects of Officer Sholtis's mental state to this claim. 63 Under federal law, claims for excessive force are analyzed under the Fourth Amendment reasonableness standard. Graham, 490 U.S. at 395, 109 S.Ct. 1865. This standard is an objective one to which an officer's personal motivations in using a particular degree of force are irrelevant: [a]n officer's evil intentions will not make a Fourth Amendment violation out of an objectively reasonable use of force; nor will an officer's good intentions make an objectively unreasonable use of force constitutional. Id. at 397, 109 S.Ct. 1865. Under this objective standard, evidence tending to show Officer Sholtis's subjective state of mind is irrelevant to the jury's proper inquiry. 64 The trial court found the evidence of other acts to be irrelevant to Plaintiffs' state claim for assault and battery as well. Plaintiffs reassert on appeal their argument that the excluded similar acts evidence is relevant to their claims for assault and battery, pointing out that assault requires proof of specific intent under state law and that the prior acts are relevant to establish Officer Sholtis's intent to commit assault. However, evidence of prior acts has no bearing on Officer Sholtis's specific intent necessary for assault and battery. As the trial court correctly pointed out, the intent required by state tort law is not a malicious intent to cause harm, but rather the intent to perform the actions, combined with the belief that certain consequences are substantially certain to result. California First Bank v. State, 111 N.M. 64, 801 P.2d 646, 656, n. 6 (1990) (quoting Restatement (Second) of Torts § 8A (1965)). Officer Sholtis does not dispute that he intended the consequences of his actions in using force to apprehend Plaintiffs, and highly prejudicial evidence offered to prove a point not in dispute is properly excluded under Rule 403. See Old Chief v. United States, 519 U.S. 172, 184-85, 117 S.Ct. 644, 136 L.Ed.2d 574 (1997). 65 While New Mexico tort law generally may not require proof of evil intentions for liability, state law governing the particular question of when the use of force to effect an arrest is sufficiently excessive to expose an arresting officer to a claim for assault and battery is less clearly objective in nature. Although New Mexico law requires that an officer's use of force be objectively reasonable and reflects the same sensitivity as federal law to the split-second decisions officers must make, an officer's good faith appears to be the prerequisite for the exercise of a court's sympathetic review of an arrest: [s]o long as officers act in good faith and use no more force than reasonably necessary to preserve the peace, they are accorded reasonable latitude in the use of force. State v. Prince, 126 N.M. 547, 972 P.2d 859, 862 (1998), see also Mead, 344 P.2d at 479-80 (N.M.1959) (an officer making a misdemeanor arrest is entitled to use such force as [is] reasonably necessary under the circumstances.... Officers, within reasonable limits are the judges of the force necessary to enable them to make arrests.... When acting in good faith, the courts will afford them the utmost protection). 66 Neither the parties nor the trial court discussed whether New Mexico law imports a subjective element into the evaluation of an arresting officer's use of force, but we need not determine this point of New Mexico law because the judge's alternative ground for excluding the evidence is adequate. The trial court held that the prejudicial nature of the other acts evidence substantially outweighed its probative value. We review a trial court's exclusion of evidence under Rule 403 for abuse of discretion. United States v. Call, 129 F.3d 1402, 1405 (10th Cir.1997). Although offered to prove intent, evidence suggesting that Officer Sholtis had been accused of using excessive force in making other arrests could also suggest to a jury that Officer Sholtis is prone to the use of excessive force. While the potential of the other acts evidence to create unfair prejudice is clear, its probative value is more difficult to gauge, a task made no easier by Plaintiffs' vague assertion that the evidence is relevant to show malicious intent, absence of mistake and purposeful and unlawful conduct. Aplt. Br. 58. 67 If by their argument that the proffered evidence would show intent, absence of mistake, and deliberate unlawful conduct, Plaintiffs mean that the proffered evidence would show that Officer Sholtis knew that he was using an objectively unreasonable degree of force because he had done so before, the evidence they have offered would do very little to prove their point. 8 Although the record contains few details regarding the two other incidents involving allegations of excessive force, those incidents do not appear to be sufficiently similar, either in terms of the factual circumstances Officer Sholtis confronted or the techniques he employed, to justify an inference that those incidents had put Officer Sholtis on notice that his use of force in subduing Plaintiffs was excessive. See United States v. Zamora, 222 F.3d 756, 762 (10th Cir.2000) ([T]he uncharged crime must be similar to the charged offense.... The more similar the act or state of mind is to the charged crime, the more relevant it becomes). 9 68 Moreover, there is nothing in the record to indicate that the other two incidents in fact involved an excessive use of force. The first incident to which Plaintiffs point involved a warrantless entry into a private home and a forceful[ ] arrest of a person in the home. Aplt. Br. 57. While Plaintiffs indicate that a district judge entered an order ... finding [Officer] Sholtis had violated the homeowners' Fourth Amendment rights, the record does not reveal the grounds on which the court's determination of liability rested. Id. Officer Sholtis may have been found liable for the warrantless entry or the warrantless arrest rather than for his use of force. The other incident to which Plaintiffs point seems even less likely to support any conclusion regarding Officer Sholtis's intentions as they relate to his use of force in this case. Other than Plaintiffs' assertion that Officer Sholtis forcefully pulled [a motorist] out of the window of his car, causing him injury, the record offers no indication that Officer Sholtis's use of force on this occasion was excessive. Id. Given the lack of similarity between the other acts evidence and Plaintiffs' arrest, and the fact that the record does not permit the conclusion Officer Sholtis used excessive force in the other arrests, the proffered evidence would do little to establish Officer Sholtis's awareness that his use of force in arresting Plaintiffs might be problematic. Indeed, there appears to be little to connect the other acts evidence with Plaintiffs' arrest beyond Plaintiffs' assertions that excessive force was used in each. If, as seems only too likely, Plaintiffs wished the jury to infer that Officer Sholtis often intends to use excessive force when arresting the hapless innocents who cross his path, the evidence is offered to prove propensity rather than for a proper purpose, and was properly excluded. Fed.R.Evid. 404(a). If, on the other hand, Plaintiffs intended to show that Officer Sholtis knew that the type and degree of force he used on Plaintiffs was excessive, the evidence they offered would not serve to prove that point. In either event, a trial court does not abuse its discretion in excluding evidence of only slight probative value that creates a substantial danger of unfair prejudice.