Opinion ID: 654620
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Eviction Proceedings.

Text: 54 The defendants challenge the district court's grant of the government's motion in limine, precluding the defendants from cross-examining the occupants of the house about their pending eviction proceedings. The defendants assert that the testimony was necessary to show that the occupants left the house six months after the cross burnings because they were evicted and not because the cross burnings intimidated them to leave. The defendants maintain that the testimony regarding the eviction proceedings was relevant to show that the defendants burned the crosses, not out of racial animus, but to cause the constructive eviction of the tenants. 55 The district court did not abuse its discretion in finding the testimony regarding the eviction proceedings irrelevant. The fact that the tenants were later evicted from the house had nothing to do with the charges at hand. The main question in this case was whether the defendants intended to intimidate the victims, not whether the victims were actually intimidated. 18 U.S.C. Sec. 241; 42 U.S.C. Sec. 3631(b). Evidence of the victims' state of mind would tell us little, if anything, about the defendants' state of mind in burning the crosses. Without doubt, the evidence at trial showed that the defendants burned the crosses to intimidate the tenants and to interfere with their right to associate freely in their home with people of another race. Both Hayward and Krause had stated before the cross burnings that they disliked the idea of black people (in their words, niggers and coons) coming into Keeneyville. In particular, Robert Pauley testified that Hayward warned him about a nigger living in the house Pauley had rented to the Jones family. And, Steven Randall testified that Krause had invited him to participate in the first cross burning, because there was a nigger living with a white bitch, and [Krause] didn't like the idea, in Keeneyville.Consequently, because the government did not have to show that the tenants left the house as a result of the cross burnings, the testimony regarding their eviction proceedings was irrelevant to the charges the government brought against the defendants. The district court, therefore, did not abuse its discretion in ruling on this matter. SeeMuhammad, 928 F.2d at 1466-67. 56