Opinion ID: 201980
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Admission of Flight Evidence.

Text: 23 Flight evidence is controversial and must be handled with care. Given an adequate factual predicate, however, evidence of a criminal defendant's flight is generally thought to be probative of his or her consciousness of guilt. See, e.g., United States v. Zanghi, 189 F.3d 71, 83 (1st Cir.1999); United States v. Grandmont, 680 F.2d 867, 869 (1st Cir.1982). As a precursor to admissibility, the government must present sufficient extrinsic evidence of guilt to support an inference that a defendant's flight was not merely an episode of normal travel but, rather, the product of a guilty conscience related to the crime alleged. See United States v. Otero-Méndez, 273 F.3d 46, 53 (1st Cir.2001); Zanghi, 189 F.3d at 83. Because flight may be consistent with innocence as easily as with guilt, this precursor helps ensure that a jury does not infer guilt based solely on a defendant's meanderings. 24 Even if the government makes the requisite showing, admissibility is not automatic. Flight evidence is subject to exclusion under Rule 403. Otero-Méndez, 273 F.3d at 53. A district court is afforded considerable leeway when determining whether evidence of a defendant's flight is accompanied by a sufficient factual predicate. The court is afforded similar latitude in determining whether the evidence passes the Rule 403 balancing test. Consequently, we review such decisions only for abuse of discretion. See id.; see also Freeman v. Package Mach. Co., 865 F.2d 1331, 1340 (1st Cir.1988) (cautioning that [o]nly rarely — and in extraordinarily compelling circumstances — will we, from the vista of a cold appellate record, reverse a district court's on-the-spot judgment concerning the relative weighing of probative value and unfair effect). 25 In this case, the government adduced a sufficient factual predicate. The court had available to it, from the government's proffer, enough extrinsic evidence to furnish circumstantial badges of guilt. That evidence included Chau's account of the unfulfilled promise of self-surrender, police testimony that the appellant after initially resisting the search had admitted owning the gun, the fact that no one else lived in the apartment, and the absence of any underwear or socks other than those found in close proximity to the weapon. 26 The appellant nevertheless claims that the district court's midtrial decision to allow evidence of flight, after having ruled in limine that the government could not use that evidence, constituted reversible error. The appellant, ably represented, starts this line of advocacy with a suggestion that the flight evidence was only marginally relevant. The district court disagreed. It found that the evidence had probative value (and, therefore, was relevant, see Fed.R.Evid. 401) in three respects: (i) establishing the appellant's consciousness of guilt; (ii) rebutting any suggestion that the government fabricated the charge; and (iii) impeaching defense witnesses. As we explain below, these findings are adequately supported by the record. 27 In our view, the tipping point is that the court found the flight evidence to have probative value in two areas that were not apparent at the time of the in limine ruling. For one thing, in cross-examining the government's witnesses, defense counsel made repeated references to the nearly five-year gap between indictment and trial. These references set the stage for an inference that the government had spent the intervening time trumping up charges against the appellant. Evidence of the appellant's flight provided an alternate explanation for the lapse in time. 28 For another thing, the flight evidence turned out to have probative worth for evaluating the credibility of the defense witnesses. If someone in the position of Bellucci or DiBona knew that his or her friend, unjustly accused, had fled the jurisdiction, it would be reasonable to expect that person to come forward in an effort to clear the friend's name. Neither Bellucci nor DiBona did so. Thus, allowing the government to inquire as to whether either of them had knowledge of the flight (and, if so, why he or she held back) made perfect sense. See, e.g., Mercado, 412 F.3d at 248. 29 Over and above relevance, the appellant attempts in various ways to establish that the district court abused its discretion in deciding to admit the evidence. First, he attacks what he characterizes as the court's about-face: he asserts that he suffered unfair prejudice when the court, after having granted his pretrial motion in limine, reversed that decision in the middle of the defense case. This argument collapses of its own weight. 30 It is settled law that in limine rulings are provisional. Such rulings are not binding on the trial judge [who] may always change his mind during the course of a trial. Ohler v. United States, 529 U.S. 753, 758 n. 3, 120 S.Ct. 1851, 146 L.Ed.2d 826 (2000); accord Luce v. United States, 469 U.S. 38, 41, 105 S.Ct. 460, 83 L.Ed.2d 443 (1984) (noting that in limine rulings are always subject to change, especially if the evidence unfolds in an unanticipated manner). Here, moreover, the additional evidence made available to the court gave it a fresh coign of vantage. So viewed, the court's midtrial decision to allow use of the evidence cannot fairly be characterized as an overruling of its original order. 31 Relatedly, the appellant asserts that the court's change of position caused unfair surprise and thereby undermined the defense's trial strategy. That assertion rings hollow. By its explicit terms, the in limine ruling excluded the flight evidence only from the government's case in chief. The carefully circumscribed nature of the order undercuts any claim of unfair surprise. See Thudium v. Allied Prods. Corp., 36 F.3d 767, 769-70 (8th Cir.1994). Whether or not the appellant anticipated that the court would take a different view of the flight evidence after the government rested is beside the point. Mere surprise is insufficient to ground a Rule 403 challenge. See O'Rourke v. E. Air Lines, Inc., 730 F.2d 842, 855 n. 21 (2d Cir.1984). It is only unfair surprise against which litigants must be protected. 1 32 This brings us to the appellant's final point. Without further elucidation, the appellant broadly contends that he was prejudiced by (i) the cross-examination of DiBona regarding her knowledge of the appellant's flight; (ii) Chau's testimony anent the proposed self-surrender; and (iii) the prosecutor's references to flight during summation. This contention is unpersuasive. Although this evidence likely worked to the appellant's detriment, Rule 403 is concerned not with prejudicial evidence, but with unfairly prejudicial evidence. See United States v. Moreno Morales, 815 F.2d 725, 740 (1st Cir.1987); see also Veranda Beach Club Ltd. P'ship v. W. Sur. Co., 936 F.2d 1364, 1372 (1st Cir.1991) (explaining that trials were never meant to be antiseptic affairs and that it is only unfair prejudice, not prejudice per se, against which Rule 403 guards). Evidence is generally deemed unfairly prejudicial if it has an undue tendency to prompt a decision by the factfinder on an improper basis. See Old Chief v. United States, 519 U.S. 172, 180, 117 S.Ct. 644, 136 L.Ed.2d 574 (1997). 33 In the case at hand, the appellant's resistance to the execution of the search warrant, his admissions on that occasion, and the unfulfilled promise of self-surrender formed a sufficient factual predicate for the introduction of the flight evidence. This predicate substantially diminished the possibility that the jury might infer guilt solely on the basis of the appellant's flight. To cinch matters, the court's cautionary instructions, twice repeated, mitigated any risk that the jury might give the flight evidence undue weight. See United States v. Candelaria-Silva, 162 F.3d 698, 706 (1st Cir.1998) (finding danger of unfair prejudice quelled by a comparable instruction). For these reasons, we conclude that the risk of unfair prejudice stemming from admission of the evidence of flight was slight, and that the district court acted within the encincture of its discretion when it made the challenged midtrial ruling.