Court Opinion

ID: 9488295
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 12:41:31.812437+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:52:48.778586
License: Public Domain

LAY, Senior Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
Powers was indicted on ten counts under 18 U.S.C. § 2241(e) of knowingly engaging in, or attempting to engage in, a sexual act with another person (his daughter) who had not attained the age of twelve years. Over proper objection, the district court permitted the prosecution to open its ease-in-ehief with extensive testimony detailing the defendant’s whipping and physical beating of his daughter, Brandi, who was the victim of the sexual assaults; her brother; and the defendant’s wife, the mother of the two children. Powers was not charged with any of these physical beatings. This evidence was not similar in nature or in any way related to the crime charged.
Brandi testified that the beatings commenced when she was seven and a half years old, more than two years before the sexual assaults for which Powers was charged. J.A. 20. The following is a portion of Brandi’s extensive testimony concerning the physical abuse Powers inflicted on her and her brother:
W: Well after we come back I was about seven and a half, or something like that he started whipping us. He would whip us all the time for no reason at all. And he — well, I can’t really say how many times — whipped for nothing. He would whip us like three or four times a day.
Q: You said he whipped you all the time. What did he use?
A: Sometimes he would use a belt. Sometimes he would use a belt [a]nd something like, he used a hickory or his hands.
Q: Okay. Did it leave bruises?
A: Yeah, most of the time.
Q: All right. Did he ever give any reason for it?
A: Well, he’d like — he made us clean the house and pick up the trash in the yard every day. And every day, you know, we would try to do what he told us, but there was always something not good enough, I guess. Sometimes we would have to do it over and I don’t know — he would whip us.
Q: Did he ever hit you or your brother with anything else?
A: One time he knocked my brother off the porch with a two by four.
Q: Can you remember how old your brother was when that happened?
*1474A: He was maybe seven. I’m not sime.
Q: Was there ever anything else your dad did?
A: He would whip us all of the time.
Q: Okay. What about, you mentioned do [sic] anything to discipline you? Do you remember—
A: Well, he — one time he told us if we didn’t start listening to him and doing what he said, that he would make us eat peppers, these peppers, hot peppers and make us eat them.
Q: Where did he get the hot peppers?
A: At the grocery store or produce store or something.
Q: Okay. Did that make you sick?
A: Yes.
Q: Did you throw up?
A: Yeah, one time.
Q: Okay. How bad did you throw up?
A: I just threw up and it was just like water and blood or something.
J.A. at 20-22.
As the transcript makes clear, the prosecutor made every effort to elicit graphic details of the physical abuse from Brandi. It is difficult to comprehend what purpose the prosecutor could have had for doing so except to inflame the passions of the jury by conjuring up disturbing images of child and spousal abuse, thereby emphasizing that the defendant was a mean, cruel, and violent man.1
The district court, on two occasions, in overruling the defendant’s objections, erroneously and prejudicially instructed the jury, in direct violation of Fed.R.Evid. 404(b), that it could consider the evidence to show Powers’ “LACK OF RESPECT.” This language instructed the jury to consider the evidence to show bad character. As the majority concedes, this is expressly impermissible under Rule 404(b).
In the same limiting instruction, the district court instructed the jury that the bad acts evidence could be used to demonstrate Powers’ method of operation or modus operandi. J.A 20. As the majority concedes, the evidence was not admissible for that purpose.2 The majority also concedes the evidence was not relevant to Powers’ knowledge, as the district court erroneously instructed the jury in its final charge.
The court’s final instruction stated:
Such evidence that an act is done at one time or on one occasion is not any evidence of proof [whatsoever] that a similar act was done at another time or on another occasion. ... If the Jury should find beyond a reasonable doubt from other evidence in the case that the defendant did the act charged in the indictment, then the Jury may consider evidence as to an alleged act of any like nature in determining the state of mind or intent with which the accused did the act charged in the indictment.
J.A. 177-78. Under the circumstances of this case, “state of mind or intent” can only refer to whether Powers “knowingly” engaged in and attempted to engage in a sexual act with a female who had not attained the age of twelve years. J.A. 178. The court instructed the jury that “knowingly” meant that “the act was done voluntarily and intentionally and not because of mistake or accident.” Trial Transcript at 425. Prior physi*1475cal beatings of Brandi, her brother, and her mother are in no way relevant to show Powers was aware of his action when he sexually abused Brandi and that he did not act as the result of a mistake. The fact that Powers physically beat and whipped his children and wife simply does not make it any more or less likely that he acted knowingly in sexually abusing his daughter.
The majority seeks to overcome the obvious prejudice of this evidence in a number of ways. First, it urges that notwithstanding the error of these limiting instructions, the evidence was otherwise admissible for reasons not relied on by the district court in instructing the jury. The majority opinion finds the evidence admissible to bolster the credibility of the victim, Brandi, by explaining her delay in reporting the crime. In addition, it finds the testimony necessary to show the context of the crime. Finally, it urges that there was no objection to the court’s admittedly erroneous limiting instructions.
I must respectfully dissent. Such hindsight rationalization cannot erase the prejudicial harm created at this trial.

BRANDI’S CREDIBILITY

The government opened its ease-in-ehief by producing evidence of physical abuse not only against the alleged victim, but also against her brother and mother.3 The majority finds this evidence admissible to explain the delay in reporting the abuse, thus bolstering Brandi’s credibility. The court at no time instructed the jury to use the evidence for that purpose.
Furthermore, the court instructed the jury that it must find Powers sexually abused Brandi before it could consider the Rule 404(b) evidence. This would require that the jury already have believed Brandi’s testimony, negating the need for an explanation of why she did not come forward sooner. By repeatedly instructing the jury that it could not consider the Rule 404(b) evidence to show Powers committed the acts charged in the indictment, the trial judge in effect precluded the jury from using the evidence to conclude that “Brandi failed to report the sexual abuse not because it never took place, but because of her fear of retribution,” the purpose for which the majority finds the testimony relevant. See supra at 1465.
The majority concludes this Court may affirm the admission of Rule 404(b) evidence for any proper purpose on appeal regardless of the instructions given at trial. See supra at 1465 n. 5. It is simply unrealistic to expect that when the jury is erroneously instructed as to how it should consider the evidence, it will somehow nevertheless use the evidence for another unexplained but proper reason. Under this theory, we reduce specific jury instructions used to guide the jurors’ consideration of the evidence in a given ease to a meaningless exercise of judicial rhetoric. This Court should not ignore the actual instructions the district court gave the jury, and the effect that those instructions must have had on the jury’s consideration of the evidence. That is especially true when, as in this ease, the district court twice instructed the jury to consider the evidence to show a negative character trait of the accused. In order to affirm the conviction, it is necessary to ignore the theory on which *1476the ease was presented to the jury and fictionalize that, notwithstanding the erroneous instructions as to the relevancy of the evidence, the jurors somehow, some way, would know that there was another legal theory under which obviously prejudicial evidence should be considered. “Our theory of trial relies upon the ability of a jury to follow instructions.” Opper v. United States, 348 U.S. 84, 95, 75 S.Ct. 158, 165, 99 L.Ed. 101 (1954). To suggest that the jury could consider the evidence to bolster Brandi’s credibility is simply a post hoc rationalization. To sustain a criminal conviction on such grounds denigrates the trial process to a meaningless exercise of legal theory and constitutes a clear denial of due process.
Moreover, I cannot agree with the majority that the final instruction to the jury somehow cured or mitigated the error in the previous instructions. The jury was expressly told at the time the evidence was admitted that they were to consider it to show Powers’ “lack of respect.” The final instruction did not cure this error, but merely added yet another erroneous reason for the admission of the testimony, leaving “lack of respect” as one of the several improper purposes for which the jury could consider the evidence.4
Nor do I find convincing the majority’s argument that defense counsel failed to object to the erroneous limiting instructions. I respectfully submit, in light of the overall record, prejudice in this criminal trial cannot be so easily obviated. Here, the defendant initially objected to the admissibility of the evidence. The court overruled the objections by allowing the evidence for “limited” purposes. Those purposes, as the majority concedes, were wrong. Counsel then stipulated with the court that he would no longer make objection if it could be understood his objection would carry forward as to all bad-act evidence. J.A. 33. The court agreed and said that whenever necessary, it would give a limiting instruction.5 The court, in disclosing the reason for which it was allowing the jury to consider the evidence, was simply telling the jury why it was overruling the objection. Surely the defendant should not have to make a repetitive objection to the evidence based on the court’s erroneous reasoning. The trial court erred when it overruled the objection. Its incorrect reason simply amplified the prejudicial error. Certainly defense counsel should not have to do anything more than he did here.

CONTEXT OF THE CRIME

The second ground on which the majority justifies the admissibility of Powers’ acts of physical abuse against Brandi, Brent, and their mother is that they were necessary to put Powers’ crime in context. Brandi testified that the beatings commenced when she was seven and a half years old, more than two years before the sexual assaults for which Powers was charged. She stated these beatings stopped after her mother left home.6 J.A. 20. Brandi testified that her brother was hit by her father with a board when the brother was seven. J.A. 21. The exact date this occurred is not known. Finally, Brandi testified that the beatings of her mother occurred before the family left South Carolina in late 1987, two years before *1477the sexual assaults.7 Thus, the physical abuse of Brandi, let alone of her mother and brother, did not occur in conjunction with the incidents of statutory rape. I find utterly unconvincing the majority’s assertion that these incidents are “so linked in point of time and circumstance” to the statutory rapes that proof of the statutory rapes occurring from late 1989 to the fall of 1990 could not be fully shown without evidence of the physical abuse.8
In all of the cases cited by the majority, the evidence was inextricably intertwined with the charged offense such that the story of the charged crime could not be told without that evidence.9 It is a complete non sequitur to suggest that the jury had to hear about every incident of violence occurring within this family for the preceding several years in order to complete the account of the statutory rapes. The majority nevertheless finds this evidence necessary to show the context of the crime for the very same reason it finds the testimony relevant, i.e., because it shows why Brandi did not report the sexual abuse. See supra at 1467. Thus, the majority’s claim that this is evidence related to the context of the crime is simply repetitive of its credibility argument, which, as discussed, cannot logically be made on this record.10

*1478
PREJUDICIAL EFFECT

Finally, I cannot agree with the majority’s conclusion that the probative value of this evidence is not substantially outweighed by its prejudicial effect. The limiting instructions make clear the court did not admit the testimony to bolster Brandi’s credibility. Because the district court did not understand the purported relevance of the testimony, it could not have properly weighed the probative value of the evidence in relation to its prejudicial effect. The only possible probative value of this evidence would be to rehabilitate an unimpeached witness. Its probative value is therefore extremely slight. If the district court had weighed that value against the prejudicial nature of the testimony, especially in light of its placement at the very commencement of the prosecutor’s casein-chief and the amount of detail elicited by the prosecutor, it is difficult to believe the court would have admitted the testimony for that purpose.
The majority concludes the testimony is more probative than prejudicial because the district court issued a series of limiting instructions and because the “danger of prejudice is slight in view of the overwhelming evidence of guilt.” I cannot agree. First, as previously discussed, each of the limiting instructions issued by the district court was erroneous. In addition, the first limiting instruction clearly compounded the prejudicial effect of the evidence by twice telling the jury the evidence could be considered to show Powers’ lack of respect, hardly an element of proof for statutory rape. Even assuming this instruction was not plain error, it does not follow that the limiting instructions obviated the prejudice that resulted from the admission of this evidence.11
Moreover, in this case, it certainly cannot be argued that there was overwhelming evidence of Powers’ guilt. Indeed, the prosecutor’s case essentially consists of Brandi’s testimony and evidence that Brandi went into a dissociative state during a gynecological exam. No physical evidence of sexual abuse was introduced by the prosecution. The case against Powers therefore turned on the jury’s consideration of testimony from Brandi and Powers, both of whom testified at trial.

CONCLUSION

It is difficult to conceive what possible reason the prosecutor had for eliciting details from Brandi concerning Powers’ physical beatings of his wife and children at the commencement of its case-in-chief except to paint Powers as a bad person and prejudice the jury against him. The instructions compounded that prejudice by directing the jury to consider the testimony to demonstrate Powers’ bad character. On that basis, any tangential probative value this evidence may have for any purpose was substantially outweighed by its prejudicial effect.
In addition, because this was the first testimony the jury heard, before any testimony regarding the acts charged in the indictment, it is highly probable the jury was influenced by it. As previously discussed, it also cannot be argued that there was other overwhelming evidence of Powers’ guilt.
It is true the defendant is not entitled to a perfect trial, but he is entitled to a fair trial. Powers did not receive a fair trial. For the foregoing reasons, I respectfully dissent.

. The Supreme Court has noted the dangers inherent in the admission of evidence of prior bad acts. These dangers include the risk that the jury will convict the defendant because his criminal disposition makes it more likely he committed the crime on trial, or because the defendant is a bad person deserving of punishment, whether or not he committed the charged crime. See, e.g., Huddleston v. United States, 485 U.S. 681, 686, 108 S.Ct. 1496, 1499-1500, 99 L.Ed.2d 771 (1988); Michelson v. United States, 335 U.S. 469, 475-76, 69 S.Ct. 213, 218-19, 93 L.Ed. 168 (1948); see also United States v. Moccia, 681 F.2d 61, 63 (1st Cir.1982).

. Rule 404(b) evidence may be admitted to show modus operandi when the identity of the defendant is in question. Thus, prior bad acts indicating a modus operandi are admissible when those acts are “so nearly identical in method as to earmark them as the handiwork of the accused." McCormick's on Evidence, § 190, at 801 (4th ed. 1992). The testimony was not admissible for that purpose here because, even if the identity of the defendant were in question, prior physical abuse of the daughter, son, or mother is certainly not so nearly "identical" to the rapes of the daughter that it is relevant to show that only Powers could have committed those crimes.

. By offering this evidence at the commencement of its case-in-chief to explain the delay, the government breaches the “time-honored principle” that “in the absence of an attack upon credibility no sustaining evidence is allowed.” United States v. Bolick, 917 F.2d 135, 138 (4th Cir.1990) (quoting McCormick on Evidence, § 49, at 115 (3d ed. 1984)). The introduction of this evidence to explain the delay and thus bolster Brandi’s credibility eviscerates that principle and permits the government to anticipate how the defendant might impeach its witnesses, and on that basis inject at the commencement of its case-in-chief highly prejudicial testimony detailing prior bad acts. See State v. Werner, 302 Md. 550, 489 A.2d 1119, 1125-26 (1985) (finding bad-acts evidence offered to explain a delay in reporting sexual abuse “inadmissible evidence as part of the State's case in chief" because “[t]he State itself, by this 'bootstrap' operation, created the alleged need for presenting evidence of other crimes by the defendant”). Indeed, in this case, the testimony concerning Powers’ physical abuse was the first testimony the jury heard, before any evidence Powers had committed the crimes with which he was charged. Moreover, even assuming it may be within the district court’s discretion to deviate from this principle on occasion as the majority suggests, the district court did not exercise that discretion here because it did not admit the evidence for that purpose.

. This Circuit has previously held, with respect to the final charge to the jury, that "[w]here two instructions are in conflict, and one is an incorrect statement of the law and is clearly prejudicial, the charge constitutes reversible error, since the jury 'might have followed the erroneous instruction.’ " United States v. Varner, 748 F.2d 925, 927 (4th Cir.1984) (quoting United States v. Walker, 677 F.2d 1014, 1016-17 n. 3 (4th Cir.1982)). In the instant case, the instructions given during the course of the trial were all erroneous, one was clearly prejudicial, and the jury was never told to disregard that instruction.

. The Court stated as follows:
I will not require you to object each time. But if you feel the time has come that you need another limiting instruction, give me an objection to it. I'm going to let it stand as I've already instructed the jury. If you come to the time that you think they may not be remembering that anymore, you object and I’ll give them that limiting instruction again.
J.A. 33-34 (emphasis added).

.There is evidence that Powers' wife left home after fighting with Powers and went to her grandmother's house for unknown periods of time. Trial Transcript at 221-22. Although the record does not reveal the exact date, Brandi testified that this occurred immediately before the first sexual assault in Robbinsville. J.A. 27.

. Brandi testified that she never saw her father hit her mother after they left South Carolina. J.A. at 39, 71. Later testimony established that the family left South Carolina in late 1987, and the statutory rapes did not occur until late 1989. Trial Transcript at 356. The testimony regarding spousal abuse was as follows:
Q: Did you ever see your dad hit your mom?
A: Yes.
Q: What did he hit her with? Did he hit her with anything he could find?
A: He just hit her.
Q: How many times did you see that?
A: A lot.
Q: Did he ever leave bruises?
A: No. Unless around her butt, or something like that.
Q: Okay. Did you ever see any bruises around her eyes?
A: I don't think so. I can’t remember.
J.A. 38.

. The “context of the crime” language has its genesis in United States v. Smith, 446 F.2d 200, 204 (4th Cir.1971). In that case, this Court upheld the admission of evidence concerning a "postal money order which had been stolen from the same envelope and negotiated on the same day as the [stolen] postal money order specified in the federal indictment.” Id. (emphasis original). The evidence was thus admitted because it showed the defendant had possession of the stolen money order for which he was charged and knew that it was stolen and also because it “furnish[ed] part of the context of the crime.” Id. Even when the bad-acts evidence is immediately temporally related to the charged crime as was the case in Smith, however, it is only part of the context of the crime when it is necessary to explain the charged offense. See United States v. Swiatek, 819 F.2d 721, 726-27 (7th Cir.) (finding evidence that the defendant stole a car on the same day that he committed the crime charged was not admissible as background evidence because "evidence of this incident could have been excluded without damage to the jury’s understanding” of the underlying offense), cert. denied, 484 U.S. 903, 108 S.Ct. 245, 98 L.Ed.2d 203 (1987).

. For example, in United States v. Masters, 622 F.2d 83 (4th Cir.1980), a case relied upon by the majority, Masters was charged with illegal firearms sales. The Government's evidence included tape recorded conversations during which Masters agreed to sell the firearms, and also made reference to his probationary status and to prior bad acts he had committed. The district court refused to suppress portions of the tape in which Masters made reference to prior bad acts because it found it "impossible to do so without impairing the intelligibility of the conversations themselves.” Id. at 85. Similarly, in United States v. Williford, 764 F.2d 1493, 1499 (11th Cir.1985), the uncharged drug transactions were admissible because they occurred within the same time frame as the conspiracy charged in the indictment and arose from the same series of transactions as the charged conduct. In United States v. Brennan, 798 F.2d 581, 589-90 (2d Cir.1986), evidence of prior incidents of bribery explained how the relationship between two key witnesses developed. The court found that without this evidence, "the jury would have had a truncated and possibly confusing view of the respective roles played by [the two witnesses] and of the basis for the trust between [them].” Id. at 590.

. The majority also repeatedly refers to this evidence as admissible to show Powers' "control over his family” and to “explain Brandi’s submission to the acts.” See supra at 1467, 1465. As the majority notes, in order to be relevant, evidence must tend to "make the existence of any fact that is of consequence to the determination of the action more probable or less probable....” Fed.R.Evid. 401 (emphasis added). Why Brandi submitted to these acts is simply not material in a prosecution for statutory rape. Even if Brandi had consented, Powers would still be guilly. Control is therefore of no consequence in this case, and this evidence cannot be admitted for that purpose.

. See United States v. Cortijo-Diaz, 875 F.2d 13, 15-16 (1st Cir.1989). In Cortijo-Diaz, the First Circuit found the Rule 404(b) evidence that the district court had admitted was not relevant to the defendant’s guilt. The court determined that the limiting instruction given by the court, "which consisted of a laundry-list of permitted uses contained in the rule, was simply incapable of limiting the damage caused by this evidence.” Id. ”[W]ithout further explanation by the trial judge, ‘the instruction must have left the jury wondering how the [criminal record] could have a bearing on the' various items of Rule 404(b).” Id. at 16 (quoting from Appellant’s brief). Similarly, in United States v. Mothershed, 859 F.2d 585, 591-92 (8th Cir.1988), the court found the limiting instructions incapable of dispelling the prejudice of improperly admitted Rule 404(b) evidence because the "instructions had the effect not of preventing the jury from using the evidence for improper purposes, but of directing the jury to consider the evidence for improper purposes.”