Court Opinion

ID: 9396264
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-05-20 00:00:25.527286+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:19:15.709498
License: Public Domain

Case: 22-30089         Document: 00516756925             Page: 1      Date Filed: 05/19/2023

              United States Court of Appeals
                   for the Fifth Circuit
                                                                                  United States Court of Appeals
                                                                                           Fifth Circuit

                                      ____________                                       FILED
                                                                                      May 19, 2023
                                       No. 22-30089                                   Lyle W. Cayce
                                      ____________                                         Clerk

   United States of America,

                                                                       Plaintiff—Appellee,

                                             versus

   Steven Marcus Kelley,

                                               Defendant—Appellant.
                      ______________________________

                      Appeal from the United States District Court
                         for the Western District of Louisiana
                               USDC No. 3:20-CR-294-1
                      ______________________________

   Before Richman, Chief Judge, and Haynes and Graves, Circuit
   Judges.
   Per Curiam: *
          Steven Marcus Kelley argues that the district court made two key
   evidentiary errors in his murder-for-hire trial. He contends that the district
   court erred in determining that certain evidence was hearsay. He did not,
   however, properly preserve this issue for appeal. He also contends that the
   district court erred by disallowing him to bring in evidence from a previous

          _____________________
          *
              This opinion is not designated for publication. See 5th Cir. R. 47.5.
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                                   No. 22-30089

   criminal charge. That evidence’s probative value was substantially
   outweighed by a danger of confusing the jury. We AFFIRM.
                              Factual Background
          Kelley was incarcerated in the Ouachita Correctional Center (OCC)
   awaiting trial in state court for the alleged sexual abuse of his former
   stepdaughters. While incarcerated, Kelley wrote and mailed a murder-for-
   hire letter, which described his ex-wife, Jeannie, provided specific
   instructions on how to kill her, and offered money for her murder. Kelley was
   indicted for use of a facility of interstate commerce in the commission of
   murder-for-hire under 18 U.S.C. § 1958.
          The murder-for-hire plan was discovered when Odyssey Straughter,
   a former inmate at OCC, turned over to law enforcement a letter soliciting
   the murder of Jeannie. The letter described Jeannie’s physical
   characteristics, her vehicle, her workplace, and her usual work schedule. It
   insisted that the murder “look like a robbery” with “2 in the chest, 2 in the
   head” and that the perpetrator “[m]ake sure it counts.” It included a map to
   assist in finding Jeannie’s workplace and leaving without being captured on
   surveillance cameras. The letter offered “$10K for the job.”
         The letter had been mailed from OCC in December 2019, and it was
   addressed to “Dillon Jackson” with “Ty Neathery” named for the return
   addressee. Straughter had been incarcerated in OCC for approximately eight
   days in 2017, but he did not know Dillon Jackson or Ty Neathery. Straughter
   did recall providing his address to his cellmate at OCC, who was later
   identified as Nicholas Emanuel. Investigators found Straughter’s address
   written on a piece of paper when they searched Emanuel’s bunk. Neathery,
   Emanuel, and Kelley had been incarcerated together at OCC. Surveillance
   videos from OCC showed Kelley writing a letter, going to Emanuel’s cell to
   fill out an envelope, Neathery entering that cell and talking to Kelley, and

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                                   No. 22-30089

   Kelley giving Emanuel a “fist bump.” Kelley gave the envelope to another
   inmate who then gave it to a deputy for mailing. Kelley entered into a
   stipulation providing that he wrote the letter and gave it to another inmate
   for mailing.
          Kelley’s defense at trial was that he wrote and mailed the letter under
   duress and lacked the requisite intent to be found guilty. He claimed that
   Emanuel had forced him to write the letter by threatening to tell his attorney
   that Kelley had confessed to molesting his former stepdaughters. He further
   claimed that Emanuel told him what details to include in the letter and that
   Emanuel would hold it over his head in order to extort money from Kelley.
                                       Discussion
          1. Kelley Failed to Follow Federal Rule of Evidence 103(a)(2)
          At trial, Kelley attempted to testify about Emanuel’s threats and
   directions regarding the letter, but the Government objected to this
   testimony, arguing it was hearsay. The district court sustained the
   Government’s objections repeatedly while Kelley was on the stand.
          Federal Rule of Evidence 103(a)(2) provides that, in order to preserve
   an evidentiary ruling excluding evidence, the party must “inform[] the court
   of [the evidence’s] substance by an offer of proof, unless the substance was
   apparent from the context.” In interpreting Rule 103(a)(2), the Fifth Circuit
   has explained that “[w]hile some circuits have apparently taken a more
   lenient approach, this circuit will not even consider the propriety of the
   decision to exclude the evidence at issue, if no offer of proof was made at
   trial.” United States v. Winkle, 587 F.2d 705, 710 (5th Cir. 1979) (internal
   citation omitted).
          The government frequently objected to Kelley’s trial testimony on
   hearsay grounds. After one Government objection, the district court

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   pointedly asked Kelley’s trial counsel if he had “any exception to the hearsay
   rule on that you’re asserting?”. 1 Counsel failed to provide an exception.
   Frequently when the Government objected, Kelley’s trial counsel would
   reword the question to avoid any potential hearsay issue. Kelley consistently
   failed to show why the evidence was admissible.
           Kelley needed to explain (1) what he intended to show by the evidence
   and (2) why the evidence was admissible. United States v. Ballis, 28 F.3d 1399,
   1406 (5th Cir. 1994). “Generally, however, excluded evidence is sufficiently
   preserved for review when the trial court has been informed as to what
   counsel intends to show by the evidence and why it should be admitted, and
   this court has a record upon which we may adequately examine the propriety
   and harmfulness of the ruling.” Id. The substance of the evidence Kelley
   sought to admit was not apparent from the context, and the trial counsel did
   not explain the grounds for admissibility. Therefore, the district court was
   not able to consider the arguments now advanced on appeal.
       “Because an adequate offer of proof was not made, we ‘may not’ find
   error under Rule 103, as interpreted in this circuit.” Winkle, 587 F.2d at 710;
   see also United States v. Ramirez-Lopez, 630 F. App’x 352, 352–53 (5th Cir.
   2016) (“Because Ramirez–Lopez’s counsel failed to inform the court that he
   was offering the statements for a permissible, non-hearsay purpose,
   Ramirez–Lopez did not preserve the issue for review.”). Since Kelley waived
   this issue for review, we AFFIRM the district court on its hearsay rulings.

           _____________________
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             Kelley also argues that what he was seeking to admit was not an “exception” to
   the hearsay rule, but rather it was not hearsay because it did not rely on the truth of the
   matter asserted. But his attorney never explained that contention to the district judge.
   Indeed, the attorney kept advising Kelley not to say what Emanuel told him, so he seemed
   to agree with the hearsay ruling.

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          2. The District Court Did Not Err in Excluding Kelley’s
             Evidence Relating to the Merits of the State Sexual Abuse
             Charges
          “A district court’s determination under Rule 403 with respect to
   whether the probative value of evidence is substantially outweighed by the
   danger of unfair prejudice is reviewed under an abuse of discretion standard
   but, at least generally, 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)).
          Before trial, the Government sought an order from the district court
   “(1) permitting at trial limited evidence to establish the defendant was under
   state indictment for sex crimes at the time of the murder-for-hire alleged in
   the . . . indictment and (2) precluding the defense from introducing evidence
   that amounts to a mini trial on the merits of the pending state sex crimes
   case.” In response, Kelley conceded that “evidence of the sex crimes was
   admissible as intrinsic evidence,” but he argued that limiting his ability to
   present evidence about the factual allegations underlying the alleged sex
   crimes would deprive him of his constitutional right to a fair trial.
          The district court granted the Government’s motion, allowing
   evidence of the charges but disallowing Kelley to conduct a “mini trial of the
   state sex abuse charges.” The court determined that the evidence of the
   existence of the sex crimes was admissible both as intrinsic evidence and
   extrinsic evidence under Rule 404(b). As to Kelley’s evidence, the court
   reasoned that “conducting a minitrial of the state sex abuse charges would be
   confusing to the jury and is not relevant or necessary.”
          This was not an abuse of discretion. The probative value of Kelley’s
   proffered evidence—direct testimony from an investigator and the victims,

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   as well as documents from the investigation—was low. That evidence would
   not show definitively that the charges were meritless; the jury would have
   needed to weigh the credibility of those witnesses, assess the evidence, and
   consider the elements of the underlying state charges. At the same time, the
   danger of confusing the issues and misleading the jury with this evidence was
   high. See, e.g., United States v. Ramos, 537 F.3d 439, 456 (5th Cir. 2008)
   (“Disputes relating to a completely different scenario involving another
   drug-trafficking episode—and the evidentiary disputes accompanying it—
   would assuredly have diverted the attention of the jury, confused the issues
   actually to be decided, and unfairly prejudiced the conduct of the trial. . . .
   The district court therefore did not abuse its discretion in excluding the
   evidence under Fed. R. Evid. 403.”). It was not an abuse of discretion for the
   district court to hold that presenting such evidence would confuse the jury as
   to the evidence it needed to weigh and the issues it needed to decide.
                                    Conclusion
          The judgment of the district court is AFFIRMED.

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