Court Opinion

ID: 9482550
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 08:54:01.769645+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:49:04.074325
License: Public Domain

CUDAHY, Circuit Judge,
concurring.
I agree that the law of this circuit supports the affirmance of these convictions. I write separately to discuss this circuit’s law on an issue touched on only tangentially in the opinion for the panel: the admissibility of other-crimes evidence on the issue of intent when intent is not disputed. Fischer’s intent was apparently in issue in this case, so I agree that evidence of his 1981 marijuana-importation activities was admissible. However, since the government has argued that Fischer’s intent was “necessarily in issue” because Fischer was charged with a specific-intent crime, Gov’t Br. at 110, I think it appropriate to express my concerns regarding this circuit’s rule on this matter.
The general rule throughout the circuits has been that in order for evidence of other crimes to be admissible to establish intent under Federal Rule of Evidence 404(b), the issue of intent must be disputed. See United States v. James, 555 F.2d 992, 1000 n. 46 (D.C.Cir.1977) (citing cases from the Second, Third, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Eighth and D.C. Circuits); United States v. Fierson, 419 F.2d 1020, 1023 (7th Cir.1969); Edward W. Cleary, McCormick on Evidence § 190, at 564 (3d ed.1984) (“[I]f the prosecution maintains that the other crime reveals defendant’s guilty state of mind, then his intent must be disputed.”); 22 Charles Alan Wright & Kenneth W. Graham, Jr., Federal Practice and Procedure: Evidence § 5242, at 489 (1978) (“The issue of intent must be seriously disputed; for example, if the defendant claims that he is not the person identified as the actor, intent is not an issue and the [Rule 404(b) ] exception cannot be invoked.”).
This circuit has carved out an exception to the general rule, holding that where the crime includes specific intent as an element, other-crimes evidence is admissible even though intent is not in dispute (or, put another way, intent is “automatically in issue.”). United States v. Monzon, 869 *493F.2d 338, 344 (7th Cir.), cert. denied, 490 U.S. 1075, 109 S.Ct. 2087, 104 L.Ed.2d 650 (1989); United States v. Liefer, 778 F.2d 1236, 1242-43 (7th Cir.1985). The line of cases applying this exception extends back to United States v. Weidman, 572 F.2d 1199, 1202 (7th Cir.), cert. denied, 439 U.S. 821, 99 S.Ct. 87, 58 L.Ed.2d 113 (1978). Other circuits generally have declined to follow suit with such an exception.1 Most courts make no distinction between specific-intent and general-intent crimes, but simply apply the general rule that intent must be in issue for other-crimes evidence to be admitted.2 As the Fifth Circuit has written: “If the defendant’s intent is not contested, then the incremental probative value of the extrinsic offense is inconsequential when compared to its prejudice; therefore, in this circumstance the evidence is uniformly excluded.” United States v. Beechum, 582 F.2d 898, 914 (5th Cir.1978) (en banc), cert. denied, 440 U.S. 920, 99 S.Ct. 1244, 59 L.Ed.2d 472 (1979) (emphasis added; footnote omitted); see also United States v. Figueroa, 618 F.2d 934, 940 (2d Cir.1980).
In questioning the defensibility of this circuit’s rule, I wrote in United States v. Chaimson, 760 F.2d 798, 813 (7th Cir.1985):
[T]he rule should not be so understood as to make the admissibility of other-crimes evidence automatic where the crime is one of specific intent. Even if we adopt the fiction that intent is always in question in such cases, such evidence is only admissible if it is really introduced to show intent. The government ... cannot simply flood the courtroom with other-crimes evidence on the grounds that the crime was one of specific intent.
I am afraid that over the years this circuit’s bright-line exception has resulted in a great deal of prejudicial extrinsic evidence finding its way into many criminal trials. In my view, intent ought to be an issue in dispute in order for evidence of other crimes to be admissible for the purpose of establishing intent; when intent is not contested, evidence of other crimes is likely to be used simply for the prohibited purpose of showing criminal propensity. But the mere fact that a crime includes specific intent as an element does not make the issue of intent disputed. Rather, our specific-intent exception has effectively swallowed the rule providing that, as evidence of intent, other crimes are not admissible unless intent is disputed or called into question. I believe that we should return to that fundamental rule.

. Some cases in the Eighth Circuit have also held that intent need not be disputed by the defendant in specific-intent-crime cases in order for other-crimes evidence to be admissible. See United States v. Engleman, 648 F.2d 473, 478 (8th Cir.1981); United States v. Adcock, 558 F.2d 397, 402 (8th Cir.), cert. denied, 434 U.S. 921, 98 S.Ct. 395, 54 L.Ed.2d 277 (1977).

. The Fifth Circuit has expressly rejected a distinction between specific-intent and general-intent crimes as "unhelpful in analyzing when such evidence properly bears on intent.” United States v. Adderly, 529 F.2d 1178, 1180 (5th Cir.1976).
Some courts have held that the defendant bears the burden of affirmatively removing the issue of intent from the case, generally by stipulation or concession. See, e.g., United States v. Manner, 887 F.2d 317, 322 & n. 2 (D.C.Cir.1989), cert. denied, 493 U.S. 1062, 110 S.Ct. 879, 107 L.Ed.2d 962 (1990); United States v. Russo, 717 F.2d 545, 552 (11th Cir.1983). In contrast to the approach of these cases, the specific-intent exception of this circuit automatically precludes defendants charged with specific-intent crimes from ever removing intent as an issue in the case, even by stipulation.