Court Opinion

ID: 9836753
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-02 03:14:58.123222+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:45:18.768223
License: Public Domain

EVERETT, Senior Judge
(concurring):
After appellant had been tested on April 29, 1996 — and because of the results of that test, she was further tested on May 21, 1996. In view of the nanogram levels of the respective tests, an expert testified that they did not reflect a single use of drugs — unless the person tested was a chronic user.
Thus, a basis might have existed for charging appellant with two separate instances of drug use. The Government did not choose to do this. Perhaps this decision was made because an issue might exist as to admissibility of the results of the second test — which, unlike the first test, was not part of an “inspection” but instead was command-ordered. I have some question as to whether the Fourth Amendment would bar receipt in evidence of the results of a test ordered by a commander under those circumstances. However, I defer readily to what seems to have been the military judge’s position that those results were admissible only if the door were opened by the defense.
If the Fourth Amendment otherwise would have barred receipt of the results in evidence, I doubt that the exception provided in Mil.R.Evid. 311(b)(1) would change the outcome. My reading of the record suggests that the evidence here was not “used to impeach by contradiction the in-court testimony of the accused.” Although I recognize that the loophole first created by Walder v. United States, 347 U.S. 62, 74 S.Ct. 354, 98 L.Ed. 503 (1954), has been expanded by later cases such as United States v. Havens, 446 *472U.S. 620, 100 S.Ct. 1912, 64 L.Ed.2d 559 (1980),* the testimony given by appellant still did not go far enough to eliminate any Fourth Amendment bar to admitting evidence of the results of the second test.
Even if the Fourth Amendment would not exclude evidence of the second drug test, its receipt at trial was barred by Mil.R.Evid. 404(b) and 403. As Judge Gierke makes clear, that test — even if it were deemed to establish that appellant had committed a second offense — is admissible under 404(b) only “for other purposes” than to prove bad character. Moreover, the “danger of unfair prejudice, confusion of the issues, or misleading the members” is very great in relation to the “probative value” of the evidence about the results of the second drug test.
Therefore, I concur with Judge Gierke.

 Cf. United States v. Trimper, 28 MJ 460 (CMA), cert. denied, 493 U.S. 965, 110 S.Ct. 409, 107 L.Ed.2d 374 (1989); see also James v. Illinois, 493 U.S. 307, 110 S.Ct. 648, 107 L.Ed.2d 676 (1990).