Court Opinion

ID: 9497162
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 16:44:56.748659+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:58:02.325388
License: Public Domain

RENDELL, Circuit Judge,
Concurring.
I agree with the view that plain error occurred here by virtue of the admission of evidence that villainized Moore based on prior bad conduct that was totally unrelated to the offenses charged. I write to decry situations in which the deficient performances of both the prosecutor and defense counsel lead to a predicament like the one faced by the trial judge here, namely, when such evidence is improperly presented by the prosecution, and when defense counsel improperly fails to object. While I agree that the trial judge should have taken action here based on the exceptionally egregious nature of the violations of Rule 404(b), nonetheless, in typical cases trial judges instinctively, and usually quite properly, let the adversary process unfold. It is understandable that judges are inclined to leave evidentiary issues to the attorneys to challenge or not, as they see fit, because ours is essentially an adversary system, and judicial interference can have tactical implications.
The instant situation, however, differs in degree from a normal case. The sheer heft of the truly damaging and irrelevant conduct, catalogued in the majority opin*266ion, quite probably diverted the jury’s attention from the relevant issues of proof. There was not just ,one error; there were strings of testimony focused on inadmissible and irrelevant prior acts. And this testimony was not overshadowed by overwhelming other evidence of Moore’s guilt; in fact, the other substantive evidence related to the crimes that were relevant at trial was , relatively thin, consisting primarily of Belinda’s testimony and the identification of a red gas can. Accordingly, the trial judge’s failure to act amounts to plain error in large measure due to the predominance of the problematic evidence that was presented to the jury.
While a trial judge should not let this happen, it is far easier for us to say so from our vantage point, with the twenty-twenty hindsight that we enjoy on appeal, than it is for the judge to determine mid-trial at what point enough is enough. It would be a far better thing for counsel — • prosecution and defense alike — not to put judges into this predicament in the first instance, by adhering and policing adherence to the Rules of Evidence. Here, counsel utterly and inexplicably failed to do so.