Court Opinion

ID: 9931310
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-02-08 19:01:50.636684+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:18:06.710100
License: Public Domain

USCA11 Case: 22-14153    Document: 52-1     Date Filed: 02/08/2024   Page: 1 of 8

                                                  [DO NOT PUBLISH]
                                   In the
                United States Court of Appeals
                        For the Eleventh Circuit

                          ____________________

                                No. 22-14153
                          Non-Argument Calendar
                          ____________________

       UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
                                                      Plaintiﬀ-Appellee,
       versus
       LONNIE DONTAE MITCHELL,

                                                  Defendant- Appellant.

                          ____________________

                 Appeal from the United States District Court
                     for the Middle District of Alabama
                  D.C. Docket No. 2:21-cr-00344-RAH-KFP-1
                          ____________________
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       2                      Opinion of the Court                22-14153

       Before JORDAN, LAGOA, and BRASHER, Circuit Judges.
       PER CURIAM:
              Lonnie Dontae Mitchell appeals his convictions for sex traf-
       ficking of a minor, sex trafficking by force, fraud, or coercion, and
       interstate travel for purposes of prostitution under 18 U.S.C. §§
       1591 and 2422. He argues the district court erred by excluding evi-
       dence of the victims’ prior acts of prostitution under Federal Rule
       of Evidence 412 and by admitting bad act evidence against him in
       violation of Federal Rule of Evidence 404(b). We disagree. For the
       reasons explained below, we affirm Mitchell’s conviction and sen-
       tence.
                                      I.

              Lonnie Mitchell ran a sex trafficking scheme where he re-
       cruited women to perform commercial sex acts and turn over their
       proceeds to him. In addition to extorting and physically abusing the
       women, Mitchell used his status as a drug dealer to recruit women
       and provided drugs to the women so that they would develop a
       drug addiction. Mitchell would then withhold drugs from the
       women until they performed commercial sex acts.
              The district court granted the government’s motion to pre-
       clude Mitchell from introducing evidence of the victims’ prior sex-
       ual behavior and predisposition under Federal Rule of Evidence
       412. It reasoned that there was little probative value in admitting
       any evidence of the victims’ prior sex acts. The district court
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       22-14153               Opinion of the Court                          3

       permitted wide-ranging cross-examination regarding the victims’
       dealings with Mitchell, including the means he used to cause them
       to engage in commercial sex.
              The district court also denied Mitchell’s request under Rule
       404(b) to prevent the government from referencing Mitchell’s
       other “bad acts,” including evidence of his drug-dealing activities
       as a means to control and coerce his victims. The district court rea-
       soned that the admission of this evidence was not used for propen-
       sity but was instead direct evidence that went to the elements of
       the crimes charged, i.e., that Mitchell used drugs to recruit victims
       and to force and coerce them to engage in commercial sex acts.
       The district court limited the United States’ frequency of the terms
       “drug dealer” and “drug distributor” to refer to Mitchell.
              Mitchell timely appealed these two rulings after a jury con-
       victed him on all counts and the district court sentenced him.
                                      II.

              We review the district court’s evidentiary rulings for an
       abuse of discretion. See United States v. Hernandez, 906 F.3d 1367,
       1369 (11th Cir. 2018). However, when a defendant alleges the ex-
       clusion of evidence violated his constitutional rights, we review the
       rulings de novo. See United States v. Sarras, 575 F.3d 1191, 1209 n.24
       (11th Cir. 2009).
                                      III.

             Mitchell first argues that the district court violated his rights
       under the Confrontation Clause by excluding evidence of his
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       4                       Opinion of the Court                  22-14153

       victims’ voluntary prostitution under Federal Rule of Evidence
       412. He argues this evidence was critical to his defense against the
       charges against him and thus his rights were violated when he
       could not present his full defense. He also argues that the govern-
       ment opened the door for him to question the victims regarding
       their prior commercial sex acts on three different occasions.
              Rule 412 prohibits the use of a victim’s sexual conduct “to
       prove that a victim engaged in other sexual behavior” or “to prove
       a victim’s sexual predisposition.” Fed. R. Evid. 412(a). However,
       Rule 412 provides an exception in criminal cases for “evidence
       whose exclusion would violate the defendant’s constitutional
       rights.” Id. at 412(b)(1)(C).
               “[T]he Sixth Amendment guarantees only an opportunity for
       effective cross-examination, not cross-examination that is effective
       in whatever way, and to whatever extent, the defense might wish.”
       United States v. Beale, 921 F.3d 1412, 1424 (11th Cir. 1991) (citation
       omitted). Thus, we have recognized that “a defendant’s right to
       present a complete defense is not absolute, and is subject to reason-
       able restrictions.” United States v. Mitrovic, 890 F.3d 1217, 1221 (11th
       Cir. 2018) (citing United States v. Scheffer, 523 U.S. 303, 308 (1998)).
       Indeed, “state and federal rulemakers have broad latitude under the
       Constitution to establish rules excluding evidence from criminal
       trials. Such rules do not abridge an accused’s right to present a de-
       fense so long as they are not arbitrary or disproportionate to the
       purposes they are designed to serve.” Id. (citation omitted). In these
       circumstances, a defendant’s Confrontation Clause rights are
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       22-14153                Opinion of the Court                           5

       violated when the district court prohibits questioning that would
       give a reasonable jury “a significantly different impression of the
       witness’ credibility . . . .” United States v. Garcia, 13 F.3d 1464, 1469
       (11th Cir. 1994).
               We have rejected similar Confrontation Clause challenges
       in an unpublished opinion, and many of our sister circuits have
       held that a defendant’s Confrontation Clause rights are not violated
       when a district court prohibits evidence of a victim’s sexual history.
       See United States v. Williams, 564 F. App’x 568, 575–77 (11th Cir.
       2014); United States v. Carson, 870 F.3d 584, 593–94 (7th Cir. 2017);
       United States v. Lockhart, 844 F.3d 501, 510 (5th Cir. 2016); United
       States v. Gemma, 818 F.3d 23, 34 (1st Cir. 2016); United States v. Mack,
       808 F.3d 1074, 1084 (6th Cir. 2015); United States v. Rivera, 799 F.3d
       180, 185–86 (2d Cir. 2015); United States v. Roy, 781 F.3d 416, 420
       (8th Cir. 2015). Those decisions recognize that whether a victim
       previously engaged in commercial sex acts is irrelevant to establish
       that the defendant forced or coerced the victims into engaging in
       commercial sex acts under the charged circumstances. They reason
       that voluntary prostitution is a separate act from commercial sex
       transactions that occur as the result of force or coercion. See Carson,
       870 F.3d at 595. Thus, because testimony about a trafficking vic-
       tim’s prior sex acts has little to no probative value, those decisions
       hold that a district court does not violate a defendant’s rights under
       the Confrontation Clause by precluding this kind of evidence.
             In the light of this authority, the district court did not err by
       prohibiting Mitchell from introducing evidence of the victims’
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       6                      Opinion of the Court                  22-14153

       other sexual behavior under Rule 412. Mitchell did not establish
       how the introduction of that evidence was relevant; instead, he ap-
       pears to have sought to use it only as propensity evidence to sug-
       gest that, because the women had engaged in prostitution before,
       he likely did not force or coerce them into engaging in commercial
       sex acts. Apart from this restriction under Rule 412, Mitchell was
       permitted wide ranging cross-examination as to the victims’ deal-
       ings with him.
                Even if the court did err in prohibiting evidence of the vic-
       tims’ other sexual acts, any such error was harmless. See United
       States v. Jones, 601 F.3d 1247, 1264 (11th Cir. 2010). Mitchell did not
       establish that this testimony would have any serious effect on the
       jury in light of the evidence against him. The government pre-
       sented evidence that Mitchell physically assaulted the women,
       threatened them, blackmailed them, and used their drug addictions
       against them to force them to engage in commercial sex. No evi-
       dence of the women’s prior sexual acts would give a reasonable
       jury “a significantly different impression” of the women’s credibil-
       ity regarding the force and coercion Mitchell used to cause them to
       engage in commercial sex acts. Garcia, 13 F.3d at 1469. “In light of
       all the evidence available to the jury, we can say with fair assurance
       . . . that the judgment was not substantially swayed by” the district
       court’s exclusion of the victims’ prior prostitution “and therefore
       substantial rights were not affected.” Jones, 601 F.3d at 1264
       (cleaned up).
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       22-14153               Opinion of the Court                         7

                We also agree with the government that it did not open the
       door for Mitchell to question the victims about their prior commer-
       cial sex acts. The government asked the women questions about
       the sex acts the women engaged in during their relationship with
       Mitchell, not the victims’ entire sexual history. And Mitchell was
       properly permitted to cross-examine the victims regarding their re-
       lationship with him and sex acts they committed during that rela-
       tionship. For these reasons, the district court did not violate Mitch-
       ell’s rights under the Confrontation Clause when it prohibited the
       introduction of evidence of the victims’ prior sexual acts under
       Rule 412.
              Mitchell next argues that the district court abused its discre-
       tion when it allowed the government to introduce “bad act” evi-
       dence regarding his drug dealing activities. Indeed, one way the
       government sought to prove that Michell caused the victims to en-
       gage in sex trafficking was that he used his position as a drug dealer
       and access to drugs to recruit the women, increase and maintain
       their addictions, and use those addictions to force them to engage
       in commercial sex acts. Mitchell says the admission of that evidence
       violated Rule 404(b), which prohibits the admission of extrinsic ev-
       idence of a defendant’s wrongful acts to prove his character and
       that he acted in accordance with that character. Fed. R. Evid.
       404(b)(1).
               However, Rule 404(b) deals only with the admissibility of
       extrinsic evidence and does not cover intrinsic evidence. United
       States v. Edouard, 485 F.3d 1324, 1344 (11th Cir. 2007). Evidence of
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       8                      Opinion of the Court                  22-14153

       criminal activity is intrinsic when it is “(1) an uncharged offense
       which arose out of the same transaction or series of transactions as
       the charged offense, (2) necessary to complete the story of the
       crime, or (3) inextricably intertwined with the evidence regarding
       the charged offense.” Id. Evidence is “inextricably intertwined”
       when “it forms an integral and natural part of the witness’s ac-
       counts of the circumstances surrounding the offenses for which the
       defendant was indicted.” Id. (citations omitted).
               The district court did not err in admitting evidence of Mitch-
       ell’s drug dealing activity because that activity was “inextricably in-
       tertwined” with the offenses he was charged with and was thus in-
       trinsic evidence not subject to Rule 404(b). The evidence Mitchell
       challenges established that he used his status as a drug dealer and
       access to drugs to recruit women with drug addictions, increase
       their addictions, then used those addictions to force them to en-
       gage in commercial sex acts. He similarly introduced women to
       drugs until they became addicted then used their addictions against
       them to force them to engage in commercial sex acts. Thus, the
       evidence of Mitchell’s drug dealing activities was key to the wit-
       ness’s accounts of the commercial sex acts Mitchell caused them to
       engage in through force and coercion. Because this evidence was
       intrinsic and not subject to rule 404(b)’s prohibition, the district
       court did not abuse its discretion in admitting the evidence.
                                      IV.

            For the reasons stated above, the district court is
       AFFIRMED.